is all that I have to tell. If we told you more, you would not pay any attention to it. This part of the country does not belong to your people. You belong on the other side, this side belongs to us.”
The Crow, shaking hands, and embracing Colonel McLeod, and shaking hands with the other British officers, said: “This is the way I will live in this part of the country. * * * These people that don't hide anything, they are all the people I like. * * * Sixty-four years ago I shook hands with the soldiers, and ever since that I have had hardships. I made peace with them; and ever since then I have been running from one place to another to keep out of their way. * * * Go to where you were born, and stay there. I came over to this country, and my Great Mother knows all about it. She knows I came over here, and she don't wish anything of me. We think, and all the women in the camp think, we are going to have the country full of people. * * * I have come back in this part of the country again to have plenty more people, to live in peace, and raise children.”
The Indians then inquired whether the commission had anything more to say, and the commission answered that they had nothing more to say, and the conference closed.
The commission, with a naïve lack of comprehension of the true situation of the case, go on to say that “they are convinced that Sitting Bull and the bands under him will not seek to return to this country at present. It is believed that they are restrained from returning,” partly by their recollection of the severe handling they had by the military forces of the United States in the last winter and spring, and partly “by their belief that, for some reason which they cannot fathom, the Government of the United States earnestly desires that they shall return. * * * In their intense hostility to our Government, they are determined to contravene its wishes to the best of their ability.” It would seem so—even to the extent of foregoing all the privileges offered them on their return—the giving up of all weapons—the exchanging of their horses for cows—and the priceless privilege of being shut up on reservations, off which they could not go without being pursued, arrested, and brought back by troops. What a depth of malignity must be in the breasts of these Indians, that to gratify it they will voluntarily relinquish all these benefits, and continue to remain in a country where they must continue to hunt, and make their own living on the unjust plan of free trade in open markets!
