CHARLES BENT.
Almost immediately after the ratification of the purchase of
New Mexico by the United States under the stipulations of the
"Guadalupe-Hidalgo Treaty," the Utes, one of the most powerful tribes
of mountain Indians, inaugurated a bloody and relentless war against
the civilized inhabitants of the Territory. It was accompanied by
all the horrible atrocities which mark the tactics of savage hatred
toward the white race. It continued for several years with more
or less severity; its record a chapter of history whose pages are
deluged with blood, until finally the Indians were subdued by the
power of the military.
Along the line of the Santa Fe Trail, they were frequently in
conjunction with the Apaches, and their depredations and atrocities
were very numerous; they attacked fearlessly freight caravans,
private expeditions, and overland stage-coaches, robbing and murdering
indiscriminately.
In January, 1847, the mail and passenger stage left Independence,
Missouri, for Santa Fe on one of its regular trips across the plains.
It had its full complement of passengers, among whom were a Mr. White
and family, consisting of his wife, one child, and a coloured nurse.
Day after day the lumbering Concord coach rolled on, with nothing to
disturb the monotony of the vast prairies, until it had left them
far behind and crossed the Range into New Mexico. Just about dawn,
as the unsuspecting travellers were entering the "canyon of the
Canadian,"[30] and probably waking up from their long night's sleep,
a band of Indians, with blood-curdling yells and their terrific
war-whoop, rode down upon them.
In that lonely and rock-sheltered gorge a party of the hostile savages,
led by "White Wolf," a chief of the Apaches, had been awaiting the
arrival of the coach from the East; the very hour it was due was
well known to them, and they had secreted themselves there the
night before so as to be on hand should it reach their chosen ambush
a little before the schedule time.
Out dashed the savages, gorgeous in their feathered war-bonnets,
but looking like fiends with their paint-bedaubed faces. Stopping the
frightened mules, they pulled open the doors of the coach and,
mercilessly dragging its helpless and surprised inmates to the ground,
immediately began their butchery. They scalped and mutilated the
dead bodies of their victims in their usual sickening manner, not a
single individual escaping, apparently, to tell of their fiendish acts.
If the Indians had been possessed of sufficient cunning to cover up
the tracks of their horrible atrocities, as probably white robbers
would have done, by dragging the coach from the road and destroying it
by fire or other means, the story of the murders committed in the
deep canyon might never have been known; but they left the tell-tale
remains of the dismantled vehicle just where they had attacked it,
and the naked corpses of its passengers where they had been ruthlessly
killed.
At the next stage station the employees were anxiously waiting for
the arrival of the coach, and wondering what could have caused
the delay; for it was due there at noon on the day of the massacre.
Hour after hour passed, and at last they began to suspect that
something serious had occurred; they sat up all through the night
listening for the familiar rumbling of wheels, but still no stage.
At daylight next morning, determined to wait no longer, as they felt
satisfied that something out of the usual course had happened,
a party hurriedly mounted their horses and rode down the broad trail
leading to the canyon.
Upon entering its gloomy mouth after a quick lope of an hour,
they discovered the ghastly remains of twelve mutilated bodies.
These were gathered up and buried in one grave, on the top of the
bluff overlooking the narrow gorge.
They could not be sure of the number of passengers the coach had
brought until the arrival of the next, as it would have a list of
those carried by its predecessor; but it would not be due for
several days. They naturally supposed, however, that the twelve dead
lying on the ground were its full complement.
Not waiting for the arrival of the next stage, they despatched a
messenger to the last station east that the one whose occupants
had been murdered had passed, and there learned the exact number
of passengers it had contained. Now they knew that Mrs. White,
her child, and the coloured nurse had been carried off into a
captivity worse than death; for no remains of a woman were found
with the others lying in the canyon.
The terrible news of the massacre was conveyed to Taos, where were
stationed several companies of the Second United States Dragoons,
commanded by Major William Greer; but as the weather had grown
intensely cold and stormy since the date of the massacre, it took
nearly a fortnight for the terrible story to reach there. The Major
acted promptly when appealed to to go after and punish the savages
concerned in the outrage, but several days more were lost in getting
an expedition ready for the field. It was still stormy while the
command was preparing for its work; but at last, one bright morning,
in a piercing cold wind, five troops of the dragoons, commanded by
Major Greer in person, left their comfortable quarters to attempt
the rescue of Mrs. White, her child, and nurse.
Kit Carson, "Uncle Dick" Wooten, Joaquin Leroux, and Tom Tobin were
the principal scouts and guides accompanying the expedition, having
volunteered their services to Major Greer, which he had gladly accepted.
