ANNIE DILLION, A LITTLE KIOWA GIRL, WHO IS HEIRESS TO MORE THAN $1,000,000—SAVES A RICH CATTLEMAN'S LIFE AND HE FITTINGLY REWARDED HER—PRETTY AND INTELLIGENT.
Because she proved true to her white friend in his time of need, Annie Trueheart Dillion, a little Kiowa maiden, fourteen years old, has become the richest Indian girl in all the West. Annie is the daughter of Chief Black Wolf and is heiress to the entire fortune of $1,000,000 and more left by John Dillion, a rich cattleman. Dillion was born and raised in Ireland, and when he came to America he went to Texas and worked on a ranch in that State as laborer and cowboy. By careful management he became rich. From his cattle ranch on the Rio Grande he shipped every year large herds of cattle to the Indian Territory to fatten upon the fine pasture lands of that favored region during the spring and summer. He had been in this business so long that he was pretty well acquainted with all of the Kiowa chiefs and various members of the nation, and from the fact that he always had dealt fairly with his red brothers he was popular. He leased vast areas of pasture lands every year, and was always prompt in the payment of the rents. He was liberal, good-hearted and kindly disposed, but with one grave fault—he dearly loved a glass of grog, and as he grew older and his constitution began to yield to the hardships incident to his career he drank much. He enjoyed the company of his cowboys and cattlemen, and nothing pleased him better after a successful deal than to surround himself with a crowd of good fellows and make a night of it with plenty of red liquor. Seven years ago a little affair of this kind came near ending his career. He had visited the Territory to meet the agent of a big syndicate, with whom he expected to make a deal that would relieve him of several thousand head of steers. The deal was made and Dillion was in a most felicitous frame of mind. At that time the old Texan had in his employ a half-breed Cherokee, Bill Hawk. This rascal happened to be present when Dillion received a large sum of money in bills, which he saw the old man roll together and put in his pocket. The elated Texan, after taking several more toddies, decided to go out to a pasture about ten miles from Chickasha, where he had a fine herd of cattle that were being looked after by some of his favorite Texan cowboys, and he asked Hawk to hitch up a buggy and go with him. The man was eager to go, but his conduct did not arouse any suspicion at the time. The road to the pasture passed through a small Indian village, where Dillion had many acquaintances. When the old man reached this place several Indians and half-bloods gathered about his buggy and begged him to stay over night to attend a dance. He did so and enjoyed himself to the utmost until he finally succumbed to slumber. Late in the night the old Texan felt something pulling his arm, and when he opened his eyes he found that a little Indian girl was trying to wake him. As soon as the child saw that his eyes were opened she whispered: "Dillion, now you go putty quick. Hawk heap bad man. Putty soon him come. Him got big knife—kill white man—take boss—take heap money. Me hear him talk. Him heap drunk. You go now." The child ran away, and Dillion slipped from under his blankets and rolled them together. After placing his hat at one end of the roll and his boots at the other he crawled away a short distance and lay down under a tree to watch for further developments. He did not wait long before he saw a man cautiously approach the pile of blankets. The drunken assassin was deceived by the hat and boots. He thought that his victim was at his mercy, and he drew a big knife from his belt and drove it into the roll of blankets with all his strength. The next instant Hawk sprang into the air with a wild yell and fell dead across the blankets, with a bullet in his heart. Dillion had killed him.
The old Texan never afterward was the same man. He continued to attend to his business and make money, but it was easy to see that there was a cloud on his mind. He never suspected his friend, Black Wolf, or any of the Indians of the village of having aided the assassin. He became attached devotedly to the Indian girl who had saved his life, and he finally got the chief's consent to let him educate her and make her his heiress. She was to be given to him when she became fourteen years old, but he died a short time before she reached that age, and now the girl's future and fortune are in the hands of important persons. John Rogers, of Presidio, who was in the millionaire's employ for nearly a quarter of a century, is the executor of his will, and he says that the Indian girl will inherit a fortune of $1,000,000 in cash that is with a safe deposit company in New York, and besides this, when she is of legal age, or when she marries, she will come into possession of a fine ranch on the Rio Grande that is well stocked with cattle, and one of the prettiest haciendoes in old Mexico.
Miss Annie, who is now but fifteen years old, is at present a student at Hardin College, Mexico, Missouri. When she completes the course there she will go to some Eastern school for the finishing touches. She is a pure-blooded Indian girl and few heiresses have come into their fortunes in a way more romantic.
