Post by sara on Jan 6, 2006 4:12:18 GMT -5
Brothers, we know that the whites are like a great cloud that rises in the
east, and will cover the whole country. Brothers you see that the sweat runs
from my face, for I am troubled.
....Wicasta Duzahan (Swift Man)
The white settlers came in and showered down their houses all over our country.
We did not really know whether this country any longer belonged to us or
not....This is what we are waiting to know, whether our Father means to take
our land for nothing, or whether he means to pay us the money he promised us in
the treaties. He said, "You have no game here, our people are hemming you in;
you can have no schools nor farming while you live scattered. You owe debts,
you need annuities; will you go, my Red Children, if we give you so much?" We
thought that was very kind, and we said yes. Now what have we? We have neither
our lands, where our fathers' bones are bleaching, nor have we anything. What
shall we do?
....Taoyateduta (Little Crow)
There is one thing more which our Great Father can do. He can gather us all
together on the prairie and surround us with soldiers and shoot us down.
....Chief Wabasha
Take the money back! If you don't give us the money, I will be glad, for we
will have our land back. The snow is on the ground, and we have waited a long
time for our money. We are poor and have nothing to eat; you have plenty. Your
fires are warm, your teepees keep out the cold. We have sold our hunting
grounds and the graves of our fathers. We have no place to bury our dead, and
yet you will not pay us our money for our lands.
....Mazasha (Red Iron)
You promised us that we should have this same land forever; and yet, you now
want to take half of it away.... It appears you are getting papers all around
me, so that after a while, we will have nothing left. I am going to see that
paper which you have the agent, and if I find anything good in it, I will come
and see you again; and when I do, you will hear me talk like a man, and not
like a child.
....Taoyateduta (Little Crow)
The whites were always trying to make the Indians give up their life and live
like white men....If the Indians had tried to make the whites live like them,
the whites would have resisted, and it was the same way with many Dakota.
....Wambdi Tanka (Big Eagle)
After a while two traders called the Indians to a council. Good Star Woman's
father did not go and when the men came back he said, "What did they want to
tell you?" They replied, "The trader said he wanted everybody who owed him
anything to sign a paper and then he would collect the money from the
Government. He didn't show us any papers, he just wanted us to sign. He said
the Government would allow each Indian twenty dollars a year, and what he owed
the trader would be taken out of that. Then we won't have to go hunting any
more."
....Wicankpi Waste Win (Good Star Woman)
We have waited a long time. The money is ours, but we cannot get it. We have no
food, but here are these stores, filled with food. We ask that you, the agent,
make some arrangement so we can get food from the stores, or else we may take
our own way to keep ourselves from starving. When men are hungry they help
themselves.
Taiyateduta is not a coward! And he is not a fool! Braves, you are like
children; you know not what you are doing. You are like dogs in the Hot Moon
when they run mad and snap at their own shadows. We are only little herds of
buffaloes left scattered; the great herds that once covered the prairies are no
more. See! The white men are like the locusts when they fly so thick that the
whole sky is a snowstorm. Count your fingers all day long and white men with
guns in their hands will come faster than you can count. Yes, they fight among
themselves, away off...but if you strike at them they will all turn on you and
devour you and your women and little children just as the locusts in their time
fall on the trees and devour all the leaves in one day. You are fools. You
cannot see the face of your chief; your eyes are full of smoke. You cannot hear
his voice; your ears are full of rearing waters. Braves, you are little
children - you are fools. You will die like the rabbits when the hungry
wolves hunt them in the Hard Moon. Taoyateduta is not a coward....He will die
with you.
....Taoyateduta (Little Crow)
I went to save the lives of two particular friends, if I could. I think others
went for the same reason, for nearly every Indian had a friend that he did not
want killed; of course he did not care about the others' friends.
....Wambdi Tanka (Big Eagle)
I am half white man and half Indian, but I never learned to speak English and I
was raised among the Indians as one of them. So when the outbreak came I went
with my people against the whites. I was nineteen years old and anxious to
distinguish myself in the war.