The massacre having occurred three weeks before the command had
arrived at the canyon of the Canadian, and snow having fallen almost
continuously ever since, the ground was deeply covered, making it
almost impossible to find the trail of the savages leading out of
the gorge. No one knew where they had established their winter camp
--probably hundreds of miles distant on some tributary of the Canadian
far to the south.
Carson, Wooton, and Leroux, after scanning the ground carefully at
every point, though the snow was ten inches deep, in a way of which
only men versed in savage lore are capable, were rewarded by
discovering certain signs, unintelligible to the ordinary individual[31]
--that the murderers had gone south out of the canyon immediately
after completing their bloody work, and that their camp was somewhere
on the river, but how far off none could tell.
The command followed up the trail discovered by the scouts for nearly
four hundred miles. Early one morning when that distance had been
rounded, and just as the men were about to break camp preparatory
to the day's march, Carson went out on a little reconnoissance on his
own account, as he had noticed a flock of ravens hovering in the air
when he first got out of his blankets at dawn, which was sufficient
indication to him that an Indian camp was located somewhere in the
vicinity; for that ominous bird is always to be found in the region
where the savages take up an abode, feeding upon the carcasses of
the many varieties of game killed for food. He had not proceeded
more than half a mile from the camp when he discovered two Indians
slowly riding over a low "divide," driving a herd of ponies before
them. The famous scout was then certain their village could not
be very far away. The savages did not observe him, as he took good
care they should not; so he returned quickly to where Major Greer
was standing by his camp-fire and reported the presence of a village
very close at hand.
The Major having sent for Tom Tobin and Uncle Dick Wooton, requested
them to go and find the exact location of the savages. These scouts
came back in less than half an hour, and reported a large number
of teepees in a thick grove of timber a mile away.
It was at once determined to surprise the savages in their winter
quarters by charging right among their lodges without allowing them
time to mount their ponies, as the gallant Custer rode, at the head
of his famous troopers of the Seventh Cavalry, into the camp of the
celebrated chief "Black Kettle" on the Washita, in the dawn of a
cold November morning twenty years afterward.
The command succeeded in getting within good charging distance of the
village without its occupants having any knowledge of its proximity;
but at this moment Major Greer was seized with an idea that he ought
to have a parley with the Indians before he commenced to fight them,
and for that purpose he ordered a halt, just as the soldiers were
eager for the sound of the "Charge!"
Never were a body of men more enraged. Carson gave vent to his wrath
in a series of elaborately carved English oaths, for which he was
noted when young; Leroux, whose naturally hot blood was roused,
swore at the Major in a curious mixture of bad French and worse
mountain dialect, and it appeared as if the battle would begin in the
ranks of the troops instead of those of the savages; for never was
a body of soldiers so disgusted at the act of any commanding officer.
This delay gave the Indians, who could be seen dodging about among
their lodges and preparing for a fight that was no longer a surprise,
time to hide their women and children, mount their ponies, and get
down into deep ravines, where the soldiers could not follow them.
While the Major was trying to convince his subordinates that his
course was the proper one, the Indians opened fire without any parley,
and it happened that at the first volley a bullet struck him in the
breast, but a suspender buckle deflected its course and he was not
seriously wounded.
The change in the countenance of their commanding officer caused by
the momentary pain was just the incentive the troopers wanted, and
without waiting for the sound of the trumpet, they spurred their
horses, dashed in, and charged the thunderstruck savages with the
shock of a tornado.
In two successful charges of the gallant and impatient troopers more
than a hundred of the Indians were killed and wounded, but the time
lost had permitted many to escape, and the pursuit of the stragglers
would have been unavailing under the circumstances; so the command
turned back and returned to Taos. In the village was found the body
of Mrs. White still warm, with three arrows in her breast. Had the
charge been made as originally expected by the troopers, her life
would have been saved. No trace of the child or of the coloured
nurse was ever discovered, and it is probable that they were both
killed while en route from the canyon to the village, as being
valueless to keep either as slaves or for other purposes.
The fate of the Apache chief, "White Wolf," who was the leader in
the outrages in the canyon of the Canadian, was fitting for his
devilish deeds. It was Lieutenant David Bell's fortune to avenge
the murder of Mrs. White and her family, and in an extraordinary
manner.[32] The action was really dramatic, or romantic; he was
on a scout with his company, which was stationed at Fort Union,
New Mexico, having about thirty men with him, and when near the canyon
of the Canadian they met about the same number of Indians. A parley
was in order at once, probably desired by the savages, who were
confronted with an equal number of troopers. Bell had assigned
the baggage-mules to the care of five or six of his command, and held
a mounted interview with the chief, who was no other than the infamous
White Wolf of the Jicarilla Apaches. As Bell approached, White Wolf
was standing in front of his Indians, who were on foot, all well armed
and in perfect line. Bell was in advance of his troopers, who were
about twenty paces from the Indians, exactly equal in number and
extent of line; both parties were prepared to use firearms.
