The Vanishing Race: The History of the Last Indian Council. Joseph Kossuth Dixon
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trying to protect his band. When we were in the fort the Sioux people surrounded us. After the two Crows were killed the leader of our band became scared. I jumped out of the fort and led the way for my band. We ran the Sioux back to the Little Rockies, and then I told my friends to escape. As we retreated the Sioux pursued us. One Sioux was in advance and called upon me to stop, and as I stopped he fired at me but missed me, and then I fired and killed him. The Sioux then rushed on me so that I could not scalp the Sioux I had killed. We ran on into the mountains and escaped into another fort. In this last fort one of the Gros Ventres was shot and wounded. After we had rested a while the Sioux surrounded us again, and I rushed out at the Sioux so that my friends might escape again. While we were retreating again the Sioux shot one of the Gros Ventres through the leg, and he had to crawl on his hands and knees. I stayed with this wounded man, and the rest made their escape. I took this man on my back and carried him to some water at the head of a coulee. This Gros Ventre told me to go on and make my escape and leave him alone to die. While we were resting in the weeds at the washout the Sioux surrounded us again and waited for us to show ourselves. While we were waiting my wounded friend gave me his knife and paint and told me to tell his mother that she might have all his horses; then I jumped out and ran to catch up with my friends. After I had left my wounded friend about a quarter of a mile I looked back to see how the Sioux would treat him. There was one shot fired, and they all jumped into the washout, and then I made my escape. This gave me a great name in my tribe and among the Sioux and the Crows.”
Warriors of Other Days
“Once on Tongue River there was a white soldier of the United States troops whom the Indians called Bear Shirt; he wore long hair like Custer. I was with him scouting for him. We called him Bear Shirt because he used to wear a bear coat. We came upon a band of Sioux, and there was a fight. This was a long fight, and there were many killed on both sides. In this fight when the Sioux got the best of the soldiers and the soldiers retreated, I stayed behind to protect them. The soldiers were so tired they could not run, and the Sioux killed off those who were too tired to run. I remained in the rear to protect them until they came to the main body of troops. When we were rested we went back to the main body of the Sioux and had another long fight and fought until sundown. There were a great many killed on both sides. We camped right where we quit fighting. The next morning we started to fight again and fought all day; again many were killed on both sides. The next day we went over the two battlefields and gathered up the dead soldiers and buried them. These battles were on Tongue River. After we had buried the soldiers I came back with the rest of the troops as far as the Yellowstone, and then went home.” And yet such heroisms wrought out in lonely mountain fastnesses or on sun-parched plains will go unhonoured and unsung.
Chief Timbo
Chief Timbo
Chief Timbo, known as Tah-cha-chi, or Hairless, ranks as one of the leading chiefs of the Comanche Indians. With his stature of more than six feet, he is a commanding figure among any Indians. The portrait of Timbo reveals the striking difference to be found in the physiognomy of the southern tribes as compared with the northern tribes of the Plains Indians. In the photogravure presented Chief Timbo holds a long steel-headed spear, girdled with varicoloured beads, ornamented with great tufts of eagle feathers, and at the end of its ten feet of length bearing a picturesque plume. This staff descended to Timbo from Quanah Parker, once the leading chief of the Comanches. Chief Timbo brought this insignia of office from the southland to the council of the chiefs. In his own tribe the possession of such a mace answers among the Indians for the sceptre of a monarch. It is a coup stick with manifold emphasis. Chief Timbo accompanied the Kiowa, Cheyenne, and Apache chiefs to the council. They came as brothers, but no fierce fighting among these warlike tribes found a stronger or more fearless foe in the days gone by than this stalwart chief. In the assembly of the chiefs he moved among his fellows with a solemn and ponderous dignity, always silent and full of commanding reserve. In the battles that raged over the southern plains even far to the north, between the Comanches and the fierce Kiowas, Chief Timbo led his fighting bands to certain victory. Fierce blood runs in the veins of this masterful man, and only within recent years, and then not easily, has he submitted to Government rule.
Chief Apache John
Chief Apache John
The very name Apache means enemy and stands on the pages of all Indian history as a synonym for terror. Since our knowledge of them, the Apaches have been hostile and in every conflict they were favoured with rare and gifted leadership. It required the skill, strategy, and profoundest generalship of two of the greatest generals of the Civil War to subdue and capture the daring and reckless Geronimo, whose recent death closed the final chapter of a long line of unspeakable Apache atrocities. Koon-kah-za-chy, familiarly known as Apache John, because of his surrender to civilization, visited the last Great Indian Council as a representative of one of the many groups of this great body of Indians scattered through the southwest. There is an indefinable air of stoicism in the demeanour of all of these great chieftains. The subject of this text is not lacking in this prominent Indian element. A keen and piercing eye, a sadly kind face, a tall and erect figure, Apache John bears his sixty years of life with broad and unbending shoulders. He was fond of becoming reminiscent and said: “The first thing I can remember is my father telling me about war. We then lived in tepees like the one in which we are now sitting. We were then moving from place to place, and the old people were constantly talking about war. That was the school in which I was brought up—a war school. We kept on moving from place to place until I grew to manhood. Then I came to see a real battle. The first time I was in a battle I thought of what my father had told me. He told me to be a brave man and fight and never run away. I think this was good fighting, because I know what fighting meant from what my father had told me. At that time if an Indian wanted to win distinction he must be a good man as well as a good fighter. I was in a good many battles, until finally I had to give up fighting. About seven years ago the Government gave me advice, and with that advice they gave me different thoughts, and to-day I am one of the head men among the Apaches. I am head chief among the Kiowa-Apaches and I counsel peace among them. I used to think that my greatest honour was to be won in fighting, but when I visited the Commissioner in Washington he gave me other thoughts and other ways of thinking and doing until I felt that the new kind of life was the better. When the Commissioner told me these things I wrote them down in my mind and I thought that it was good. One of the greatest events in my life was when I found myself surrounded by two tribes of my enemies. This fight was by the El Paso River, and the bands of our enemies wore yellow headgear; the fight continued all day long until about five o'clock, when the Apaches were victorious.”
By long and stubborn tutelage both from his father and the members of his tribe, this boy was taught the war spirit and in manhood he exemplified it. The principles of peace taught him in one short hour at Washington changed the whole tenor of his life: a pathetic commentary on what civilization might have accomplished with the Indian.
Chief Running Bird
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