moonev] SITTING HULL 861 



promise of pardon. To obtain subsistence while in Canada, his people 

 had been obliged to sell almost all they possessed, including their lire 

 arms, so that they returned to their old homes in an impoverished 

 condition. After confinement as a prisoner of war until 1SS3, Sitting 

 Hull took up his residence on Grand river, where he remained until lie 

 met his death. Here he continued to be the leader of the opposition to 

 civilization and the white man, and his camp became the rallying point 

 for the dissatisfied conservative element that (dung to the old order 

 of things, and felt that innovation meant destruction to their race. For 

 seven years he had steadily opposed the treaty by w 7 hich the great 

 Sioux reservation was at last broken up in 1880. After the treaty had 

 been signed by the requisite number to make it a law, he was asked by 

 a white man what the Indians thought about it. With a burst of pas- 

 sionate indignation he replied, "Indians! There are no Indians left 

 now but me." However misguided he may have been in thus continu- 

 ing a losing tight against the inevitable, it is possible that from the 

 Indian point of view he may have been their patriot as he was their 

 high priest. He has been mercilessly denounced as a bad man and a 

 liar; but there can be no doubt that he was honest in his hatred of the 

 whites, and his breaking of the peace pipe, saying that he " wanted to 

 tight and wanted to die,' 1 showed that he was no coward. But he rep- 

 resented the past. His influence was incompatible with progress, and 

 his death marks an era in the civilization of the Sioux. In the language 

 of General Miles, " His tragic fate was but the ending of a tragic life. 

 Since the days of Pontiac, Tecuinseh, and Red Jacket no Indian has 

 had the power of drawing to him so large a following of his race and 

 molding and wielding it against the authority of the Knifed States, 

 or of inspiring it with greater animosity against the white race aud 

 civilization." (War, !>.) 



On December 18 the Indians who had already fled to the Bad Lands 

 attacked a small party of men on Spring creek of Cheyenne river. 

 Major Tupper with loo men of Can's division was sent to their rescue, 

 and a skirmish ensued with the Indians, who were concealed in the 

 bushes along the creek. The government wagons, while crossing tin- 

 creek, were also attacked by the hostiles, who were finally driven oft 

 by reinforcements of cavalry under Captain Wells. On the same date 

 over a thousand Indians returned to Pine Ridge. News was received 

 that there were still about 1,500 fugitives camped on Cheyenne river in 

 the neighborhood of Spring creek. (Colby, J.) 



The most dangerous leader of dissatisfaction in the north after the 

 death of Sitting Bull was considered to be Hump, on Cheyenne River 

 reservation. The agent in charge had long before recommended his 

 removal, but it was thought that it would now be next to impossible to 

 arrest him. Hump with his band of about 400 persons, and Big Foot 

 with nearly as many, had their camps about the junction of Cherry 

 creek and Cheyenne river. For several weeks they had been dancing 



