1883 Delegations
President:
Chester A. Arthur
Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1883:
Hiram Price (May 6, 1881 – March 27, 1885)
Jan. 2, 1883: Evening Star: [Dakota: Oglala]
Red Cloud’s Grievance.—Red Cloud, accompanied by Laramie, his interpreter, called at the Interior department this forenoon and had a short interview with Secretary Teller. Commissioner Price was also present at the interview. Red Cloud’s grievance, so far as unfolded in the interview to-day, is that General Crook took about 100 good ponies from his tribe in 18[76?], and Red Cloud now asks the department to pay him $10,000 for the animals. The matter will be investigated at the department, and if the claim is a just one, and the government has not already paid Red Cloud’s people for the horses it will be allowed. In his interview to-day Red Cloud made no allusion whatever to Agent McGillycuddy or his transactions among the Sioux. He will have another interview with Secretary Teller, probably within a few days, by which time it is thought he may have other grievances to present.
[NOTE: There are perhaps a 100 news stories around the US about Red Cloud wanting to be paid for the horses. Most read pretty much as this one does, and as such, they have not been copied. In addition there are many news stories about Red Cloud and O. C. Marsh in New Haven, Conn. Most of these have not been copied (exceptions being those that mention photography) as they are not delegation related.]
Jan. 4, 1883: Evening Star: [Dakota: Oglala]
Red Cloud’s Mission East.
What commissioner Price Says.
“Where is Red Cloud now?” asked The Star reporter of Indian Commissioner Price to-day.
“He has gone to Carlisle to see the school. He wanted to go there, and we thought it would be a good thing for him to see the schools. He represents a large and powerful ribe, and has considerable influence with them, and it is important for him to understand that the young Indians must be educated and absorbed with the white population or else extermination will probably be their fare. A visit to this city will have a beneficial effect in other ways on Red Cloud.
“Is he coming back to this city?” continued the reporter.
“I expect that he will come back to-morrow or Saturday, and then start home next week. He has a new suit of clothes and seems to be in good spirits.”
Jan. 4, 1883: Augusta Chronicle: [Dakota: Oglala]
Letter from Baltimore
(From a Staff Correspondent.)
Baltimore, January 1, 1883. … [on board a ship going to Baltimore]
The most noted personage on the boat was Red Cloud, the famous chief of the Dakota Sioux. At the Philadelphia Centennial there was a very life-like figure of this savage, with his tribal costume and war paint on. A more striking and picturesque apparition than this could hardly be presented. But the Red Cloud of to-day is almost ludicrously changed. A big, unshapely black felt hat displaced the eagle feathers on his head. A rough overcoat flapped around and concealed his sinewy limbs of bronze. Heavy brogans were substituted for light moccasons [sic] on his feet. Instead of a tomahawk or rifle his grim hand toyed with a toothpick. He must be about 60 years of age, but is still erect and stalwart. His long hair, is densely black and abundant. His features have the pronounced aquiline stamp of the pure-blooded Indian, and though his complexion is of a yellow parchment-like hue, it has that distinct tinge of red which the half-breed interpreter lacked. In his civilized attire and solemn aspect, this renowned chief looked like a caricature of some swarthy church deacon. A closer inspection revealed a diabolical leer and anything but a sanctimonious eye. I have no doubt that the hand trifling with the little bamboo toothpick has torn many a scalp from heads of fallen foes, and that listless arm has crashed its relentless war-club into many a luckless skull. In looking at the old savage, so still and harmless now, I recalled the Byronic description of Lambro, the Greek pirate, who was “The mildest mannered man Who ever sca….or cut a throat.”
Red Cloud had…on a visit to some youthful members of his tribe who are at school near Old Point, and he was on a way to look after some other young Sioux upon whom civilizing experiments are being tried at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. I am told that these Indian boys pick up considerable book learning, but soon return to wild ways. One of the difficulties is to get them to wear pantaloons like white children. The little savages insist on cutting out huge pieces front and back! They want air, they say!