....George Quinn
We had an easy time of it. We could crawl through the grass and into the coulee
and get water when we wanted it, and after a few hours our women crossed the
river and came up near the bluff and cooked for us, and we could go back and
eat and then return to the fight.
....Wambdi Tanka (Big Eagle)
You have brought me into great danger without my knowing of it beforehand. By
killing the whites it is just as if you had waited for me in ambush and shot me
down. You lower Indians feel very bad because we have all got into trouble; but
I feel worse, because I know that neither I nor my people have killed any of
the whites, and yet we have to suffer for the guilty.
....Tatanka Najin (Standing Buffalo)
Wabasha, you have deceived me. You told me that if we followed the advice of
General Sibley, and gave ourselves up to the whites, all would be well - no
innocent man would be injured. And yet today I am set apart for execution and
must die in a few days. My wife is your daughter, my children are your
grandchildren. I leave them all in your care and under your protection. My wife
and children are dear to me. Let them not grieve for me. Let them remember that
the brave should be prepared to meet death; and I will do so as becomes a
Dakota. Your son-in-law,
....Hda-inyanka (Rattling Runner)
If I had known that I would be sent to the penitentiary I would not have
surrendered, but when I had been there three years, and they were about to turn
me out, I told them they might keep me another year if they wished, and I meant
what I said. I did not like the way I had been treated. I surrendered in good
faith, and if I had killed or wounded a man it had been in a fair open fight.
....Wambdi Tanka (Big Eagle)
What it was like at Crow Creek. The Indians were almost naked. They wound
burlap around their legs to keep warm. Many of the women had to wear burlap
gotten from soldiers, and no one had any sleeves on their garments.
....Wicankpi Waste Win (Good Star Woman)
I was to receive a great quantity of money every year; the money left the hands
of my great father, but in passing from hand to hand, each one taking his part,
nothing reached my hand more than a dollar. I was to receive a great quantity
of goods in blankets. My great father did send me all these, but on the road
each one took his morsel and I often got but a small piece of cotton. All this
made my heart sad.
....Tatanka Najin (Standing Buffalo)
I could not find my husband. When I saw him again, he told me he had escorted
two white women to a ravine and told them to follow it, traveling by night to
New Ulm. One of them offered him her wedding ring. He answered, "No, no! I
don't want your ring. Just look at my face and if anything happens, remember
it."
....Mahpiyatowin (Blue Sky Woman)
White folks do not eat animals that die themselves; but the animals that died
here were piled up and were fed out to us. They built a box and put the beef in
it and steamed it and made soup. They put salt and pepper in it, and that is
the reason these hills about here are filled with children's graves...it seemed
as though they wanted to kill us.
....Wasu Oicimaniya (Traveling Hail)
We were so crowded and confined that an epidemic broke out among us and
children were dying day and night, among them Two Stars' oldest child, a little
girl. The news then came of the hanging at Mankato. Amid all this sickness and
these great trials, it seemed doubtful at night whether a person would be alive
in the morning.
....Gabriel Renville
It seemed a long time after sunrise when four wagons with soldiers started out
from the camp. We learned afterwards they were going without orders to dig
potatoes. They came on over the prairie, right where part of our line was. They
came so close that our men had to rise up and fire. This brought on the fight.
....Wambdi Tanka (Big Eagle)
We thought the fort was the door to the valley as far as to St. Paul, and that
if we got through the door nothing could stop us this side of the Mississippi.
....Wambdi Tanka (Big Eagle)
The "farmers" were favored by the government in every way. They had houses
built for them, some of them even had brick houses, and they were not allowed
to suffer. The other Indians did not like this. They called them "cut-hairs",
because they had given up the Indian fashion of wearing the hair, and
"Dutchmen", because so many of the settlers were Germans.
....Wambdi Tanka (Big Eagle)
I made a speech in council and told the people that I thought it was proper
that they should obtain their whole annuities and refuse to pay the traders,
and that I did not want the half-breeds to be admitted to our councils; they
had always been the tools of the traders, and aided them to deceive the Indians.
....Chief Wabasha
Over the earth I come; Over the earth I come; A soldier I come; Over the earth,
I am a ghost.