Will M. Clemens, in writing recently for a Chicago paper, says: "In the United States to-day are nine monuments erected by white men to perpetuate the memory of famous Indians, and the nine great warriors of the early wilderness thus remembered are Miantonomoh, Uncas, Keokuk, Leatherlips, Seattle, Red Jacket, Cornstalk, Tomo-Chi-Chi and Pokagon.
"Miantonomoh, famous sachem of the Narragansetts, was one of the first Indian chiefs of whom early English settlers of Connecticut and Rhode Island had knowledge. He was captured and executed in 1643 and was buried a mile east of Norwich, Connecticut, on the spot where he died. For many years thereafter members of his tribe made visits to the grave, and each added to a pile of stone until a considerable monument was raised in this way to his memory by his own tribe. In 1841 the citizens of Norwich and vicinity placed over the grave of Miantonomoh a solid block of granite, eight feet long, five feet high and five feet in thickness, with the inscription, 'Miantonomoh, 1643,' cut in large deep letters."
Satanta
"This was the first monument actually erected by white men over the grave of an Indian; and nothing could better illustrate the advance in civilization than this act of rescuing the grave of this noted chief from neglect and oblivion, who two hundred years before had been condemned and executed by the English settlers.
"Uncas was the most noted chief of the Mohegan tribe, a branch of the Pequots. He died of advanced age about 1683, at Norwich, Connecticut, to which town he deeded a large tract of land shortly before his death. The people of Norwich long contemplated a monument to Uncas, but the project did not take active form until the summer of 1833, when General Jackson, then President of the United States, visited Norwich, and his visit was made the occasion of awakening an active interest in the project of erecting a monument for their 'old friend,' as they expressed it—the Mohegan sachem, Uncas.
"President Jackson formally 'moved the foundation-stone to its place.' It has been described by the historian Caulkins as 'an interesting, suggestive ceremony; a token of respect from the modern warrior to the ancient—from the emigrant race to the aborigines.'
"But the project of completing the monument languished, and not until July, 1847, was the Uncas memorial finally completed. It is a granite obelisk or shaft, about twenty feet in height, supported by a huge granite block upon which the simple name 'Uncas' is cut in large letters. All about the grave of Uncas repose the ashes of many chiefs and members of his tribe. The place had been used before and has been used since by the Indians as a burying-place, but little or no evidence now remains to distinguish their respective graves.
"The monument to Chief Keokuk, 'The Watchful Fox,' was erected at Keokuk, Iowa, in 1886. Subsequent to the Black Hawk War, Keokuk removed with his tribe from Iowa to the Territory of Kansas, where he died in 1848. Over his grave was placed a marble slab, which marked his place of burial until 1883, when the remains were exhumed and taken to Keokuk and interred in the city park, where a durable monument was erected by public-spirited citizens to designate the final resting-place of the noted chieftain. Later a bronze bust of Keokuk was placed in the marble room of the United States Senate at Washington.
"Chief Leatherlips of the Wyandots, who was executed by the people of his own race in 1810, is remembered by his white brothers with a lasting monument on the spot where he died in Franklin County, Ohio, fifteen miles from Columbus. Leather-lips was put to death 'for witchcraft,' and his execution was witnessed by William Sells, a white man. The Wyandot Club, of Columbus, in 1888, erected a Scotch granite monument, which stands in the center of a one-acre park surrounded by a substantial stone wall. The monument stands upon the summit of the east bank of the Scioto River, about fifteen rods from the river's edge. The view from the monument, both up and down the Scioto, is most picturesque and beautiful.
"The monument to Seattle, or Sealth, as called by the Indians, chief of the Squamish and Allied tribes, stands at Fort Madison, on Puget Sound, fifteen miles northwest of Seattle, Washington. Sealth was perhaps the greatest Indian character of the Western country. As a statesman he had no superior among the red men and ruled his people for more than half a century. At the time of his death, in 1866, he was the acknowledged head and chief sachem of all the tribes living on or near Puget Sound. He had reached the age of eighty when he passed away and had made many warm friends with the white pioneers in Washington. Over a hundred white men were in attendance at his funeral. In 1890 his friends erected a monument of Italian marble, seven feet high, with a base or pedestal surmounted by a cross bearing the letters 'I. H. S.' On one side of the monument is the following inscription:
"SEATTLE,Chief of the Squamish and Allied Tribes,Died June 7th, 1866.The Firm Friend of the Whites and for Him the City of Seattle Was Namedby Its Founders.