The fat, chatty half-breed interpreter, for all the world, like Coquelicot in ‘Olivette,’ laughed and talked considerably with Gen. Townsend and others; but Red Cloud sat in moody, dignified silence. He appeared to be keeping up what some reprobates call ‘a devil of a thinking.’ Only once did his iron features unlock themselves and ‘grin horribly a ghostly [ghastly?] smile,’ and that was at the antics of a monkey brought on board by a gentlemen who must have been hard up for a pet. The dis….[illeg. and missing]
Jan. 4, 1883: Weekly Expositor [Yale, Michigan]: [Dakota: Oglala]
The famous Indian chief Red Cloud and his interpreter have arrived in Washington. The efforts of the reporters to obtain an interview were futile.
Jan. 10, 1883: Evening Star: [Dakota: Oglala]
Red Cloud returned to the city last evening from the Carlisle school, and will have an interview with the Secretary of the Interior to-morrow, and in a few days will leave for home.
Jan. 19, 1883: Evening Star: [Dakota: Oglala; Chickasaw]
Red Cloud at a Reception. –At a reception given at the residence of Dr. T. A. Bland last evening Red Cloud was present and made a speech. Speeches were also made by Mr. Alonzo Bell, Hon. H. L. Humphreys (Wis.), Hon. C. H. Brumm (Pa.), Mr. Hawurth, inspector of Indian schools; Rev. Dr. Hicks, Rev. Dr. Domer, Hon. Isaac T. Gibson, Miss Hulda H. Bonneill (Philadelphia), Mr. Anderson, of the Chickasaw delegation, and Miss Fannie Kelley, the ex-captive.
Jan. 20, 183: Philadelphia Inquirer: [Dakota: Oglala]
The Gallows.
Young Murderer Hanged in Washington Yesterday.
Washington, Jan. 19.—Charles Shaw, a negro boy, was hanged here to-day on the Guiteau gallows for the murder of his sister, Susan Ann Carter.
On the night of Sunday, January 16, 1881, Shaw called at the house of his sister and told her husband that his (Shaw’s) grandmother was very ill and would like to see his sister. Carter went after his wife and brought her to Shaw. A basket was then filled with provisions, and Shaw, in company with his sister, took a street car to Uniontown, across the eastern branch of the Potomac. After leaving the car they walked along Insane Asylum road until they reached a ravine at Oxen Hill, near the National Race Course. The boy then fell behind, and, without giving his sister a minute’s warning, picked up a large stone and struck her a terrible blow on the back of the head, felling her to the ground. He then rifled her pockets, but only got a small amount of money.
Red Cloud, the Sioux chief, witnessed the execution from the window of a cell overlooking the gallows.
Jan. 22, 1883: New Haven Register: [Dakota: Oglala]
He Faces the Camera. Red Cloud is Photographed.
A Session of Nearly Two Hours this Morn’ng at Bowman’s Gallery—the Sioux Chief an Easy Subject in the Operator’s Hands—How he was Otherwise Entertained.
The first incident of to-day’s sight-seeing in town of Red Cloud, the eminent Sioux chief, now visiting Prof. Marsh in this city, was a visit to Bowman’s photograph gallery. Red Cloud will leave for Washington at 9:40 o’clock to-morrow morning. This evening he will spend quietly at Prof. Marsh’s residence, receiving no visitors. Yesterday he had nearly one hundred visitors, among the number being Mayor Lewis, ex-Governor Bigelow, and Professors Eaton, Trowbridge, Farnam, Weit and other members of the college faculty. The chief made a short address to his guests in his native tongue. According to the interpretation given his remarks by Mr. Laramie, he said he had never been treated with more courtesy and kindness than he was receiving in New Haven, and that upon his return to his own people he should not fail to tell them of the pleasant attentions bestowed upon him. At the mayor’s suggestion it was arranged that Red Cloud should visit the city hall this afternoon and also go to one of the engine houses to see the workings of the fire department.