The parley was almost tediously long and the impending duel was
arranged, White Wolf being very bold and defiant.
At last the leaders exchanged shots, the chief sinking on one knee
and aiming his gun, Bell throwing his body forward and making his
horse rear. Both lines, by command, fired, following the example
of their superiors, the troopers, however, spurring forward over
their enemies. The warriors, or nearly all of them, threw themselves
on the ground, and several vertical wounds were received by horse
and rider. The dragoons turned short about, and again charged through
and over their enemies, the fire being continuous. As they turned
for a third charge, the surviving Indians were seen escaping to a
deep ravine, which, although only one or two hundred paces off,
had not previously been noticed. A number of the savages thus
escaped, the troopers having to pull up at the brink, but sending
a volley after the descending fugitives.
In less than fifteen minutes twenty-one of the forty-six actors in
this strange combat were slain or disabled. Bell was not hit, but
four or five of his men were killed or wounded. He had shot
White Wolf several times, and so did others after him; but so
tenacious of life was the Apache that, to finish him, a trooper
got a great stone and mashed his head.
This was undoubtedly the greatest duel of modern times; certainly
nothing like it ever occurred on the Santa Fe Trail before or since.
The war chief of the Kiowa nation in the early '50's was Satank,
a most unmitigated villain; cruel and heartless as any savage that
ever robbed a stage-coach or wrenched off the hair of a helpless woman.
After serving a dozen or more years with a record for hellish
atrocities equalled by few of his compeers, he was deposed for alleged
cowardice, as his warriors claimed, under the following circumstances:--
The village of his tribe was established in the large bottoms,
eight miles from the Great Bend of the Arkansas, and about the same
distance from Fort Zarah.[33] All the bucks were absent on a hunting
expedition, excepting Satank and a few superannuated warriors.
The troops were out from Fort Larned on a grand scout after marauding
savages, when they suddenly came across the village and completely
took the Kiowas by surprise. Seeing the soldiers almost upon them,
Satank and other warriors jumped on their ponies and made good their
escape. Had they remained, all of them would have been killed or
at least captured; consequently Satank, thinking discretion better
than valour at that particular juncture, incontinently fled.
His warriors in council, however, did not agree with him; they thought
that it was his duty to have remained at the village in defence of
the women and children, as he had been urged to refrain from going on
the hunt for that very purpose.
Some time before Satank lost his office of chief, there was living
on Cow Creek, in a rude adobe building, a man who was ostensibly
an Indian trader, but whose traffic, in reality, consisted in selling
whiskey to the Indians, and consequently the United States troops
were always after him. He was obliged to cache his liquor in every
conceivable manner so that the soldiers should not discover it, and,
of course, he dreaded the incursions of the troops much more than
he did raids of the Indian marauders that were constantly on the Trail.
Satank and this illicit trader, whose name was Peacock, were great
chums. One day while they were indulging in a general good time
over sundry drinks of most villanous liquor, Satank said to Peacock:
"Peacock, I want you to write me a letter; a real nice one, that
I can show to the wagon-bosses on the Trail, and get all the 'chuck'
I want. Tell them I am Satank, the great chief of the Kiowas, and
for them to treat me the best they know how."
"All right, Satank," said Peacock; "I'll do so." Peacock then sat
down and wrote the following epistle:--
"The bearer of this is Satank. He is the biggest liar, beggar, and
thief on the plains. What he can't beg of you, he'll steal. Kick him
out of camp, for he is a lazy, good-for-nothing Indian."
Satank began at once to make use of the supposed precious document,
which he really believed would assure him the dignified treatment
and courtesy due to his exalted rank. He presented it to several
caravans during the ensuing week, and, of course, received a very
cool reception in every instance, or rather a very warm one.
One wagon-master, in fact, black-snaked him out of his camp.
After these repeated insults he sought another white friend, and
told of his grievances. "Look here," said Satank, "I asked Peacock
to write me a good letter, and he gave me this; but I don't
understand it! Every time I hand it to a wagon-boss, he gives me
the devil! Read it to me and tell me just what it does say."
His friend read it over, and then translated it literally to Satank.
The savage assumed a countenance of extreme disgust, and after musing
for a few moments, said: "Well, I understand it all now. All right!"