"The memorial to the great Seneca chief, Red Jacket, or Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha. 'The Keeper Awake,' stands in Forest Lawn Cemetery, Buffalo, New York, and was erected in June, 1892. Red Jacket was born at Seneca Lake, New York, in 1752, and died on the Seneca reservation, near Buffalo, in 1830. His fame is that of a statesman and orator rather than as a warrior, and he was regarded as the most noted chief among the Six Nations of the Iroquois. He has been described as the perfect Indian in dress, character and instinct. He refused to acquire the English language, and never dressed other than in his native costume. He had an unalterable dislike for the missionary and contempt for the clothes of the white man.
"When Red Jacket died, in 1830, his remains were given over to Ruth Stevenson, a stepdaughter, who retained them in her cabin for some years, and finally secreted them in a place unknown to any person but herself. After she had become advanced in age, she became anxious to have the remains of her step father receive a final and known resting-place, and with that view, in October, 1879, she delivered them to the Buffalo Historical Society, which assumed their care and custody and deposited them in the vaults of the Western Savings Bank of Buffalo, where they remained until October, 1884, when their final interment was made in Forest Lawn Cemetery at Buffalo. The splendid monument which now marks the spot was not completed until some years after the interment.
"The monument to Chief Cornstalk, warrior and sachem of the Shawnees, was erected at Point Pleasant, West Virginia, in 1896. It stands in the courthouse yard and was made possible by the thoughtfulness and generosity of the leading citizens of Point Pleasant. Here in October, 1774, was fought that great battle where Cornstalk won fame for his prowess and general-ship. He was, too, a man endowed with superior intellectual faculties and was an orator of transcendent eloquence. His murder in 1777 by a party of infuriated soldiers was the result of the killing of a white settler by some roving Indians. The death of Cornstalk destroyed the only hope of reconciliation and peace between the white settlers south of the Ohio River and the Indian tribes north of it. It was followed by a succession of wars, forays and murders, down to the battle of 'Fallen Timbers' in 1794, during which time many thousands of white men, women and children, and many thousands of the red race of all ages and conditions perished.
"There never has been and never can be any excuse or palliation for the murder of Cornstalk, and no one event in the history of those bloody times so much enraged the vindictive spirit of the Indian tribes, particularly of the Shawnees. It can never be known how many deaths of white men, women and children during the next twenty years were owing to this murder. One hundred and twenty years later an enduring monument was raised to his memory by a few generous-minded white men on the spot where he fought one of the greatest battles in all Indian warfare, and where three years afterward he gave up his life.
"In the heart of Savannah, Georgia, reposes a huge granite boulder, erected in honor of the Indian chief, Tomo-Chi-Chi. This noble red man was the special friend of Gen. James Oglethorpe, the English knight who, in early colonial days, endured much hardship in the new country of America to befriend both the Georgia colony and the Indians thereabout. Chief Tomo-Chi-Chi, also mighty in the camp-fire councils of the braves, easily ranked as one of the foremost of his race in those times. And so when the stately descendants of Colonial sires, known as Colonial Dames of America, sought to commemorate the spirit of the Georgia colony, four years ago, they placed this monument in the State capital. The bronze tablet on the side reads: 'In memory of Tomo-Chi-Chi, the Mico of the Yamacrans, the companion of Oglethorpe, and the friend and ally of the colony of Georgia, this stone has been here placed by the Georgia Society of the Colonial Dames of America, 1739-1899.'
"The monument erected by the citizens of Chicago to Leopold and Simon Pokagon, chiefs of the Pottawatomie Indians, in Jackson Park, Chicago, completes the known list of memorials erected by white men to their red brethren in this country. The Pokagons, father and son, were successive chiefs and sachems of the once powerful Pottawatomie tribe, which long occupied the region around the southern and eastern shores of Lake Michigan. Leopold Pokagon is described as a man of excellent character and habits, a good warrior and hunter, and as being possessed of considerable business capacity. He was well known to the early white settlers in the region about Lake Michigan, and his people were noted as being the most advanced in civilization of any of the neighboring tribes. He ruled over his people for forty-three years.
"In 1833 he sold to the United States one million acres of land at 3 cents an acre, and on the land so conveyed has since been built the city of Chicago. He died in 1840 in Cass County, Michigan.
