Dakota Diary - 8- More about Sitting Bull

“Please tell us about when your brought Sitting Bull back,” I asked Captain Marsh.

“Well that was two years ago, when being in the last stages of destitution, and without the slightest hope of relief or reinforcement, he came down from Canada to Fort Buford on July 19th, and gave himself up, together with 187 men, women and children, all that were left of the Sioux Nation. He and his followers were conveyed to Fort Yates on the Standing Rock Reservation and settle
them permanently there.

“In those days, I had a new boat, called the W J. Behan and we left Sioux City early in the spring and upon arriving at Fort Randall, took on board 171 Indians. Among them all, the ones who
naturally attracted the most notice were Sitting Bull himself and his family, the latter consisting of two wives and a number of children.

“Sitting Bull had been made the object to much attention during his winter’s sojourn at Ft. Randall. This had not tended to diminish his already abundant supply of self-esteem and during the northward voyage he gave himself the airs of royalty. The missionary priest in Canada had taught him to write his name and from soldiers at Fort Randall he had learned the value of money. As the Behan steamed up the river, the inhabitants of the country for miles around flocked to the landing places to catch a glimpse of the renowned medicine-man and hundreds of them were eager to secure his autograph. He was perfectly willing to write it any number of times, at the rate of one dollar per
signature, and, as nearly everyone was glad to get it for any price, he soon had more money than he knew what to do with. He wrote   “Seitting Bull” but the peculiar spelling only added to its value
as a curiosity.”

“Didn't the other Indians mind?” Cora Sue asked.

“Not really. When Cheyenne River Agency was reached a half-breed living there, by the name of Frank Chadron, presented me with a handsomely carved pipe stem. I showed it to Sitting Bull and he took a fancy to it. Through the interpreter on board, Charles Picotte, Sitting Bull told me that he wanted to buy the pipe stem. As it had been a gift I did not wish to part with it, but he was so persistent that at last I said jokingly that he could have it for $50. Sitting Bull indignantly grunted that $50 was too much money. But he was determined to have it, and in the end he got it.”

I am making it sound as if Captain Marsh spent the entire trip talking to us. But the days were blissfully slow - spent watching the world go by - stopping occasionally for passengers to get off or on - resting and absorbing the sun's rays. And we talked to other people too.

One afternoon I tried to get Captain Marsh to talk more about Sitting Bull. At first he seemed reluctant to talk, but then he began. “I know quite a bit about his history. Sitting Bull's father was a
mystic and warrior called Returns-Again. He was devoutly religious, and was thought of as a prophet, as well as a warrior.

“He got his new name, Sitting Bull, which had been his father's name, after his first coup. His father changed his name, so they wouldn't both be the same. During an 1856 battle with the Crows, Sitting Bull was shot in the left foot. Still in pain, he felled the Crow leader with a shot from his muzzle loader and limped up to his body and killed him with a knife. Sitting Bull had a limp, from this wound,
from then on.

“He combines native Indian cunning with the strategy and finesse needed to make a great general, and his ability as a leader is conceded alike by red and white man. A dangerous man at best, the wrongs his people have suffered rouse all his Indian cruelty, vindictiveness, hatred, and thirst for revenge.

“Before the battle your dad was killed in, Sitting Bull underwent a Sun Dance ceremony which entailed his arms each being sliced 50 times from wrist to shoulder. Blood dripped from both arms and he hung in the sun all day. During the second day he collapsed from blood loss, but
received a vision about his victory over the whites in a coming battle.

“Anyway, you know a lot about those Little Bighorn battles in 1876, so I won’t go into that now.”

“What happened next with the Indian fighting?”

“The campaign was pretty much over. In 77. Crazy Horse was arrested for leaving Fort Robinson's reservation. He left with his wife to join her family. Since Crazy Horse resisted arrest, he was killed. In May, Sitting Bull took 400 of his men and crossed the border into Canada after 2,000 of his warriors were forced to surrender to Colonel Nelson A. Miles and his men. Sitting Bull was in Canada for four years. Canada did not want the Sioux and asked the U.S. troops to force them back. Sitting Bull refused to be sent back.

“And I’ve already told you about what happened after that. There is a rumor that the buffalo are coming back and that he intends to organize a buffalo hunt to end them all. He is saying something about the buffalo are coming to surrender themselves to the great spirit in sympathy with the imprisonment of the Indians. It all sounds like a load of rubbish, but anyway, it makes me nervous.”

Not all of our time on the Far West (pictured above) is spent listening to stories. There are skylights over the main deck. The main cabin has loads of comfortable furniture. The dining cabin has tables along the windows on each side, and the waiters serve from the center of the boat. Everything
is polished to perfection. We sometimes sit and read in the Ladies’ Cabin, away from the bar area.

There is a stairway up to the cabin area, with a balcony at the head of the stairway. Outside the main cabin is a promenade deck. 

In the lower deck, our cabin is the best of the bunch. Our bed converts into a sitting arrangement for daytime. There is a little desk which I am making good use of.

Climbing up onto the forward end of the Far West, is the pilot house, where some of the conversations that I have described with Captain Marsh took place.

When we went through the middle of Dakota Territory, I asked Captain Marsh, “Are we near the Black Hills? Our Pa said he had made a claim there, but had no money to work it.”

“The Black Hills are west of here - about 100 miles or so. Do you know why they are called black?”

“I suppose they look black - they couldn’t really be black, could they?”

“The name 'Black Hills' is a translation of the Lakota Pahá Sápa. The hills were so-called because of their appearance from a distance, covered in trees makes them look black..

“Native Americans have inhabited the area since at least 7000 B.C. The Arikara arrived by 1500 A. D., followed by the Cheyenne, Crow, Kiowa and Pawnee. The Lakota arrived from Minnesota in the eighteenth century and drove out the other tribes, claiming the land for themselves.”

