Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 December 1890 — MORE BRAINS THAN COURAGE. [ARTICLE]

MORE BRAINS THAN COURAGE.

Sitting Bull Was the Most Crafty Indian of Modern Times. Although not a great war chief as the Indians understand and apply the term, Sitting Bull was the most prominent and influential blanket Indian in America. His supremacy was due to his head, for he lacked—being possessed of brains—that insane courage that characterizes most of his people. Fully appreciating danger, although by no means the coward or “squaw-man” that the newspapers generally described him to be, he never unnecessarily exposed himself. He had much executive ability and could plan a campaign or execute a retreat with equal facility. He did his fighting much great Generals of later days have done, from a position in the rear. His commands were carried to the front by runners; that Is to say, when he had any orders to give. As a rule, after a battle had begun, the old chief interfered but little with advice or directions, trusting to his lieutenants to carry out the few instructions given in advance, or take tbe consequences. Sitting Bull inherited the chieftainship of a branch of the Sioux Nation from his

father. He was a miracle-worker or medicine man also, and by playing upon the credulity of the Sioux with his science, and being an adept in the crude political work of the red men, was twenty years ago the acknowledged power of the nation, although safth well-known Indians as Red Cloud and Crazy Horse, and such minor chiefs as Rain-tn-the-Face, Gall, and Broad Trail, were at times inclined to call the question of leadership into arbitration. Sitting Bull, however, was not to be brought into an argument, physical or otherwise, to maintain his right to a position which he could hold by aboriginal wire-pulling and chicane. To the day of his death he was the principal chief of all the Sioux and leader of <5,000 braves who were at ail times ready, at his command, to commit any crime, from murder up or down. As a medicine man he had the squaws of his tribe abjectly subservient, and through them was assisted tn maintaining control of the bucks. The first that was known of Sitting Bull among the whites was at the time of a terrible raid he led near Fort Buford, in 1866, when the commanding officer there shot his wife to prevent her falling into the hjinds of the Sioux, ’whose tortures would have been worse than death. From that time until 1875 he was known as a marauder, stealing horses and cattle, and very ingenious in eluding pursuit. In January, 1876, the Interior Department decided to turn Sitting Bui! and his men over to the War Department. His leadership was drawing the young men away from the agencies to the war-path. The following summer occurred the massacre of the Little Big Horn, where Custer, disobeying the orders of Gen. Terry, and failing to be re-enforced by Reno, fell with his 300 men. This battle was a victory for Crazy Horse, Gall, and Crow King, rather than Sitting Bull. They were the war-rio*-s; but the lightning that struck terror to Custer's horses and rendered slaughter possible was claimed by the crafty old chief as due to his medicine work.

Sitting Bull didn’t know where he was born, or when. He was, however, about 65 years old. Being a Teeton, he was probably born in Central or Southern Dakota. Four Bears, his uncle, says the place was near old Fort George, on Willow Creek, near the mouth of the Cheyenne. on the west side of the Missouri River. His father was a rich chief, Jumping Bull. At 10 years of age the Indian lad was famous as a hunter, his favorite game being buffalo calves. His father had hundreds of pretty white, gray! and roan ponies, and the boy never wanted for a horse. He killed more young buffaloes than any of his mates, and won popularity by laying his game at the lodges of poorer Indians who were unlucky in the chase. At 14 he killed an enemy; his name before had been Sacred (or wonderful) Standshot When he had killed this man and could boast a scalp, his name was changed to Sitting Bull, though why the o d man didn’t know. He had two wives, Was-Seen-by-the-Nation and The-One-That-Had-Four-Robes. His children were all bright, handsome boys and girls, nine in numbor—one, a young man, when about 18, was in a Catholic school near Chicago. Sitting Bull himself was not a Catholic, as reported. One little boy, 6 years old, bright as a dollar, was with him at Buford when he surrendered. At the formal pow-wow the chief put his heavy rifle in the little fellow’s hands and ordered him to give it to Major Brotherton, saying: “I surrender this rifle to you through my young son, whom I now desire to teach in this way that he has become a friend of the whites. I wish him to live as the whites do a*nd be taught in their schools. I wish to be remembered as the last man of my tribe who gave up nis rifle. This boy has now given it to you, and he wants to know how ho is going to make a living. ” Sitting Bull’s personal appearance is described by John Einerty, who paid the chief a visit at his camp on Mushroom Creek, Woody Mountains, Northwest Territory. The noted chief had taken a trip into the British possessions to remain until he could arrange, for amnesty for his connection with the uprising of which the Little Big Horn or Custer massacre was one of the sanguinary incidents. Mr. Finerty thus paints the portrait; “Soon afterward an Indian mounted on a cream-colored pony and holding in his hand an eagle’s wing which did duty as a fan, spurred in back of the chiefs and stared stolidly for a minute or two at me. His hair, parted in the ordinary Sioux fashion, was without a plume. His broad face, with a prominent hooked nose and wide jaws, was destitute of paint. His fierce, half-bloodshot eyes gleamed from under brows which displayed large perceptive organs, and as he sat there on his horse regardin'* me with a look which seemed blended curiosity and insolence, I did not need u be told that he was Sitting Bull. * * * After a little the noted savage dismounted and led his horse partly into the shade. I noticed he was an inch or two fiver the medium height, broadly built, rather bow-legged, and limped slightly, as though from an old wound. He sat upon the ground, and was soon engirdled by a crowd of young warriors with whom he was an especial favorite as representing the unquenchable hostility of the aboriginal savage to the hated palefaces. ” This hatred for the whites distinguished Sitting Bull above all other Sioux. When he was engaged in hostilities he was as ferocious and bloodthirsty as a beast of prey, and his atrocities, or those directed by him, have earned him death a thousand times. In peace he was a smooth liar, and, professing the utmost friendship, never failed to be insolent and insulting when the opportunity offered. He was a breeder of discontent, and his bucks, ever since the campaign which culminated in the Fort Buford surrender, have been invariably kept on the eve of making “war medicine.” The messiah craze was brought on by the Bull, who in the last few years thought that the agency system of the Government had a tendency to jmpair his influence with his men. He desired a sort of counter-irritant, and no one will dispute the fact that he succeeded in manufacturing it. He calculated that the Sioux, and possibly all the blanket, Indians of the West, would rally around his standard as the anointed of the messiah, for old Sitting Bull had dreams of conquest and was another Caesar in his ambition. Episcopal Bishop WhippLb, of Minnesota, and Bishop Vincent, of Ohio, will spend the remainder of the winter in Southern France. Joseph H. CnoATtffßobert G. Ingersoll, and Ben Butler are reported to make from $75,000 to $125,000 a year each from their law practice.