"His son, Simon, then ten years of age, became the rightful hereditary chief of the tribe. At the age of fourteen he began the study of English, which he successfully mastered, as well as Latin and Greek. No full-blooded Indian ever acquired a more thorough knowledge of the English language. In 1897 he wrote an article for a New York magazine on the 'Future of the Red Man,' in which he said: 'Often in the stillness of the night, when all nature seems asleep about me, there comes a gentle rapping at the door of my heart. I open it and a voice inquires: "Pokagon, what of your people? What will be their future?" My answer is: "Mortal man has not the power to draw aside the veil of unborn time to tell the future of his race. That gift belongs to the Divine alone. But it is given to him to closely judge the future by the present and the past."' Pokagon died January 28, 1899, at his old home in Allegan County, Michigan, at the age of seventy years; and thus passed away the last and most noted chief of the once powerful Pottawatomie tribe. His remains were buried in Graceland Cemetery, Chicago."
We are somewhat surprised that Mr. Clemens should think that the nine chiefs he mentions form a complete list of those to whom monuments have been built.
There are several others, including Joseph Brant, the great Mohawk sachem and head of the Iroquois Confederation, who was buried beside the church he had erected at Grand River, Canada. There is a monument over his grave, said to have cost $30,000, with the following inscription:
"This tomb is erected to the memory of Thayendanegea, or Captain Joseph Brant, principal chief and warrior of the Six Nations, Indians, by his fellow subjects, admirers of his fidelity and attachment to the British Crown."
Shabbona, the White Man's Friend, the Pottawatomie chief, also has a monument on his grave in the cemetery at Morris, Illinois, recently erected by his white friends. In some cases the contributors were the children of the very people whose lives Shabbona saved by warning them at the time of the Black Hawk War. It is a massive boulder of granite, containing only the following simple inscription:
SHABBONA,1775-1859.
A full description of the unveiling of this monument is given in our sketch of Shabbona.
In the month of June of the year 1905 a substantial monument was erected over the remains of Chief Joseph, of the Nez Perces, known as the Indian Xenophon, and one of the noblest red men of all history.
This monument now stands in the cemetery at Nespelim, Washington, on a commanding point, where the remains of the great chief were interred. The monument is of white marble and measures seven and one-half feet in height. A full account of the dedication is in our sketch of Chief Joseph. There is, as stated elsewhere, in the Council House of the Cherokees, at Tallequah, a marble bust of Se-Quo-Yah, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet.
There is also over the entrance to "Tammany Hall," city of New York, a statue of the celebrated Delaware sachem, from whom the name is derived. This image is probably fanciful, but there was undoubtedly such an individual as the illustrious Tamenend, who stands foremost in the list of all the great men of his tribe in any age.
This chief certainly exerted a far-reaching influence over both red and white men, even though his history is rather obscure. It is known, however, that he was a mighty warrior, an accomplished statesman, and a pure and high-minded patriot. In private life he was still more distinguished for his virtues than in public for his talents. His countrymen could only account for the perfections they ascribed to him by supposing him to be favored with the special communications of the Great Spirit. Ages have elapsed since his death, but his memory was so fresh among the Delawares of the eighteenth century that when Colonel Morgan, of New Jersey, was sent as an agent among them by Congress, during the Revolution, they conferred on him the title of Tamenend, as the greatest mark of respect they could show for the manners and character of that gentleman; and he was known by his Indian appellation ever afterward.
About this time the old chieftain had so many admirers among the whites also that they made him a saint, inserted his name in calendars, and celebrated his festival on the first day of May, yearly. On that day a numerous society of his votaries walked in procession through the streets of Philadelphia, their hats decorated with buck-tails, and proceeded to a sylvan rendezvous out of town, which they called the Wigwam, where after a long talk or speech had been delivered, and theCalumetof friendship passed around, the remainder of the day was spent in high festivity. A dinner was prepared and Indian dances performed on the green. The custom ceased a few years after the conclusion of peace, at the close of the Revolution, and though other Tammany associations have since existed, they retain little of the model they were formed upon but the name.
New York city gradually absorbed the name (which was changed from Tamenend to Tammany for the sake of the euphony) and whatever of political prestige was included with it.
The name Tammany has come to be a synonym for municipal politics from a Democratic standpoint, as regards New York city, and it is interesting to know that the name and fame was literally captured from Philadelphia, where it first existed.
There are two other Indians who have been honored with memorials, one of whom was the Indian woman who was the guide to Lewis and Clark, and the other, Logan, the celebrated Mingo chief.
