The bulk of our present adult aboriginal population were born in savagery, and have lived in savagery. Try as they will, they cannot entirely subdue the savage instincts to roam at will, to defy restraint, and to inAulge their lawless appetites for blood and plunder. Sitting Bull's influence for evil among all the aboriginal tribes had been unbounded. He had ever made it his boast that he would never go upon a reservation or make peace with the whites.-a resolution to which he tenaciously adhered. His nomadic and unrestrained life of freedom on the plains was a constant lure to those Indians who, though settled upon agencies, and ostensibly engaged in cultivating the arts of peace, yet could
not wholly conquer the natural savage longing for a life of unrestrained and careless liberty. His camp-fires in the wild fastnesses of the far Northwest were alluring lights to the wild and restless spirits, whose untamed natures chafed and fretted under the unwonted restraint of agency rule. His bold example inspired the pining warriors on the reservations to break away from the civilizing influences there brought to bear upon him, and to seek by his council-fires in the wilderness pursuits moje congenial.
With the freshening of the grass in the spring, large numbers of the young and able-bodied warriors of the tribes confined at the various Indian agencies on the Missouri, would set forth to join his lawless hordes on their annual round of plunder, and under cover of his name to prey upon the exposed settlements, and destroy the lives of any luckless whites who, by chance, came within the scope of their operations.
It had long been a recognized fact, both in the Military and Interior Departments, that an Indian absent without leave from his proper reservation, was necessarily an Indian hostile, defacto and de jure ; and since it was manifestly impossible to prevent the agency Sioux from slipping away during the season of buffalo hunting, and attaching themselves to the hostile forces, the capture of Sitting Bull, or the breaking up of his hostile rendezvous in the Northwest, became a strategic measure of overshadowing importance in all plans devised by the military authorities for subjugating, or by the officials of the Interior Department for benefiting and civilizing the Indians.
Mutual plans were devised by both Departments to remedy the grave evil# arising from Agency Indians rallying to the medicine banner of Sitting Bull, and sharing with his restless followers the spoils and plunder of the war-path; but all to no avail. The evil increased alarmingly. The Missouri River Agencies became but bases of supplies for Sitting Bull's insolent army, from whence were drawn, by the hands of professedly peaceful Indians, arms and munitions of war, clothing, and provisions. The ranks of the hostiles were increased to an unusual extent during the hunting sea-
son, by the accession of large numbers of able-bodied warriors, whose winter subsistence was derived from the bounty of the government. Those who remained upon the reservations evinced a* uneasy and discontented spirit, until, at length, the signs of disaffection at the larger Agencies, such as Standing Rock, Spotted Tail, Red Cloud, etc., containing then some 40,000 Indians, became so marked that a general outbreak was feared, unless steps were promptly taken to subdue the outlaws under Sitting Bull, and compel them to settle down upon some designated spot, to be selected by the government. Accordingly, in December, 1875, the Secretary of the Interior notified the hostiles that they must, before the close of the following January, come into the reservations, " or a military force would be sent out to compel them to come in." This peremptory order was met with the scorn and defiance that had characterized the demeanor of the hostiles in all their communications with the white man's government. As a last recourse, therefore, on the expiration of the stated time, the Secretary of War was formally notified that these Indians were turned over to* the military authorities, for such action as might be deemed proper for their subjugation and chastisement.
The campaign of 1876 was then organized by General Sheridan, on the plan already described at some length in this volume, by which, in the simultaneous movement of three distinct columns from Montana, Dakota, and the Platte, toward a common centre, where was supposed to be located the camp of the hostiles, a crushing blow could be administered to the forlorn hope of savage obduracy, seeking to escape the fate that had been decreed to the red man in the remnants of his once wide domain, the alternative of either civilization or extermination. The movements of these columns, the repulse of General Crook, and the tragic death of General Custer and his men, which formed the bitter fruits of this unfortunate expedition, have been already described in detail in these pages. Suffice it, then, to say, that, after the battle, the victorious savages proceeded northward, and crossed the boundary line into the Dominion of Canada, and quartered themselves upon the bounty of her
Majesty the Queen of England. Here Sitting Bull and his followers remained in peace through the following year, refusing the overtures of Chief Joseph to take part in the Nez Perces campaign of 1877. In the stirring events of that campaign, the opening fight at Big Hole, Howard's long and arduous pursuit, and final success, with Miles' aid, in capturing Joseph and his band, together with the later fight at Bear-Paw Mountain, between Lame Deer, a Sioux, and the troops under General Miles, engrossed, for a time, public attention, and the conqueror of Custer was left to his repose. But not long did quiet reign.
The followers of the stoic chieftain began to cross the lines, commit depredations on the people of Montana, and elude capture and punishment by escaping to their leader's camp at Wood Mountain. . Grave questions of international law now puzzled the authorities at Washington, and to avoid complications with a border territory, as well as to insure protection to the helpless settlers south of the Canadian boundary line, it was decided to make an effort to effect by diplomacy what force of arms had failed to bring about, and to send, to treat with Sitting Bull, a commission of such dignity and character, that he would necessarily be convinced of the truth and reliability of its promises and presentations.
Leave was accordingly obtained from the British authorities for the entrance of the commission into the Canadian territory. The followers of Sitting Bull at this time comprised but a moiety of those who had participated in the Custer massacre, many of the warriors who had there glutted their fiendish thirst for blood and torture having returned to the agencies to which they belonged, and wwe there re-enacting the role of good Indians, by submissively devouring the rations issued by a magnanimous government to its " wayward children."
The Peace Commission to Sitting Bull was composed of General A. H. Terry, the commander of the defeated Dakota column in the campaign of the previous year, and Hon. A. G. Lawrence, of Massachusetts. The embassy proceeded with an escort to the British line, and were there met by a battalion of the Northwestern mounted police, who guided them to Fort Walsh-and here was presented the extraordinary spectacle of a powerful government sending overtures of peace and reconciliation to the leading outlaw and freebooter of the country, by the hand of the military commander whose troops he had defeated by force of arms. Much trouble was experienced in obtaining the consent of Sitting Bull and his leading chiefs to an interview; but this was finally gained through the intercession of the British officers at the fort, and on the 17th of October an interview was held within the limits of the fort.