“For the present,” writes the superintendent, “it is equally important to protect the Indians from the whites as the whites from the Indians;” and this in spite of the fact that all the leading bands of the treaty Sioux had contributed warriors to go in pursuit of the murderers, had killed or captured all they could find, and stood ready to go again after the remaining eight, if the United States troops would go also and assist them. Spite of the exertions of one of the chiefs of the Lower Sioux, “Little Crow,” who, the superintendent says, labored with him “night and day in organizing the party, riding continually between the lower and upper agencies,” so that they “scarcely slept” till the war-party had set out on the track of the murderers; spite of the fact that the whole body of the Sioux, without exception, “received the intelligence with as much indignation and disapprobation as the whites themselves, and did their best to stand clear of any suspicion of or connection with the affair—spite of all this, they were in continual danger of being shot at sight by the terrified and unreasoning settlers. One band, under the chief Sleepy Eyes, were returning to their homes from a hunt; and while they were “wondering what the panic among the whites meant” (they having heard nothing of the massacre), were fired into by some of the militia volunteers.
The next day a white settler was found killed near that spot—presumably by some member of Sleepy Eyes’ band. This excitement slowly abated, and for the next four years a steady improvement was visible in the Minnesota Sioux. Hundreds of them threw aside the blanket—the distinctive badge of their wild state; schools were well attended, and farms were well tilled. That there was great hostility to this civilization, on the part of the majority of the tribe, cannot be denied; but that was only natural—the inevitable protest of a high-spirited and proud race against abandoning all its race distinctions. When we see the men of Lorraine, or of Montenegro, ready to
