One hundred years ago
THE Indian rising in America is pro- ducing the usual horrible scenes. A body of one hundred and twenty war- riors, marching from the Cheyenne River, with their wives and children, towards Badlands, were surrounded by five hundred United States cavalry, and ordered to deliver up their guns. They consented, and sat down in a semi- circle, while the soldiers, at their ease, sent to the camp for the guns. The Indians, however, had them with them, hidden in the grass, and, at a signal, fired a deadly volley into their oppo- nents' ranks. The cavalry returned the fire, the Hotchkiss guns were brought into play, and the Indians broke, flying through their camp. It is believed that seventy of the braves were killed, and, according to a correspondent of the Herald, the maddened troopers, few of whom, we may remark, are born Amer- icans, slaughtered out the camp, slaying two hundred and fifty women and chil- dren. The news requires confirmation, but is only too probable; the troopers, exasperated by constant treachery and by the tortures inflicted on themselves when wounded — tortures so frightful that they are cautioned to keep one barrel in their revolvers to shoot them- selves with if captured — cease to regard the Indians as human beings at all. The officers, however, who are all trained Americans, are to blame for not preventing the massacre of children at any hazard. The women, we fancy, have weapons, and use them.
The Spectator, 3 January 1891
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