“And are they high hills? Most of this land is so flat.”

“They are considered a sort of geological misfit - an extension of the Rocky Mountains that somehow went wrong. Harney Peak, the highest point in the Black Hills, reaches about 7250 feet above sea level.”

“And is the gold found there worth a lot of money? Do you think our Pa's claim could be valuable to us?”

“You’d have to be able to find evidence of it. That was a long time ago. But yes, I read that the gold mines there are worth about 4 million dollars every year. And the silver mines are almost as valuable.”

“And the Indians had to give that land away?”

“They had it taken from them. But they have never given away or sold their land. Sitting Bull refuses to, and nobody can force him.”

Our journey from Omaha went like this: Decatur, Dakota City, South Sioux City, Santee, Niobaru, Yankton, Springfield, Pickstown, Ocacoma, Chamberlain, Ft. Thompson, Lower Brule, Ft. Pierre, Pierre, Mobridge, and now we have nearly come to the area where Sitting Bull and his Indians live, Ft. Yates. I wonder if we will see him at all.

When we got to Ft. Yates, we were allowed to walk around for a bit. I had a quick conversation with Sister Matilda who said she is a teacher at St. Bernard's School. She pointed out to us where Sitting Bull's camp was. I don't know why I expected him to be living in a conventional house. But to see the camp south of the Standing Rock Indian agency with 25 or so tepees camped above the river bottom, with drying or tanning racks outside, made the whole thing so much more real to me.

“I was surprised that they are still living in tepees. Will they move inside in the winter?” I asked Captain Marsh.

“The Lakota and Hunkpapa are nomadic and live in tepees year round.”

Then after that, we have only Carson City left and then our next stop will be Bismarck.

Another conversation we had a bit later with the Captain I'm not sure I should write about because he told us not to tell anybody. He had had quite a few whiskeys that night, and I daresay he probably regretted that he had told us, if in fact he remembered at all.

He said, “There is a heap of gold buried back where your daddy died, and one day I am going to go back and get it.”

“Where did it come from?” Cora Sue asked.

“Well, that is a long story. I encountered three men just before we found out all about the massacre. They shouted to me from the riverbank. They were Gil Longworth, a wagon driver from Bozeman, and Tom Dickson and Mark Jergens, his guards. They were carrying a shipment of gold nuggets from Bozeman to Bismarck. Longworth was worried that he would be attacked by the Sioux and would never deliver the gold shipment, so he begged me to take it on board the Far West, so I agreed.

“After it was transferred to the ship, they headed back to Bozeman on land, a route they considered safer. But I had second thoughts about keeping the gold on board. As I watched the smoke from many Sioux campsites that night, I concluded that it would be safer to hide the gold ashore and return for it later. This was accomplished the same night.

“In the next few days, the wounded soldiers were brought to the steamer and I learned that those three men from Bozeman were killed by the Sioux. Dickson and Jergens died at Pryor's Creek; Longworth's body was found a few days later at a spot known as Clark's Fork. Apparently, he had escaped the Sioux but had been mortally wounded in the process. So now nobody knew about where that gold was but me. But there would have been no way I could have taken it back, with all those wounded soldiers on board, so it is still there.”

“Did you try to get it when you were around there later?” I asked.

“In 1879, I visited Bozeman to find the freight company that had hired Longworth. Unfortunately, the company had long since closed.”

The next morning Captain Marsh never referred to the story again, and that is why I think maybe he forgot that he told us.

Later, after we had tied up for the night, the Captain found us sitting out on the deck, trying to get cool. He said he would tell us a bit more about our friend William Cody - who in the days after the Little Big Horn, was a Scout for the army. He said, “Maybe you already know all there is to know about that man, but let me tell you my story anyway. I like to hear myself talk.”

“The Fifth Cavalry was instructed to cut off, if possible, eight hundred Cheyenne warriors on their way to join the Sioux, and Colonel Wesley Merritt, with five hundred men, hastened to War-Bonnet Creek, purposing to reach the trail before the Indians could do so.

“In the skirmish that ensued three Indians were killed. The rest started for the main band of warriors, who had halted to watch the fight, but they were so hotly pursued by the soldiers that they turned at a point half a mile distant from Colonel Merritt, and another skirmish took place.

“Here something a little out of the usual occurred - a challenge to a duel. A warrior, whose decorations and war-bonnet proclaimed him a chief, rode out in front of his men, and called out
in his own tongue, which Will could understand:“'I know you, Pa-has-ka! Come and fight me, if you want to fight!'

“Bill rode forward fifty yards, and the warrior advanced a like distance. The two rifles spoke, and the Indian's horse fell; but at the same moment Bill's horse stumbled into a gopher-hole and threw its rider. Both duelists were instantly on their feet, confronting each other across a space of not more than twenty paces. They fired again simultaneously, and though Bill was unhurt, the Indian fell dead. Bill learned that the name of the chief he had killed that morning was Yellow Hand. He was the son of Cut Nose, a leading spirit among the Cheyenne’s. This old chieftain offered Bill four mules if he would return the war-bonnet and accouterments worn by the young warrior and captured in the fight,
but he did not grant the request, much as he pitied Cut Nose in his grief.”

“Now I understand that scene we saw in the Wild West show. He was telling us this same story,” said Cora Sue.

“You know, probably, that poor Bill has lost two of his children. His son died, and he sort of adopted Johnny, who works with him in the show. Then just recently, he was again bereaved by the death of his little daughter, Orra. But last summer they had another daughter, who was christened Irma.”

But now our voyage was over. The Far West came into Bismarck, and we tied up at a large warehouse - which Captain Marsh told us was only built this year by the Northern Pacific
Railway Company to store goods in transshipment between steamboats and freight trains.