Three Years on the Plains: Observations of Indians, 1867-1870

Angebote / Angebote:

History has its heroes and its villains, but most of all, it has its witnesses. As the post chaplain at Fort D. A. Russell in Wyoming Territory from 1867 to 1870, the Reverend Edmund B. Tuttle was an eyewitness to the evolving relationship between the U.S. military and the American Indians on the northern high plains, particularly the Sioux and the Cheyennes. In 1873, he wrote about the events he had experienced, both historic and commonplace, during his time at the fort.Tuttle knew personally many of the individuals involved in the various Indian-Anglo conflicts during the 1860s. His writings furnish new information on the military occupation of the Bozeman Trail and on the Fetterman fight of 1866, when Sioux and Cheyenne Indians defeated and killed Captain Fetterman and eighty men. Tuttle's book also includes more peaceful events, such as Oglala Sioux chief Red Cloud's visit to New York City and the 1868 peace negotiations at Fort Laramie. Tuttle even reproduces the translations of American Indian testimony given at the various meetings between Indian leaders and military and government officials.Tuttle's writings are filled with indispensable details about frontier life and American Indian customs. He describes the particular tool used by an Indian woman for buffalo tanning, for example, and specifies the technique used by an American Fur Company trader to rig the scale at Fort Laramie.