The next morning at daylight, Satank called for some of his braves
and with them rode out to Peacock's ranch. Arriving there, he called
out to Peacock, who had not yet risen: "Peacock, get up, the soldiers
are coming!" It was a warning which the illicit trader quickly
obeyed, and running out of the building with his field-glass in his
hand, he started for his lookout, but while he was ascending the
ladder with his back to Satank the latter shot him full of holes,
saying, as he did so: "There, Peacock, I guess you won't write any
more letters."
His warriors then entered the building and killed every man in it,
save one who had been gored by a buffalo bull the day before, and
who was lying in a room all by himself. He was saved by the fact
that the Indian has a holy dread of small-pox, and will never enter
an apartment where sick men lie, fearing they may have the awful
disease.
Satanta (White Bear) was the most efficient and dreaded chief of all
who have ever been at the head of the Kiowa nation. Ever restlessly
active in ordering or conducting merciless forays against an exposed
frontier, he was the very incarnation of deviltry in his determined
hatred of the whites, and his constant warfare against civilization.
He also possessed wonderful oratorical powers; he could hurl the most
violent invectives at those whom he argued with, or he could be
equally pathetic when necessary. He was justly called "The Orator of
the Plains," rivalling the historical renown of Tecumseh or Pontiac.
He was a short, bullet-headed Indian, full of courage and well versed
in strategy. Ordinarily, when on his visits to the various military
posts he wore a major-general's full uniform, a suit of that rank
having been given to him in the summer of 1866 by General Hancock.
He also owned an ambulance, a team of mules, and a set of harness,
the last stolen, maybe, from some caravan he had raided on the Trail.
In that ambulance, with a trained Indian driver, the wily chief
travelled, wrapped in a savage dignity that was truly laughable.
In his village, too, he assumed a great deal of style. He was very
courteous to his white guests, if at the time his tribe were at all
friendly with the government; nothing was too good for them.
He always laid down a carpet on the floor of his lodge in the post
of honour, on which they were to sit. He had large boards, twenty
inches wide and three feet long, ornamented with brass tacks driven
all around the edges, which he used for tables. He also had a
French horn, which he blew vigorously when meals were ready.
His friendship was only dissembling. During all the time that
General Sheridan was making his preparations for his intended winter
campaign against the allied plains tribes, Satanta made frequent
visits to the military posts, ostensibly to show the officers that
he was heartily for peace, but really to inform himself of what was
going on.
At that time I was stationed at Fort Harker, on the Smoky Hill.
One evening, General Sheridan, who was my guest, was sitting on the
verandah of my quarters, smoking and chatting with me and some other
officers who had come to pay him their respects, when one of my men
rode up and quietly informed me that Satanta had just driven his
ambulance into the fort, and was getting ready to camp near the mule
corral. On receiving this information, I turned to the general and
suggested the propriety of either killing or capturing the inveterate
demon. Personally I believed it would be right to get rid of such
a character, and I had men under my command who would have been
delighted to execute an order to that effect.
Sheridan smiled when I told him of Satanta's presence and the
excellent chance to get rid of him. But he said: "That would
never do; the sentimentalists in the Eastern States would raise
such a howl that the whole country would be horrified!"
Of course, in these "piping times of peace" the reader, in the quiet
of his own room, will think that my suggestion was brutal, and without
any palliation; my excuse, however, may be found in General
Washington's own motto: Exitus acta probat. If the suggestion had
been acted upon, many an innocent man and woman would have escaped
torture, and many a maiden a captivity worse than death.
As a specimen of Satanta's oratory, I offer the following, to show
the hypocrisy of the subtle old villain, and his power over the minds
of too sensitive auditors. Once Congress sent out to the central
plains a commission from Washington to inquire into the causes of
the continual warfare raging with the savages on the Kansas border;
to learn what the grievances of the Indians were; and to find some
remedy for the wholesale slaughter of men, women, and children along
the line of the Old Trail.
Satanta was sent for by the commission as the leading spirit of the
formidable Kiowa nation. When he entered the building at Fort Dodge
in which daily sessions were held, he was told by the president to
speak his mind without any reservation; to withhold nothing, but to
truthfully relate what his tribe had to complain of on the part of
the whites. The old rascal grew very pathetic as he warmed up to
his subject. He declared that he had no desire to kill the white
settlers or emigrants crossing the plains, but that those who came
and lived on the land of his tribe ruthlessly slaughtered the buffalo,
allowing their carcasses to rot on the prairie; killing them merely
for the amusement it afforded them, while the Indian only killed
when necessity demanded. He also stated that the white hunters
set out fires, destroying the grass, and causing the tribe's horses
to starve to death as well as the buffalo; that they cut down and
otherwise destroyed the timber on the margins of the streams, making
large fires of it, while the Indian was satisfied to cook his food
with a few dry and dead limbs. "Only the other day," said he,
"I picked up a little switch on the Trail, and it made my heart bleed
to think that so small a green branch, ruthlessly torn out of the
ground and thoughtlessly destroyed by some white man, would in time
have grown into a stately tree for the use and benefit of my children
and grandchildren."
