SPOTTED TAIL'S SPEECH.



  LITTLE WOUND :-I always considered that when the Great
Father borrowed the country for the overland road that he made
an arrangement with us that was to last fifty years as payment
for that privilege, and yesterday another arrangement was men-
tioned concerning the Black Hills, and the words that I heard
from the Great Father and from the commissioners from the
Great Council made me cry. The country upon which I am
standing is the country upon which I was born, and upon which
I heard that it was the wish of the Great Father and of the Great
Council that I should be like a man without a country. I shed
tears. I wish that the chief men among you that have come here
to see me would help me, and would chance those things that do
not suit me.
  Spotted Tail Agency. SPOTTED TAIL:-My friends that have
come here to see me; you have brought to us words from the
Great Father at Washington, and I have considered them now
for seven days, and have made up my mind. This is the fifth
time that you have come. At the time of the first treaty that
was made on Horse Creek-the one we call the " great treaty "
-there was provision nade to borrow the overland road of the
Indians, and promises made at the time of the treaty, though I
was a boy at the time; they told me it was to last fifty years.
These promises have not been kept. All the words have proved
to be false. The next conference was the one held with Gen.
Manydear, when there were no promises made in particular, nor
for any amount to be given to us, but we had a conference with
him and made friends and shook hands. Then after that there
was a treaty made by Gen. Sherman. He told us we should have
annuities and goods from that treaty for thirty-five years. He
said this, but yet he didn't tell the truth. He told me the
country was mine, and that I should select any place I wished
for my reservation and live in it. My friends, I will show you
well his words to-day. * * * I see that my friends before me
are men of age and dignity. I think that each of you have
selected somewhere a good piece of land for himself, with the
intention of living on it, that he may there raise up his children.
My people, that you see here before you, are not different; they
also live upon the earth and upon the things that come to them
from above.
  My friends, this seems to me to be a very hard day, and we
have come upon very difficult times. This war did not spring up



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