Within the corporate limits of the city of Auburn, New York, there is a high elevation called Fort Hill, which derives its name from the fact that it was formerly surmounted by a fort, built to protect the citizens from attacks of Indians. When the fort was demolished, the stones of which it was composed were used to construct a monument in memory of Logan. It is a tall shaft, in the face of which a slab of marble is inserted bearing Logan's pathetic words: "Who is there to mourn for Logan—not one." In summer the shaft is covered with ivy, and as it is on a high point it can be viewed from a great distance.
Fort Hill is now used as a cemetery.
There were thirty-five people in the Lewis and Clark Exploring Expedition in 1805, of whom thirty-four were men, and one a woman, but without her aid, it is quite probable, the expedition would have been a failure. This woman, Sacajawea, or the Bird-woman, wife of Chaboneau, who accompanied them as a local interpreter, was a captive whose birthplace was in the Rocky Mountains. She proved to be the only person found, after a winter's search, who could by any possibility serve them as interpreter and guide among the unknown tongues and labyrinthine fastnesses through which they must force their way.
Sacajawea, therefore, became the chief counselor, guide, and interpreter of Lewis and Clark. She alone knew the edible roots, springs, passes and fords. So with her baby on her back, she proudly trudged on in the lead, fortwo thousand miles.Onward and upward they scrambled, threading cañons, fording torrents, scaling mountains, until they crossed the backbone of the continent. When food was scarce she went on alone to the Indian villages, where her presence with her infant proved to the savages that the expedition could not be hostile. Making her wants known to the squaws, she was given provisions for herself and the men. When hope sank in the hearts of the bravest she alone was able to cheer and inspire, by word and example.
Simon Pokagon
One day in their long and perilous journey they surprised a squaw so encumbered with papooses (which she would not desert) that she could not escape, and winning her heart by painting her cheeks, and presenting a looking-glass for their inspection, they made friends with her tribe, one of whose chiefs proved to be a brother to their Bird-woman, and her heart was gladdened by the reunion.
Many an episode in this eventful journey will hereafter glorify with romantic association, mountains, cañons, rocks, rivers and islands, all along the route; and none can be more touching than the story of the courageous and faithful Sacajawea, the Bird-woman. But when bounties in land and money were granted to others, she was forgotten. It was ever thus with the great benefactors of the race in general, and the Indian in particular. They stone them while living, and stone them when dead by building monuments to their memory.
In Portland, Oregon, the grateful white women have caused to be erected a statue of this noble red woman. Those who have seen it inform us that the artist has been especially happy in his modeling—sober, patient, silent, head firmly poised, she looks out wistfully to the western mountains and points the way. On her back is her papoose, chubby and contented, yet innocent of the thought that he is making history. This noble bronze reveals the honest wife, the loving mother, the faithful friend, the unerring guide. "Thousands looking upon this statue," as Elbert Hubbard says, "have been hushed into silence and tears. There is an earnestness in it—a purity of purpose—that rebukes frivolity and makes one mentally uncover."
The Iroquois, or "Romans of the West," called also Mingoes and Massawomeks, had a formidable rival in a powerful tribe known as the Adirondacks, whose home was on the Canadian side of the St. Lawrence.
When the French settled Canada, in 1603, they found the Iroquois living where Montreal now stands, and engaged, even then, in a war with the Adirondacks. As the French wanted the country occupied by the Iroquois they promptly made common cause with the Adirondacks, and their united forces drove the Five Nations across the St. Lawrence and south and east of the great lakes, Erie and Ontario.
But this warlike confederation soon rallied from their temporary defeat, and, turning on their old enemies, renewed the struggle with such valor that the Adirondacks fled three hundred miles into the wilderness to escape extermination.
The Adirondacks now adopted the plan of sending out small parties, and of relying especially on their captains. Five of these men, alone, are said, by their astonishing energy and bravery, to have well-nigh turned the balance of the war. The chief and leader of this noble quintet was Piskaret, in his own day the most celebrated chieftain of the North. He and his four comrades solemnly devoted themselves to the purpose of redeeming the sullied glory of the nation, at a period when the prospect of conquest, and perhaps of defense, had already become desperate. They set out for Three Rivers in one canoe; each of them being provided with three muskets, which they loaded severally with two bullets, connected by a small chain ten inches in length. In Sorel River they met with five boats of the Iroquois, each having on board ten men. As the parties rapidly came together, Piskaret and his men pretended to give themselves up for lost, and began singing their death song. This was continued till their enemy was just at hand, for the Iroquois intended to capture them alive for torture. But at a signal from Piskaret, the five men seized their muskets from the bottom of the canoe and fired simultaneously on the five canoes. The charge was repeated with the arms which lay ready loaded, and the slight birches of the Iroquois were torn asunder, and the frightened occupants tumbled overboard as fast as possible. Piskaret and his comrades, after knocking as many on the head as they pleased, reserved the remainder to feed their revenge, which was soon afterward done by burning them alive in the most cruel tortures.