After the pow-wow had ended, and Satanta had got a few drinks of
red liquor into him, his real, savage nature asserted itself, and
he said to the interpreter at the settler's store: "Now didn't I
give it to those white men who came from the Great Father? Didn't I
do it in fine style? Why, I drew tears from their eyes! The switch
I saw on the Trail made my heart glad instead of sad; for I new there
was a tenderfoot ahead of me, because an old plainsman or hunter
would never have carried anything but a good quirt or a pair of spurs.
So I said to my warriors, 'Come on, boys; we've got him!' and when
we came in sight, after we had followed him closely on the dead run,
he threw away his rifle and held tightly on to his hat for fear
he should lose it!"
Another time when Satanta had remained at Fort Dodge for a very long
period and had worn out his welcome, so that no one would give him
anything to drink, he went to the quarters of his old friend,
Bill Bennett, the overland stage agent, and begged him to give him
some liquor. Bill was mixing a bottle of medicine to drench a
sick mule. The moment he set the bottle down to do something else,
Satanta seized it off the ground and drank most of the liquid before
quitting. Of course, it made the old savage dreadfully sick as well
as angry. He then started for a certain officer's quarters and again
begged for something to cure him of the effects of the former dose;
the officer refused, but Satanta persisted in his importunities;
he would not leave without it. After a while, the officer went to
a closet and took a swallow of the most nauseating medicine, placing
the bottle back on its shelf. Satanta watched his chance, and,
as soon as the officer left the room, he snatched the bottle out of
the closet and drank its contents without stopping to breathe.
It was, of course, a worse dose than the horse-medicine. The next
day, very early in the morning, he assembled a number of his warriors,
crossed the Arkansas, and went south to his village. Before leaving,
however, he burnt all of the government contractor's hay on the bank
of the river opposite the post. He then continued on to Crooked Creek,
where he murdered three wood-choppers, all of which, he said afterward,
he did in revenge for the attempt to poison him at Fort Dodge.
At the Comanche agency, where several of the government agents were
assembled to have a talk with chiefs of the various plains tribes,
Satanta said in his address: "I would willingly take hold of that part
of the white man's road which is represented by the breech-loading
rifles; but I don't like the corn rations--they make my teeth hurt!"
Big Tree was another Kiowa chief. He was the ally and close friend
of Satanta, and one of the most daring and active of his warriors.
The sagacity and bravery of these two savages would have been a credit
to that of the most famous warriors of the old French and Indian Wars.
Both were at last taken, tried, and sent to the Texas penitentiary
for life. Satanta was eventually pardoned; but before he was made
aware of the efforts that were being taken for his release,
he attempted to escape, and, in jumping from a window, fell and broke
his neck. His pardon arrived the next morning. Big Tree, through
the work of the sentimentalists of Washington, was set free and sent
to the Kiowa Reservation--near Fort Sill in the Indian Territory.
The next most audacious and terrible scourge of the plains was
"Ta-ne-on-koe" (Kicking Bird). He was a great warrior of the Kiowas,
and was the chief actor in some of the bloodiest raids on the Kansas
frontier in the history of its troublous times.
One of his captures was that of a Miss Morgan and Mrs. White.
They were finally rescued from the savages by General Custer, under
the following circumstances: Custer, who was advancing with his
column of invincible cavalrymen--the famous Seventh United States--
in search of the two unfortunate women, had arrived near the head
waters of one of the tributaries of the Washita, and, with only
his guide and interpreter, was far in advance of the column, when,
on reaching the summit of an isolated bluff, they suddenly saw a
village of the Kiowas, which turned out to be that of Kicking Bird,
whose handsome lodge was easily distinguishable from the rest.
Without waiting for his command, the general and his guide rode
boldly to the lodge of the great chief, and both dismounted, holding
cocked revolvers in their hands; Custer presented his at Kicking
Bird's head. In the meantime, Custer's column of troopers, whom
the Kiowas had good reason to remember for their bravery in many
a hard-fought battle, came in full view of the astonished village.
