epartment, we sent our
children to school. The Indians who went to Canada afterward returned. A
great many Sioux remained on the reservation at the time of the Custer
fight; I was not in the battle myself. I saw General Custer when he left
Fort Lincoln previous to the Custer fight. Custer impressed me as a very
pleasant and good man; he wore his hair long. As he was about to leave
Fort Lincoln a delegation of Sioux Indians, including myself, went to see
him and asked him not to fight the Sioux Indians, but to go to them in a
friendly way. I was the leader of the delegation. We begged him to
promise us that he would not fight the Sioux. He promised us, and we
asked him to raise his hand to God that he would not fight the Sioux, and
he raised his hand. After he raised his hand to God that he would not
fight the Sioux he asked me to go west with my delegation to see those
roaming Sioux, and tell them to come back to the reservation, that he
would give them food, horses, and clothing. After we got through talking,
he soon left the agency, and we soon heard that he was fighting the
Indians and that he and all his men were killed. If Custer had given us
time we would have gone out ahead of him, but he did not give us time. If
we had gone out ahead of Custer he would not have lost himself nor would
his men have been killed. I did all I could to persuade the Ree scouts
not to go with Custer. I gave them horses and saddles not to go, but for
some reason they went."

[A War Council]

A War Council

"In the treaty the Government made with me at Fort Laramie, they were to
feed me fifty-five years, and they have not fulfilled it. You must be a
man of influence, as you sent for us from all parts of the country, and I
wish you would help us as much as you can. In the Fort Rice treaty the
Government promised to give us good horses and good wagons."

"After the 1868 treaty that we had at Fort Rice we sold all the country
east of the Missouri River and soon sold the Black Hills to the
Government, and in that treaty the Government promised us that the Sioux
Indians would be taken care of as long as there was a child living of the
Sioux tribe; and that has not been fulfilled. It was not long after that
when we had a treaty with General Crook. In that treaty we were promised
a great many things the Government did not seem to care to do. Now our
funds are almo