This exploit, creditable as it might be to the actors in the eyes of their countrymen, served only to sharpen the fierce eagerness for blood which still raged in the bosom of Piskaret. His next enterprise was far more hazardous than the former; and so much more so, indeed, even in prospect, that not a single warrior would bear him company. He set out alone, therefore, for the country of the Five Nations (with which he was well acquainted), about that period of the spring when the snow was beginning to melt. Accustomed, as an Indian must be to all emergencies of traveling as well as warfare, he took the precaution of putting the hinder part of his snowshoes forward, so that if his footsteps should happen to be observed by his vigilant enemy, it might be supposed he had gone the contrary way. For further security he went along the ridges and high ground, where the snow was melted, that his track might be lost.
On coming near one of the villages of the Five Nations, he concealed himself until night, and then entered a cabin, while the inmates were fast asleep, killed the whole family and carried the scalps to his lurking-place. The next day the people of the village sought for the murderer, but in vain. He came out again at midnight and repeated his deed of blood. The third night a watch was kept in every house and Piskaret was compelled to exercise more caution. But his purpose was not abandoned. He bundled up the scalps he had already taken, to carry home with him as a proof of his victory, and then stole warily from house to house until he at last discovered an Indian nodding at his post. This man he dispatched at a blow, but that blow alarmed the neighborhood, and he was forced immediately to fly for his life. Being, however, the fleetest Indian then alive, he was under no apprehension of danger from the chase. He permitted his pursuers to approach him from time to time, and then suddenly darted away from them, hoping in this manner to discourage, as well as escape them. When the evening came on he hid himself and his enemies stopped to rest. Feeling no danger from a single enemy, and he a fugitive, they even indulged themselves in sleep, without posting a guard. Piskaret, who watched every movement, turned about, tomahawked every man of them, added their scalps to his bundle, and leisurely resumed his way home, where he was greeted with great joy, and a dance, that lasted all day was celebrated in his honor.
When even these heroic deeds failed to arouse the remnant of his once powerful tribe, Piskaret is said to have journeyed far toward the setting sun, and joined the warlike Sioux, among whom he became a war-chief.
Perhaps the four Indians of the broadest culture and most liberal education of the present and recent past are Simon Pokagon, already mentioned, who was succeeded by his son Charles, Gen. Ely Samuel Parker, Dr. Charles Alexander Eastman and Dr. Carlos Montezuma.
Was a full-blooded Seneca Indian, born on the Tonawanda reservation in New York, in 1820. He was chief of the Seneca tribe and head of the Iroquois Confederation. His Indian name was Do-No-Hoh-Ga-Wa, which means "Keeper of the Western Gate." General Parker was educated at Ellicottsville, where he studied the profession of civil engineering. He also studied law and was admitted to the New York bar, but never practiced.
He lived for a time in Galena, Illinois, where he was a friend of General Grant. General Parker received a commission as captain in the United States army from President Lincoln and joined Grant at Vicksburg in 1862, where he was made a member of the general's staff, with the rank of colonel. He wrote the famous surrender of Lee at Appomattox in 1865. Grant made him a brigadier-general, and when he became President he appointed him Commissioner of Indian Affairs, which place he held until 1871. For several years he had been superintendent and architect of police stations in New York city.
General Parker married Miss Minnie Sackett of Washington, D. C, in 1867. President Grant attended the marriage ceremony and gave the bride away.
An old veteran who was present at the surrender of Lee at Appomattox, told the author that General Parker, who was then Grant's military secretary, had the appearance of a mulatto, and was mistaken for one by some of the Southern generals, who were indignant that General Grant should dictate the terms of capitulation to a "nigger." They were mollified, however, when it was explained to them that the secretary belonged to another swarthy race, which was never enslaved.
General Parker died at Fairfield, Connecticut, August 31, 1895.