The Sioux chief with his interpreter and Professor Marsh arrived at the photographic establishment at 10:30 o’clock. The subordinates of the place were in a pleasant state of excitement over Red Cloud’s visit. They had only a short view of the party however, to fill the measure of their curiosity, as Prof. Marsh hurried Red Cloud upstairs to the studio. No outsiders were permitted to enter while they were there, even a brother professor of Mr. Marsh being compelled to wait downstairs until the sitting was over. It lasted from 10:30 until 12:15 o’clock. Eight or ten sittings were had. Red Cloud posed in a number of postures—full length and half length, full face and side views—and several impressions of the party as a group were taken. In one of the group pictures Red Cloud, Prof. Marsh and his interpreter were represented as smoking clay pips in a state of perfect amity, according to the Indian idea.
“How did you get on with your strange customer?” as asked of Mr. Bowman.
“Splendidly” said he. “I took him individually and the group collectively in almost every posture that could be thought of. I feared that Red Cloud would be a difficult subject to handle, but he was not. On the contrary, he was much more patient and civilized than the ordinary customer which we have to deal with. If I told him through his interpreter to stand in a certain position, he would stand there as rigid and immovable as a post until his interpreter gave him the word to move. Through the whole ordeal he showed a spirit of the utmost patience, and only seemed anxious to do what I wanted him to do. I imagine he would still be standing in certain positions in which he had been placed, provided he had not been given permission or notice to move. As stoical and expressionless as he was in his ordinary demeanor, I noticed that he was very quick to obey any look or gesture that I gave for his guidance. He always responded by fixing his look on the place indicated and in doing so looked at me with a half-smile and a peculiar expression of intelligence. It said as plain as anything could, that he knew what I wanted him to do, and was very much pleased to know that he had succeeded in doing it.”
None of the negatives taken were shown to the chief, as he was in a hurry to quit the gallery on account of the numerous other engagements which he was expected to fill before evening. “We have more places to visit,” said Prof. Marsh, “than we can possibly cover. The sitting at the gallery has taken an unexpectedly long time although not longer than was natural in view of the business done. I did not care to have reporters or any outsiders in the gallery for fear that their presence would disconcert Red Cloud, who is really quite nervous, although you would not judge so from his appearance. He has faced the camera but once before [this trip]—in Washington—and was not at all inclined to sit to-day. He only did so because I was anxious to have him. We have to go to Winchester’s armory yet, to the college buildings again, to the city hall and a number of other places in case we have time. And so you will have to excuse us,” continued the professor as he led Red Cloud to the Art school to look at some of the drawings and works of art that depicted scenes in the Indian country.
Previously, the reporter interviewed Red Cloud, through his interpreter, regarding the Indian chiefs from Michigan who have been on exhibition in Berlin with a theatrical troupe, and were supposed to have been lost in the steamer Cimbria, which was lost on Saturday in the German ocean. The chiefs were registered as Red Jacket, Little Cheyenne, Crowfoot, Blackbird, Chippeway and Sunshine. Red Cloud shook his head very gravely when these names were suggested to him.
“He don’t know any of them,” said the interpreter after a confab with Red Cloud. “They must have belonged to the Cheyennes, while Red Cloud is a Sioux. He probably knows about some of the Cheyenne chiefs, but these names are all new to him.”
Professor March, when appealed to, said that the original Red Jacket died about twenty years ago. “there may have been a successor with the same name, but I never heard of him. Possibly the persons mentioned in the newspaper dispatches as chiefs are not chiefs at all, or of very small caliber at the best. It would be easy enough for those who are exhibiting them on the stage to give them fanciful names such as really never belonged to them. The fact that Red Cloud never heard of them looks very much as if this is the case.
After a second visit to the Art school and the Peabody museum—going successively to those places from Bowman’s gallery—Red Cloud was taken to the Winchester armory. [The rest of his activities that day have not been copied]
Jan. 22, 1883: Critic Record [Wash., DC]: [Dakota: Oglala]
Red Cloud will return to the city to-morrow. On Wednesday [Jan. 24] he will be entertained on the steamer Fishhawk.
