It was never a matter of surprise to me that the Cheyennes, whose corn-fields were once upon the Belle Fourche, the stream which runs around the hills on the north side, should have become frenzied by the report that these lovely valleys were to be taken from them whether they would or no. In the summer of 1876 the Government sent a commission, of which Senator William B. Allison, of Iowa, was chairman, and the late Major-General Alfred H. Terry, a member, to negotiate with the Sioux for the cession of the Black Hills, but neither Sioux nor Cheyennes were in the humor to negotiate. There appeared to be a very large element among the Indians which would sooner have war than peace; all sorts of failures to observe previous agreements were brought up, and the advocates of peace were outnumbered. One day it looked very much as if a general _mêlée_ was about to be precipitated. The hostile element, led by “Little Big Man,” shrieked for war, and “Little Big Man” himself was haranguing his followers that that was as good a moment as any to begin shooting. The courage and coolness of two excellent officers, Egan and Crawford, the former of the Second, the latter of the Third Cavalry, kept the savages from getting too near the Commissioners: their commands formed line, and with carbines at an “advance” remained perfectly motionless, ready to charge in upon the Indians should the latter begin an attack. Egan has often told me that he was apprehensive lest the accidental discharge of a carbine or a rifle on one side or the other should precipitate a conflict in which much blood would surely be shed. Egan has been many years dead—worn out in service—and poor Crawford was killed by Mexican irregular troops at the moment that he had surprised and destroyed the village of the Chiricahua Apache chief “Geronimo,” in the depths of the Sierra Madre, Mexico. Much of our trouble with these tribes could have been averted, had we shown what would appear to them as a spirit of justice and fair dealing in this negotiation. It is hard to make the average savage comprehend why it is that as soon as his reservation is found to amount to anything he must leave and give up to the white man. Why should not Indians be permitted to hold mining or any other kind of land? The whites could mine on shares or on a royalty, and the Indians would soon become workers in the bowels of the earth. The right to own and work mines was conceded to the Indians by the Crown of Spain, and the result was beneficial to both races. In 1551, the Spanish Crown directed that “Nadie los impidiese que pudiesem tomar minas de Oro, i Plata i beneficiarlas como hacian los Castellanos.”—_Herrera, Decade, VIII., lib. 8, cap. 12, p. 159._ The policy of the American people has been to vagabondize the Indian, and throttle every ambition he may have for his own elevation; and we need not hug the delusion that the savage has been any too anxious for work, unless stimulated, encouraged, and made to see that it meant his immediate benefit and advancement.