Charles Alexander Eastman, whose Indian name is Ohiyesa, "The Winner," was born in Minnesota about 1858. His father was a full-blood Sioux of a leading family, by the name of Many Lightnings, and his mother a half-blood, called in Indian The Goddess, or in English Nancy Eastman. She died soon after the birth of Ohiyesa, who was carefully reared by his paternal grandmother.
When he was four years old the so-called "Minnesota massacre" broke up his family and drove the uncle and grandmother, with the boy, into exile in Manitoba, where they roamed about for ten years, living by the chase. In the meantime Ohiyesa was educated by his uncle, a notable hunter and warrior, in woodcraft and all the lore of the red man.
At the age of fifteen the boy was sought and found by his father, who had in the meantime embraced Christianity and civilization. He brought him to his home at Flandreau, South Dakota, a little community of citizen Indians, and sent him to school. After a year at a mission day-school and two years at Dr. Riggs's Indian boarding-school at Santee, Nebraska, he went east to Beloit, Wisconsin, then to Knox College, Illinois, taking his final year of preparatory work at Kimball Union Academy, New Hampshire. He entered Dartmouth College in 1883, where he was successful both in scholarship and athletics, his specialty in the latter being long-distance running, and graduated in 1887. He graduated in medicine in 1890 at the Boston University.
Immediately after graduation, Dr. Eastman was appointed Government Physician to the Pine Ridge Agency in South Dakota, and served through the "Ghost Dance War" and for two years afterward. He married, in 1891, Miss Elaine Goodale, of Massachusetts. In 1893 he went to St. Paul, Minnesota, and for several years engaged in medical practice, and also represented the International Committee of Young Men's Christian Associations among the Indians. He afterward went to Washington as attorney for the Santee Sioux, and for several years furthered their interests at the National Capital.
His first literary work was a series of sketches of his early life for St. Nicholas, published in 1893-4. These were begun without much deliberation and originally intended to preserve some of his recollections for his own children. Several sketches and stories were published by other magazines, and in 1902 his first book, "Indian Boyhood," embodying the story of his own youth, was published by McClure, Phillips & Co. Two years later a book of wild animal and Indian hunting tales, "Red Hunters and the Animal People," appeared with the imprint of Harper and Brothers.
Dr. Eastman has recently been appointed by the Government to revise the allotment rolls of the Sioux, grouping them under appropriate family names. He is well known as a lecturer and is everywhere welcomed for his sympathetic interpretations of Indian life and character.
Beyond a doubt he is, as Hamlin Garland says, "far and away the ablest living expositor of Sioux life and character."
The Boston Transcript says of him: "Dr. Charles A. Eastman is a Sioux Indian, and in his life, which began in 1858, has traversed almost the whole course of human civilization, from the life of a very child of the woods to that of the honored graduate of the white man's college and professional school of highest rank. . . . Dr. Eastman came back to his Alma Mater last month, when the corner-stone of the new Dartmouth Hall was laid, and at the banquet in the evening he made so good a speech that President Tucker had the warm applause of the great company when he exclaimed, 'Almost thou persuadest me to be an Indian!'"
Dr. Eastman's present home is Amherst, Massachusetts.
Is a full-blood Apache Indian. In the year 1872, when he was five years old, he was captured by the Pimas and brought to their camp, where he was offered for sale, a horse being the price asked. A traveling photographer, Mr. Charles Gentile, who happened to be in the Pima camp taking photographs, became interested in the boy and offered $30, the price of a horse, which the Indians accepted. He brought the boy East, and sent him to the public schools of Brooklyn, Boston and Chicago, and finally, through the interest of friends, he entered the Illinois State University. He developed special aptitude for chemistry, and when he graduated a place was found for him in a drug store near the Chicago Medical College, where as a clerk he supported himself and earned means for the expense of a course in that college. He graduated in 1889, and, by the advice of friends, located as a physician in Chicago.
When General Morgan became Commissioner of Indian Affairs he heard of Dr. Montezuma and offered him an appointment as physician for the Indian school at Fort Stephenson, North Dakota. The doctor accepted, and after about a year's service there was promoted to the position of agency physician at an agency in Nevada. Afterward he held a similar position at the Colville agency, Washington. His next appointment was that of school physician at Carlisle Indian School in 1893.
In 1896 Dr. Montezuma returned to Chicago, where he enjoys a large and increasing practice in his profession. He knows nothing of his native Apache language, nor is there a trace of Indian superstition or habit to be found in him. He is not only civilized in habit and thought, but is also a high-toned, cultured gentleman and a member of the First Baptist Church of Chicago. In addition to his profession, he is teaching in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and in the Post-Graduate Medical School of Chicago, and at the same time writing in the interest of his people, so he is a very busy man.