Jan. 24, 1883: Cincinnati Commercial Tribune: [Dakota: Oglala]
The Indian Chief Red Cloud was present at the execution of Shaw, in Washington, and was so favorably impressed with the summary way of snuffing out life, which he considered ‘heap better’ than the Indian method of scalping, that he determined to petition Secretary Teller for a supply of scaffolds. He looks upon the scaffold as Voltaire did upon the gibbet, as an evidence of civilization, and as one of the many agencies for elevating the Indians.
Jan. 24, 1883: St. Albans Daily Messenger [St. Albans, Vt.]: [Dakota: Oglala]
If a civilized hanging is too much even for a red Indian, a savage from the plains, it ought to be about time for the states and the federal government to investigate the propriety of substituting some less revolting method of punishing malefactors. “Red Cloud,” the celebrated Sioux chief, was one of the spectators of the execution in Washington, and it made him sick. An execution in this city also caused severe vomiting.—Hartford Times]
Jan. 24, 1883: Worcester Daily Spy: [Dakota: Oglala]
A large reception was given Red Cloud, the Sioux chief, at New Haven, Monday [Jan. 22] evening, at the residence of Prof. Marsh, his entertainer. Prof. Porter and family, and other members of the college faculty, Judge Luzon B. Morris, Hon. N. D. Sperry, Eli Whitney, and other distinguished citizens, were presented. Red Cloud was photographed Monday for the second time, the first having been at Washington on his visit there. About a dozen sittings were had, and he patiently posed at the request of the artist. He visited the Winchester armory, and was much interested at the sight of so many rifles. A public reception was held in the city in the afternoon. He left for Washington, Tuesday [Jan. 23].
Jan. 25, 1883: Critic Record [Wash., DC]: [Dakota: Oglala]
Entertaining Red Cloud.
Chief Red Cloud, accompanied by his interpreter, Mr. Ed. Laramie, a halfbreed, nephew of the late Governor Laramie, Dr. T. A. Bland, of the council Fire, and Miss Hulda Bonwill, of Philadelphia, a Quaker lady of distinction, dined with Captain Wood and other officers of the steamer Fishhawk, on board that vessel, yesterday afternoon. The chief manifested great interest in the specimens of deep sea animals shown him by the medical officer of the steamer, Dr. Kite, and listened with profound attention to the history of the work of the Fish Commission. After dinner the party visited the Albatross, which is lighted by the Edison electric light. Chief Red Cloud listened with curious interest to the explanations given of how this light is produced, and, altogether, seemed to greatly enjoy his visit. On being asked if he would like to become a sailor, he replied, with a shake of the head, I should be afraid of falling into the sea and being drowned.”
Jan. 31, 1883: Evening Star: [Dakota: Oglala]
Washington News and Gossip.
Among the Callers at the White House to-day were Senators Jones (Fla.), Dawes, Blair, Sawyer, Harris, McPherson, Logan, Hale, McMillan and Camden Representatives Chace, Anderson, Petitibone, Ray, Morey, Schultz, Taylor, McKinley, Butterworth, Converse, Miller, Thompson, Pierce and W. A. Wood, and Secretary Teller accompanied by Red Cloud and his interpreter.
Feb. 5, 1883: Critic Record [Wash., DC]: [Dakota: Oglala]
Red Cloud Trips the Light Fantastic.
