OUTBREAK OP AMERICAN INDIANS.

Taranaki Herald, Volume XL, Issue 8986, 20 January 1891, Page 3

OUTBREAK OF AMERICAN INDIANS.

THE ORIGIN OF THE DISTURBANCE.

Although according to the latest telegrams, no actual outbreak has as yet taken place, the Sioux Indians are still in a dangerous * state of excitement. War dances are daily in progress, and the savages are making preparations for a severe, if not protracted, conflict. Meantime, the United States troops are being massed in the neighborhood of the Sioux Reservations in Dakota, and the Militia Regiments have received orders to be in readiness for action, while the fanners are deserting their homes in terror lest at any moment the* Indians should appear. This excitement is not unreasonable. For it is not 14 years since the Sioux were at -war with the United States, and many a farmer on the Upper Missouri cap recall the time when a wide district in Minnesota was desolated by the massacres of 1862. Sitting Bull, who in 1876, after committing, the most dreadful atrocities, entrapped General Ouster and his command into the defile at Litf le Horn, with the result that not a man escaped, is to-day at Standing Kock ; and, untouched by the clemency extended to him, is at present among the most troublesome of the Indians who are causing a concentration of troops on the reservation allotted to the survivors of those futile wars. Nor must it be forgotten that Indian wars form the staple of United States chronicles, and that not unfrequentJy they have lasted for years, aad retarded the development of the country for. long periods. Washington Territory — as it was until lately — has never quite recovered from the three years' resistance of the Indians, while Oregon suffered to an almost equal extent from the same cause. How far tbe whites were to blame for these sanguinary ontbreaks it is not now worth discussing, though public opinion is almost unanimously in favour of the verdict of General Pope, who declared in an official report that in no outbreak which he had investigated were the Indians the first offenders. Gross outrages, knavery on the part of the Government agents, and not unfrequently deliberate provocation from those who hoped to profit by the plunder of the Indians' herds of horses, or by the contracts to supply the troops with provisions, are among the principal causes which have lit up the frontier with the blaze of houses fired by the Indians on the war path. It is, indeed, only of late years that the savages seem to be convinced that the white man is too much for them. For railways have enabled the Government to bring cavalry and artillery speedily to the threatened district, and now the bison has been cleared off the Western plains, the hostile septs are soon starved into submission. In the reservation of land " secured " to the Indians, the functionaries entrusted with the superintendence of tbe*aborigines are almost invariably politicians who have received their appointments as the reward of minor party services. It is seldom that they have any. interest in the Indians, and many of them are still notoriously far short of what they ought to be for the honor of the nation, which by recognising the Indians' rights in their land, and paying for it in the shape of annuities, is doing its best to compensate for the wrongs of the past. Among the tribes which have at various times given the- United States much tronble are the great Dakota Confederacy, called by Father Hennepin, who met with them for the first time more than two centries ago, Nadouwessians or Na-douessioux, but who are now more familorly designated as " Sioux." At that period, and for more than 150 years subsequently, they roamed over a vast territory on both sides of the Mississippi river, though even before the progress of settlement compelled the Washington authorities to come to so;ne arrangement with them, the Sioux we/c steadily being pushed southward and westward by the warlike tribes of Canada and the Upper Mississippi Volley. In those times they were considered rather "good Indians," a phrase which is nowadays regarded by the Western pioaeer as pretty much the same as " dead Indians." They had not then experienced the injustice or the ruthlessness of the white man, or their cupidity had not been stirred by the. sight of the white man's goods or the white man's Bcalps. But before long they were compelled to try conclusions with the whites, and with the usual resnlt. Between 1815 and 1854 no less than ten Leaties were made with them, and at each of these compacts a fresh cession of territory^ was 'made, until on the last occassion millions of acres of tbe finest land in the Mississippi Valley were sold at tbe rate of a few pence an acre, tbe interest of the purchace money being paid to the Indians in the shape,-- of annuities. At the time of each treaty the Government entered into a solemn promise that the "reservation" then bestowed upon them should be theirs " as long as the sun rose and the grass grew." But just as invariably — and the Sioux story is the tale of all the Indian tribes— they were shifted in a few years, when the advancing tide of settlement made the land of value to the whites. Demoralisation of every kind crept in, and the hunters, certain that before long they would be pashed back to another unploughed prairie, made no attempt to become farmers or to till the soil in more than a listless manner. Meantime disputes grew thick. The agents swindled. The Government were neglectful of their pecuniary obligations, ana the whisky seller and " squaw man" instilled all sorts of suspicions into the ready ears of those with whom they __ came in contact. A western pioneer is_ not even yet troubled with any very delicate scruples in his dealings with the Indian, and the Indian is only too apt a pupil of so rough a master. The end soon came. Quarrels multiplied, and blood was shed on either side, until, in 1862, just as tbe rose-coloured reports of the Indian Commissioner were picturing his proteges as fast becoming the most docile of children, some desperate Sioux, exasperated over the tardiness with which their annuities of food and goods were being paid, broke into a Government warehouse and helped themselves. In a few days their numbers were increased, and a massacre of white settlers began, until a Eection of Minnesota quite as large as Scotland was Jevastated by the enraged savages. Hundreds of fanners and their families were slaughtered, and crimes, at the very mention of which' the Western rancher still curses the name of- Sioux, were perpetrated on the defenceless -whites, who bad become too confident of the harmlessness of their brown-skinned neighbours. In the course of the retribution which followed many Indians were captured or voluntarily surrendered, the latter being chiefly, " friendlies" who had been compelled to join the " hostiles" through threats of meeting the vengeance to be meted 'out to the whites. Others fled into British territory, so that, though 300 were condemned by the military commission to be hanged, only 39 were actually executed, and among those wbo escaped weie some of tbe worst ringleaders. Treaty making now tagan afresh. In 1865 nine of these instruments were drafted, with as many different bande of Sioux, and for 10 years the Indians were almo-t every year carried to a new reservation, the Government constantly wavering betweon a policy of severity and kindness with the inevitable result. After Sitting Bull had made his great coup, and escaped into Manitoba, be refused for many years to . r itura. evtn tbough wort of bU lolloww jtftu titlpg toa- routed by Coioeil

Miles, had again sought their reservations. But the Government were still undecided, migrating the Sioux about from place to place, until anything like permanence ceased to occupy" the minds of the 14,000 or 15,000 who remained to be the object of such cruel kindness. At last they were " fixed" on one large reservation in Dakota, close to the Upper Missouri river, divided into five agencies. These are the Piue Ridge, on which there are 1170 Ogalalla Sioux families ; and Sisseton, devoted to 1530 Sisseton and Wahpeton bands ; the Rosebud, occupied by 7711 Indians ; and the Yankton and Standing Rock agencies, settled by the remainder. On all of these reservations efforts are being mado to improve tha savages, and, if we may trust the official reports, considerable progress has been made; But the discontent is wide-spread. The crops have failed. Tho old people look back with regret to the vanished days of tho buffalo hunts and scalping expeditions, and the young men listen greedily to these joyous tales. Then comes the agitator, in the shape of a Messiah, who, mixing up the Indian legenda with confused impressions of Christian and Mormon teachings, promises great things to the credulous people. Again, there is the frontiersman of the 11 Buffalo Bill" type, who is never loth to try conclusions with the savages. Hence, unless prudence and General Brooke's troopers suggest a wiser course, we may be prepared to hear any day of an abortive outbreak, much slaughter, and a fresh removal of the hapless red men.