VI.
ACCOUNT OF SOME OF THE OLD GRIEVANCES OF THE SIOUX.
INTERVIEW BETWEEN RED IRON, CHIEF OF THE SISSETON SIOUX, AND GOVERNOR RAMSEY, IN DECEMBER, 1852.
Claims had been set up by the Indian traders for $400,000 of the money promised to the Sioux by the treaties of 1851 and 1852. The Indians declared that they did not owe so much. Governor Ramsey endeavored to compel Red Iron to sign a receipt for it; he refused. He said his tribe had never had the goods. He asked the governor to appoint arbitrators—two white men and one Indian; it was refused. He then said that he would accept three white men as arbitrators, if they were honest men: this was refused.
An eye-witness has sketched the appearance of the chief on that occasion, and the interview between him and the governor: “The council was crowded with Indians and white men when Red Iron was brought in, guarded by soldiers. He was about forty years old, tall and athletic; about six feet high in his moccasins, with a large, well-developed head, aquiline nose, thin compressed lips, and physiognomy beaming with intelligence and resolution. He was clad in the half-military, half-Indian costume of the Dakota chiefs. He was seated in the council-room without greeting or salutation from any one. In a few minutes the governor, turning to the chief in the midst of a breathless silence, by the aid of an interpreter, opened the council.
Governor Ramsey asked: “What excuse have you for not coming to the council when I sent for you?”
The chief rose to his feet with native grace and dignity, his blanket falling from his shoulders, and purposely dropping the pipe of peace, he stood erect before the governor with his arms folded, and right hand pressed on the sheath of his scalping-knife; with firm voice he replied:
“I started to come, but your braves drove me back.”
Gov. “What excuse have you for not coming the second time I sent for you?”
Red Iron. “No other excuse than I have given you.”
Gov. “At the treaty I thought you a good man, but since you