Grand Army Hall, corner of Seventh and L streets northwest, was crowded last Tuesday evening with merry maskers, the occasion being that of the second masquerade soiree given by and under the direction of Mr. F. M. Proctor, who understands how to make such affairs agreable to all participants. Quite a feature of the evening was the appearance of the noble Sioux chief, Red Cloud, who stated that this was his first appearance upon a ballroom floor. He had for his partner that little lady, Mrs. Mifflin, who catered to the enjoyment of the noble red man in her most agreeable manner, and made him feel perfectly at home. Among the maskers were noticed Mr. and Mrs. F. M. Proctor, Mr. and Mrs. Rhodes, Mr. and Mrs. Clarvee, Mr. and Mrs. Water, Mr. and Miss Brooks, Mr. and Mrs. S. F. Sparke, Mrs. Mifflin, Misses Noonin, Donaldson, Lamb, Lulu Sherman, Jennie Chandler, Mamie Gunnel, Ida Tomlinson, Lon Thomas, Marion Proctor, Stringer, Clara Boswell, Sadie Pruet, Maud Martin, Maggie Burkhard, the Misses George, Messrs. Will C. martin, B. oden, J. Gier, William Spindler, Frank Burkhard and many others. Mr. Proctor, as a caterer to the wants and enjoyment of his friends, deserves great credit for his efforts, and we trust that it will not be long before we may have the pleasure of once more attending an entertainment under such able and gentlemanly management.
Feb. 24, 1883: Evening Star: [Dakota: Oglala]
Red Cloud, chief of the Ogalalla Sioux, left Washington for his western home this morning. [wants paying for horses taken by Crook]
March 8, 1883: New York Tribune: [Chickasaw, Choctaw]
An Indian Delegation.—A delegation consisting of one Chickasaw and two Choctaw Indians from the Indian Territory arrived at the Interior Department this morning, and is waiting an opportunity to confer with the Secretary of the Interior. The object of the visit of these Indians, it is conjectured, has reference to their lands.
March 8, 1883: Evening Star: [Chippewa]
The Chippewa Indian Delegation from Minnesota, which has been in the city for the past few days, called upon the President this morning and made a protest against the depredations upon the pine forest of their reservation by lumbermen.
March 8, 1883: Daily Nonpareil [Council Bluffs, Iowa]: [Chippewa]
Indian Delegation.
A delegation of Chippewa Indians from Minnesota has arrived for the purpose of making complaint to the secretary of the interior in regard to the unauthorized cutting of timber by whites on their reservation.
March 12, 1883: Critic Record [Wash., D.C.]: [Chippewa]
The Chippewa Indian delegation had an interview with Secretary Teller this morning.
March 15, 1883: Weekly Democratic Statesman [Austin, Texas]: [Chippewa; Chickasaw; Choctaw]
Our Washington Letter.
Washington, March 9.
To the Editor of the Statesman:
A delegation of Chippewa Indians.
From the Red Lake agency, Minnesota, headed by the renowned Ignatius Tomasin, has just come to Washington for the purpose of making complaint to the secretary of the interior with regard to the unauthorized cutting of timber by white men on their reservation. They represent that these depredations are becoming more and more serious and extensive, and if not stopped will utterly ruin that portion of their reservation which is still wooded. They also informed the venerable mr. Price, the Indian commissioner, that they were perfectly satisfied with their present land and did not wish to be removed. Another delegation consisting of one Chickasaw and two Choctaw Indians, from the Indian Territory, have also arrived in the federal capital, with a volume of grievances to annoy the wise men of the interior department. The latter gang have not as yet laid bare their trouble, but there is no doubt but what it relates to the encroachments of the pale face upon their sacred soil.
It is extremely amusing to see an Indian delegation at the interior department. They are invariably clad in the raiment of their native haunts in the west, and their wild and ludicrous appearance, as they move through the corridors of the building towards Commissioner Price’s office, always attracts a large crowd of clerks, visitors and workmen about the department. The red men object to the curiosity of the crowd and act as if they feared an attack would be made upon them. On several occasions, while on a visit to Price, desperate young bloods in a delegation, have showed their arms and made it necessary to dispense with the white hangers-on and call in assistance to guard against a savage outbreak. [portion edited out – irrelevant]… While in Washington the Indian delegations generally stop at one of the down town hotels. Frequently before they leave they adopt the ways of civilization and appear on the streets in the full costume of the white man. Now that congress has adjourned activity has commenced in the various great Departments of the Government.
NOTE: No stories located in DC late 1883 in re Apache delegation which is here early 1884.