This threw the startled savages into the utmost consternation, but
the warriors were held in check by signs from Kicking Bird. As the
cavalry drew nearer, General Custer demanded the immediate release
of the white women. Their presence in the village was at first
denied by the lying chief, and not until he had been led to the limb
of a huge cottonwood tree near the lodge, with a rope around his neck,
did he acknowledge that he held the women and consent to give them up.
This well-known warrior, with a foreknowledge not usually found in the
savage mind, seeing the beginning of the end of Indian sovereignty
on the plains, voluntarily came in and surrendered himself to the
authorities, and stayed on the reservation near Fort Sill.
In June, 1867, a year before the breaking out of the great Indian war
on the central plains, the whole tribe of Kiowas, led by him,
assembled at Fort Larned. He was the cynosure of all eyes, as he
was without question one of the noblest-looking savages ever seen
on the plains. On that occasion he wore the full uniform of a
major-general of the United States army. He was as correctly moulded
as a statue when on horseback, and when mounted on his magnificent
charger the morning he rode out with General Hancock to visit the
immense Indian camp a few miles above the fort on Pawnee Fork,
it would have been a difficult task to have determined which was
the finer-looking man.
After Kicking Bird had abandoned his wicked career, he was regarded
by every army officer with whom he had a personal acquaintance as
a remarkably good Indian; for he really made the most strenuous
efforts to initiate his tribe into the idea that it was best for it
to follow the white man's road. He argued with them that the time
was very near when there would no longer be any region where the
Indians could live as they had been doing, depending on the buffalo
and other game for the sustenance of their families; they must adapt
themselves to the methods of their conquerors.
In July, 1869, he became greatly offended with the government for
its enforced removal of his tribe from its natural and hereditary
hunting-grounds into the reservation allotted to it. At that time
many of his warriors, together with the Comanches, made a raid on
the defenceless settlements of the northern border of Texas, in which
the savages were disastrously defeated, losing a large number of
their most beloved warriors. On the return of the unsuccessful
expedition, a great council was held, consisting of all the chiefs
and head men of the two tribes which had suffered so terribly in
the awful fight, to consider the best means of avenging the loss
of so many braves and friends. Kicking Bird was summoned before
that council and condemned as a coward; they called him a squaw,
because he had refused to go with the warriors of the combined tribes
on the raid into Texas.
He told a friend of mine some time afterward that he had intended
never again to go against the whites; but the emergency of the case,
and his severe condemnation by the council, demanded that he should
do something to re-establish himself in the good graces of his tribe.
He then made one of the most destructive raids into Texas that ever
occurred in the history of its border warfare, which successfully
restored him to the respect of his warriors.
In that raid Kicking Bird carried off vast herds of horses and a
large number of scalps. Although his tribe fairly worshipped him,
he was not at all satisfied with himself. He could look into the
future as well as any one, and from that time on to his tragic death
he laboured most zealously and earnestly in connection with the
Indian agents to bring his people to live on the reservation which
the government had established for them in the Territory.
At the inauguration of the so-called "Quaker Policy" by President
Grant, that sect was largely intrusted with the management of Indian
affairs, particularly in the selection of agents for the various
tribes. A Mr. Tatham was appointed agent for the Kiowas in 1869.
He at once gained the confidence of Kicking Bird, who became very
valuable to him as an assistant in controlling the savages. It was
through that chief's influence that Thomas Batty, another Quaker,
was allowed to take up his residence with the tribe, the first white
man ever accorded that privilege. Batty was permitted to erect
three tents, which were staked together, converting them into an
ample schoolhouse. In that crude, temporary structure he taught
the Kiowa youth the rudiments of an education. This very successful
innovation shows how earnest the former dreaded savage was in his
efforts to promote the welfare of his people, by trying to induce
them to "take the white man's road."
Batty succeeded admirably for a year in his office of teacher,
the chief all the time nobly withstanding the taunts and jeers of
his warriors and their threats of taking his life, for daring to
allow a white man within the sacred precincts of their village--
a thing unparalleled in the annals of the tribe.
At last trouble came; the dissatisfied members of the tribe, the
ambitious and restless young men, eager for renown, made another
unsuccessful raid into Texas. The result was that they lost nearly
the whole of the band, among which was the favourite son of Lone Wolf,
a noted chief.[34] After the death of his son, he declared that he
must and would have the scalp of a white man in revenge for the
untimely taking off of the young warrior. Of course, the most
available white man at this juncture was Batty, the Quaker teacher,
and he was chosen by Lone Wolf as the victim of savage revenge.
Here the noble instincts of Kicking Bird developed themselves.