....(Song)
east, and will cover the whole country. Brothers you see that the sweat runs
from my face, for I am troubled.
....Wicasta Duzahan (Swift Man)
The white settlers came in and showered down their houses all over our country.
We did not really know whether this country any longer belonged to us or
not....This is what we are waiting to know, whether our Father means to take
our land for nothing, or whether he means to pay us the money he promised us in
the treaties. He said, "You have no game here, our people are hemming you in;
you can have no schools nor farming while you live scattered. You owe debts,
you need annuities; will you go, my Red Children, if we give you so much?" We
thought that was very kind, and we said yes. Now what have we? We have neither
our lands, where our fathers' bones are bleaching, nor have we anything. What
shall we do?
....Taoyateduta (Little Crow)
There is one thing more which our Great Father can do. He can gather us all
together on the prairie and surround us with soldiers and shoot us down.
....Chief Wabasha
Take the money back! If you don't give us the money, I will be glad, for we
will have our land back. The snow is on the ground, and we have waited a long
time for our money. We are poor and have nothing to eat; you have plenty. Your
fires are warm, your teepees keep out the cold. We have sold our hunting
grounds and the graves of our fathers. We have no place to bury our dead, and
yet you will not pay us our money for our lands.
....Mazasha (Red Iron)
You promised us that we should have this same land forever; and yet, you now
want to take half of it away.... It appears you are getting papers all around
me, so that after a while, we will have nothing left. I am going to see that
paper which you have the agent, and if I find anything good in it, I will come
and see you again; and when I do, you will hear me talk like a man, and not
like a child.
....Taoyateduta (Little Crow)
The whites were always trying to make the Indians give up their life and live
like white men....If the Indians had tried to make the whites live like them,
the whites would have resisted, and it was the same way with many Dakota.
....Wambdi Tanka (Big Eagle)
After a while two traders called the Indians to a council. Good Star Woman's
father did not go and when the men came back he said, "What did they want to
tell you?" They replied, "The trader said he wanted everybody who owed him
anything to sign a paper and then he would collect the money from the
Government. He didn't show us any papers, he just wanted us to sign. He said
the Government would allow each Indian twenty dollars a year, and what he owed
the trader would be taken out of that. Then we won't have to go hunting any
more."
....Wicankpi Waste Win (Good Star Woman)
We have waited a long time. The money is ours, but we cannot get it. We have no
food, but here are these stores, filled with food. We ask that you, the agent,
make some arrangement so we can get food from the stores, or else we may take
our own way to keep ourselves from starving. When men are hungry they help
themselves.
Taiyateduta is not a coward! And he is not a fool! Braves, you are like
children; you know not what you are doing. You are like dogs in the Hot Moon
when they run mad and snap at their own shadows. We are only little herds of
buffaloes left scattered; the great herds that once covered the prairies are no
more. See! The white men are like the locusts when they fly so thick that the
whole sky is a snowstorm. Count your fingers all day long and white men with
guns in their hands will come faster than you can count. Yes, they fight among
themselves, away off...but if you strike at them they will all turn on you and
devour you and your women and little children just as the locusts in their time
fall on the trees and devour all the leaves in one day. You are fools. You
cannot see the face of your chief; your eyes are full of smoke. You cannot hear
his voice; your ears are full of rearing waters. Braves, you are little
children - you are fools. You will die like the rabbits when the hungry
wolves hunt them in the Hard Moon. Taoyateduta is not a coward....He will die
with you.
....Taoyateduta (Little Crow)
I went to save the lives of two particular friends, if I could. I think others
went for the same reason, for nearly every Indian had a friend that he did not
want killed; of course he did not care about the others' friends.
....Wambdi Tanka (Big Eagle)
I am half white man and half Indian, but I never learned to speak English and I
was raised among the Indians as one of them. So when the outbreak came I went
with my people against the whites. I was nineteen years old and anxious to
distinguish myself in the war.
