There is an anecdote
told concerning Major General Sheridan during his campaign against the Indians.
Comanche Chief Silver Knife reputedly told Sheridan in 1869, "Me good
Indian," to which Sheridan replied, "The only good Indians I ever saw
were dead." This was then morphed
as "The only good Indian is a dead Indian".
Bury
my Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown, 1970, Excerpts
Robert Bent [half
breed], witness testimony, Cheyenne Camp, 1864:
When the troops
fired, the Indians ran, some of the men into their lodges, probably to get
their arms. I think there were six hundred Indians in all. I think there were
thirty-five braves and some old men, about sixty in all, the rest of the men
were away from camp hunting. After the firing the warriors put the squaws and
children together, and surrounded them to protect them. I saw five squaws under
a bank for shelter. When the troops came up to them they ran out and showed
their persons to let the soldiers know they were squaws and begged for mercy,
but the soldiers shot them all. I saw one squaw lying on the bank whose leg had
been broken by a shell; a soldier came up to her with a drawn saber; she raised
her arm to protect herself, when he struck , breaking her arm; she rolled over
and raised her other arm, when he struck , breaking it, and then left her
without killing her. There seemed to be indiscriminate slaughter of men, women,
and children. There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for
protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag
on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed.
All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed. The squaws offered no
resistance. Everyone I saw was scalped. I saw one squaw cut open with an unborn
child. I saw the body of White Antelope with the privates cut off, and I heard
a soldier say he was going to make a tobacco pouch out of them. I saw a little
girl about five years of age who had been hid in the sand; two soldiers
discovered her, drew their pistols and shot her, and then pulled her out of the
sand by the arm. I saw quite a number of infants in arms killed with their
mothers.
General Philip Sheridan, Sheridan Circle in Washington, D.C,
sculpted by Gutzon Borglum, 1908
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