He very plainly told Lone Wolf, who was constantly threatening and
thirsting for blood, that he could not kill Batty until he first
killed him and all his band. But Lone Wolf had fully determined
to have the hair of the innocent Quaker; so Kicking Bird, to avert
any collision between the two bands of Indians, kidnapped Batty
and ran him off to the agency, arriving at Fort Sill about an hour
before Lone Wolf's band of avengers overtook them, and thus the
Quaker teacher was saved.
One day, long after these occurrences, a friend of mine was in the
sutler's store at Fort Sill. In there was a stranger talking to
Mr. Fox, the agent of the Indians. Soon Kicking Bird entered the
establishment, and the stranger asked Mr. Fox who that fine-looking
Indian was. He was told, and then he begged the agent to say to him
that he would like to have a talk with him; for he it was who led
that famous raid into Texas. "I never saw better generalship in the
field in all my experience. He had three horses killed under him.
I was the surgeon of the rangers and was, of course, in the fight."[35]
When Kicking Bird was told that the Texas doctor desired to talk with
him, he replied with great dignity that he did not want to revive
those troublous times. "Tell him, though," said Kicking Bird, "that
was my last raid against the whites; that I am a changed man."
The President of the United States sent for Kicking Bird to come to
Washington, and to bring with him such other influential Indians as
he thought might aid in inducing the Kiowas to cease their continual
raiding on the border of Texas.
In due time Kicking Bird left for the capital, taking with him
Lone Wolf, Big Bow, and Sun Boy of the Kiowas, together with several
of the head men of the Comanches. When the deputation of savages
arrived in Washington, it was received at the presidential mansion
by the chief magistrate himself. So much more attention was given
to Kicking Bird than to the others, that they became very jealous,
particularly when the President announced to them the appointment
of Kicking Bird as the head chief of the tribe.[36] But Lone Wolf
would never recognize his authority, constantly urging the young men
to raid the settlements. Lone Wolf was a genuine savage, without one
redeeming trait, and his hatred of the white race was unparalleled
in its intensity. He was never known to smile. No other Indian can
show such a record of horrible massacres as he is responsible for.
His orders were rigidly obeyed, for he brooked no disobedience on
the part of his warriors.
In the summer of 1876, a party of English gentlemen left Fort Harker
for a buffalo hunt. They soon exhausted all their rations and started
a four-mule team back to the post for more. Some of Lone Wolf's band
of cut-throats came across the unfortunate teamster, killed him,
and ran off the team. After the occurrence, Kicking Bird came into
the agency at Fort Sill and told Mr. Haworth, the agent, that he had
given his word to the Great Father at Washington he would do all he
could to bring in those Indians who had been raiding by order of
Lone Wolf, particularly the two who had killed the Englishmen's driver.
He succeeded in bringing in twelve Indians in all, among them the
murderers of the driver. They, with Lone Wolf and Satank, were sent
to the Dry Tortugas for life. The morning they started on their
journey Satank talked very feelingly to Kicking Bird, with tears in
his eyes. He said that they might look for his bones along the road,
for he would never go to Florida. The savages were loaded into
government wagons. Satank was inside of one with a soldier on each
side of him, their legs hanging outside. Somehow the crafty villain
managed to slip the handcuffs off his wrists, at the same instant
seizing the rifle of one of his guards, and then shoved the two men
out with his feet. He tried to work the lever of the rifle, but
could not move it, and one of the soldiers, coming around the wagon
to where he was still trying to get the gun so as he could use it,
shot him down, and then threw his body on the Trail. Thus Satank
made good his vow that he would never be taken to Florida. He met
his death only a mile from the post.
After the departure of the condemned savages, the feeling in the tribe
against Kicking Bird increased to an alarming extent. Several times
the most incensed warriors tried to kill him by shooting at him from
an ambush. After he became fully aware that his life was in danger,
he never left his lodge without his carbine. He was as brave as a
lion, fearing none of the members of Lone Wolf's band; but he often
said it was only a question of a short time when he would be gotten
rid of; he did not allow the matter, however, to worry him in the
least, saying that he was conscious he had done his duty by his tribe
and the Great Father.
In a bend of Cash Creek, about half a mile below the mill, about half
a dozen of the Kiowas had their lodges, that of their chief being
among them. At ten o'clock one Monday in June, 1876, Mr. Haworth,
the agent, came in haste to the shops, called the master mechanic,
Mr. Wykes, out, told him to jump into the carriage quickly; that
Kicking Bird was dead.
When they arrived at the home of the great chief, sure enough he was
dead, and some of the women were engaged in folding his body in robes.
Other squaws were cutting themselves in a terrible manner, as is their
custom when a relative dies, and were also breaking everything
breakable about the lodge. Kicking Bird had always been scrupulously
clean and neat in the care of his home; it was adorned with the most
beautifully dressed buffalo robes and the finest furs, while the floor
was covered with matting.
