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) |