....George Quinn
We had an easy time of it. We could crawl through the grass and into the coulee
and get water when we wanted it, and after a few hours our women crossed the
river and came up near the bluff and cooked for us, and we could go back and
eat and then return to the fight.
....Wambdi Tanka (Big Eagle)
You have brought me into great danger without my knowing of it beforehand. By
killing the whites it is just as if you had waited for me in ambush and shot me
down. You lower Indians feel very bad because we have all got into trouble; but
I feel worse, because I know that neither I nor my people have killed any of
the whites, and yet we have to suffer for the guilty.
....Tatanka Najin (Standing Buffalo)
Wabasha, you have deceived me. You told me that if we followed the advice of
General Sibley, and gave ourselves up to the whites, all would be well - no
innocent man would be injured. And yet today I am set apart for execution and
must die in a few days. My wife is your daughter, my children are your
grandchildren. I leave them all in your care and under your protection. My wife
and children are dear to me. Let them not grieve for me. Let them remember that
the brave should be prepared to meet death; and I will do so as becomes a
Dakota. Your son-in-law,
....Hda-inyanka (Rattling Runner)
If I had known that I would be sent to the penitentiary I would not have
surrendered, but when I had been there three years, and they were about to turn
me out, I told them they might keep me another year if they wished, and I meant
what I said. I did not like the way I had been treated. I surrendered in good
faith, and if I had killed or wounded a man it had been in a fair open fight.
....Wambdi Tanka (Big Eagle)
What it was like at Crow Creek. The Indians were almost naked. They wound
burlap around their legs to keep warm. Many of the women had to wear burlap
gotten from soldiers, and no one had any sleeves on their garments.
....Wicankpi Waste Win (Good Star Woman)
I was to receive a great quantity of money every year; the money left the hands
of my great father, but in passing from hand to hand, each one taking his part,
nothing reached my hand more than a dollar. I was to receive a great quantity
of goods in blankets. My great father did send me all these, but on the road
each one took his morsel and I often got but a small piece of cotton. All this
made my heart sad.
....Tatanka Najin (Standing Buffalo)
I could not find my husband. When I saw him again, he told me he had escorted
two white women to a ravine and told them to follow it, traveling by night to
New Ulm. One of them offered him her wedding ring. He answered, "No, no! I
don't want your ring. Just look at my face and if anything happens, remember
it."
....Mahpiyatowin (Blue Sky Woman)
White folks do not eat animals that die themselves; but the animals that died
here were piled up and were fed out to us. They built a box and put the beef in
it and steamed it and made soup. They put salt and pepper in it, and that is
the reason these hills about here are filled with children's graves...it seemed
as though they wanted to kill us.
....Wasu Oicimaniya (Traveling Hail)
We were so crowded and confined that an epidemic broke out among us and
children were dying day and night, among them Two Stars' oldest child, a little
girl. The news then came of the hanging at Mankato. Amid all this sickness and
these great trials, it seemed doubtful at night whether a person would be alive
in the morning.
....Gabriel Renville
It seemed a long time after sunrise when four wagons with soldiers started out
from the camp. We learned afterwards they were going without orders to dig
potatoes. They came on over the prairie, right where part of our line was. They
came so close that our men had to rise up and fire. This brought on the fight.
....Wambdi Tanka (Big Eagle)
We thought the fort was the door to the valley as far as to St. Paul, and that
if we got through the door nothing could stop us this side of the Mississippi.
....Wambdi Tanka (Big Eagle)
The "farmers" were favored by the government in every way. They had houses
built for them, some of them even had brick houses, and they were not allowed
to suffer. The other Indians did not like this. They called them "cut-hairs",
because they had given up the Indian fashion of wearing the hair, and
"Dutchmen", because so many of the settlers were Germans.
....Wambdi Tanka (Big Eagle)
I made a speech in council and told the people that I thought it was proper
that they should obtain their whole annuities and refuse to pay the traders,
and that I did not want the half-breeds to be admitted to our councils; they
had always been the tools of the traders, and aided them to deceive the Indians.
....Chief Wabasha
Over the earth I come; Over the earth I come; A soldier I come; Over the earth,
I am a ghost.
....(Song)