It seems that Kicking Bird, after visiting Mr. Wykes that morning,
went immediately to his lodge, and sat down to eat something, but
just as he had finished a cup of coffee, he fell over, dead. He had
in his service a Mexican woman, and she had been bribed to poison him.
An expensive coffin was made at the agency for his remains, fashioned
out of the finest black walnut to be found in the country where that
timber grows to such a luxuriant extent. It was eight feet long
and four feet deep, but even then it did not hold one-half of his
effects, which were, according to the savage custom, interred with
his body.
The cries and lamentations of the warriors and women of his band
were heartrending; such a manifestation of grief was never before
witnessed at the agency. A handsome fence was erected around his
grave, in the cemetery at Fort Sill, and the government ordered
a beautiful marble monument to be raised over it; but I do not know
whether it was ever done.
Kicking Bird was only forty years old at the time of his sudden
taking off, and was very wealthy for an Indian. He knew the uses
of money and was a careful saver of it. A great roll of greenbacks
was placed in his coffin, and that fact having leaked out, it was
rumoured that his grave was robbed; but the story may not have been
true.
One of the greatest terrors of the Old Santa Fe Trail was the
half-breed Indian desperado Charles Bent. His mother was a Cheyenne
squaw, and his father the famous trader, Colonel Bent. He was born
at the base of the Rocky Mountains, and at a very early age placed
in one of the best schools that St. Louis afforded. His venerable
sire, with only a limited education himself, was determined that
his boy should profit by the culture and refinement of civilization,
so he was not allowed to return to his mountain home at Bent's Fort,
and the savage conditions under which he was born, until he had
attained his majority. He then spoke no language but English.
His mother died while he was absent at school, and his father
continued to live at the old fort, where Charles, after he had
reached the age of twenty-one, joined him.
Some Washington sentimentalist, philosophizing on the Indian character,
his knowledge being based on Cooper's novels probably, has said:
"Civilization has very marked effects upon an Indian. If he once
learns to speak English, he will soon forget all his native cunning
and pride of race." Let us see how this theory worked with Charley Bent.
As soon as the educated half-breed set his foot on his native heath
he readily found enough ambitious young bucks of his own age who
were willing to look on him as their leader. They loved him, too,
if such a thing were possible, as Fra Diavolo was loved by his wild
followers. His band was known as the "Dog-Soldiers"; a sort of a
semi-military organization, consisting of the most daring,
blood-thirsty young men of the tribe; and sometimes "squaw-men,"
that is, renegade white men married to squaws, attached themselves
to his command of cut-throats.
At the head of this collection of the worst savages, hardly ever
numbering over a hundred, Charles Bent robbed ranches, attacked
wagon-trains, overland coaches, and army caravans. He stole and
murdered indiscriminately. The history of his bloody work will
never be wholly revealed, for dead men have no tongues.
He would visit all alone, in the guise of plainsman, hunter, or
cattleman, the emigrant trains crossing the continent, always,
however, those which had only small escorts or none at all. Feigning
hunger, while his needs were being kindly furnished, he would glance
around him to learn what kind of an outfit it was; its value, its
destination, and how well guarded. Then he would take his leave with
many thanks, rejoin his band, and with it dash down on the train and
kill every human being unfortunate enough not to have escaped before
he arrived.
He was indefatigable in his efforts to kill off the whole corps of
army scouts. He would pass himself off as a fellow-scout, as a
deserter from some military post, or as an Indian trader, for he was
a wonderful actor, and would have achieved histrionic honours had
he chosen the stage as a profession.
He would always time his actions so as to be found apparently asleep
by a little camp-fire on the bank of Pawnee Fork, Crooked, Mulberry,
or Walnut creeks, all of which streams intercepted the trails running
north and south between the several military posts during the Indian
war, when he would seem delighted and astonished, or else simulate
suspicion. Then he would either murder the unsuspecting scout with
his own hands, or deliver him to the red fiends of his band to be
tormented.
The government offered a reward of five thousand dollars for Bent's
capture, dead or alive. It was reported currently that he was at last
killed in a battle with some deputy United States marshals, and that
they received the reward; but the whole thing was manufactured out of
whole cloth, and if the marshals received the money, Uncle Sam was
most outrageously swindled.
The facts are that he died of malarial fever superinduced by a wound
received in a fight with the Kaws, near the mouth of the Walnut and
not far from Fort Zarah. His "Dog-Soldiers" were whipped by the Kaws,
and his band driven off. Bent lingered for some time and died.