He is a warm friend and admirer of General Pratt, founder of Carlisle School; and believes the true solution of the Indian problem consists in educating the children of the white and red race in the same school and thus making American citizens of both, instead of a citizen of one and a ward and dependent of the other race. He thinks, moreover, that an Indian should be treated exactly as any other man. Dr. Montezuma demonstrates in his own life the fallacy of the evolutionists, that several generations are necessary before a savage can be transformed into a civilized man, by actually undergoing a complete metamorphosis in one short generation.
Can the Indian be civilized, and is he capable of a high-class education? This is our answer; here are four men from as many representative tribes, two of which are wild, blanket tribes, and yet each of them became men of broad culture and a high degree of civilization. And what is true of these could have been and should have been true of ten thousand others, had our Government pursued a policy of common justice to the race.
Dr. Eastman
A Gentlemanwho wished to make a present of oranges to a lady, sent them with a letter, by his Indian servant. The letter told how many were sent. On the way the fragrant smell of the fruit proved too great a temptation for the Indian boy. His mouth fairly watered for a taste, but having seen his master read and write letters, he was possessed with the idea that the paper he carried would tell on him if he touched the oranges. He therefore put the letter carefully under a stone, and then, going off to a distance, ate several oranges, feeling perfectly safe. When he came to deliver the remainder of the oranges the lady saw by the letter that some were missing. She charged the Indian with the theft, but he for some time stoutly denied it, and asserted that the letter lied nor was it until threatened with punishment that he confessed, so certain was he that he had put the letter where it could not see him.
The Indians are very grave, attentive and courteous. Even if they did not believe or could not understand a thing, they took care not to let it be seen. On one occasion when a minister had explained to them the history of the Christian religion—the fall of our first parents by eating an apple, the coming of Christ, his miracles and sufferings, etc., an Indian orator stood up to thank him.
"What you have told us," he began, "is all very good. It is indeed bad to eat apples; it is better to make them all into cider."
He then related in his turn an ancient tradition handed down through many generations of his people concerning the origin of maize, or Indian corn, and tobacco. Said he, "Two starving hunters, having killed a deer, were about to satisfy their hunger when they saw a beautiful young woman descend out of the clouds and stand beside them. They were at first afraid, but taking courage offered the spirit the choicest portion of their meat. She tasted it, and then, telling them to return in thirteen moons to the same spot, vanished. They returned as she bade them, at the appointed time. Where the good spirit had touched the ground with her right hand they found maize; with her left, beans; and where she stood was the luxuriant tobacco plant."
The missionary plainly showed his disgust and disbelief in this tradition, saying to the Indian: "What I delivered to you were sacred truths; but what you tell me is mere fable, fiction and falsehood."
The offended Indian gravely replied: "My brother, it seems your friends have not well instructed you in the rules of civility. You saw that we, who understand and practice these rules, believed all your stories; why do you refuse to believe ours?"
The following is said to be the origin of the term "fire-water," as applied by the Indians to whisky: When the Fur Company first began to supply ardent spirits to the Indians in order to help their trade, the liquor was imported from England. It was the cheapest and most poisonous brand manufactured at the time, and for that reason was all the more acceptable to the Indian. When it reached the Hudson Bay territory, or the great region within which the rival fur companies traded, it had to be carried overland to the various posts. For convenience of transportation, barrels of such whisky were divided into kegs. The carriers soon learned that they could make a profit by diluting the liquor with water, when changing it from the barrels into kegs. The Indians, however, missed the powerful effects and suspected that they were being cheated. They learned how to test the liquor before exchanging their peltries for it. They poured a small quantity of the liquor on the fire and if the flame was extinguished it was evident to them that the liquor was watered, and they at once pronounced it "bad." If, on the contrary, the liquor added to the flame, they knew that the alcohol had not been tampered with, and it was accepted as genuine "fire-water."
That the "fire-water" supplied to the Indians of that day was comparable to the villainous stuff of present-day manufacture is illustrated by the statement of an Indian chief who had experienced its effects, and who had witnessed the sad havoc it had produced among his people. "Fire-water," exclaimed this savage, "can only be distilled from the hearts of wildcats and the tongues of women, it makes my people at once so fierce and so foolish."