Blackfoot to Crow Agency, 1873

You call the Great Spirit Jesus In your language; we call him in the Crow language E-so-we-wat-se.  I am going to light the pipe and talk to the Greit Spirit. (He lighted the pipe, and, looking up reverently, said:)

"The Great Spirit has made the red man and the white man, and sees all before Him today. Have pity upon us!  May the white man and the Indian speak truth to each other to-day.  The sun that looks down upon us today, and gives us light and heat, sees that our hearts are true, and that what we do is good for the poor red man.  The moon, that shines on its in the night-time, will see us prosper and do well.  The earth, on which we walk, from which we come, and which we love as our mother, which we love as our country, we ask thee to see that we do that which is good for us and our children.  This tobacco comes from the whites; we mix it with bark from the Indian trees and burn it together before Thee, 0 Great Spirit!  So may our hearts and the hearts of the white men go out together to Thee and be made good and right."

As he invoked the Great Spirit, the earth, &c., the pipe was reverently held in the direction of each, and, after this, was presented to the commissioners and then to the chiefs to smoke, after which ceremony Blackfoot said: "I am going to have a long talk with you. My Great Father sent our friends to see us. We see each other; that is good.  You came here last summer; we were sent for to see you. We were back of the mountains when we heard of you, but high waters and the mountains prevented our coming. You said you did not see us and you were sorry for it.  We could not come any faster.  This summer we were on this side, near the Yellowstone, where we were getting skins to make lodges.  In the fall the traders will want our robes.  We will then go over the Yellowstone to Judith's Basin to hunt.  Since I was a boy I recollect that is what the Crows always did.  When the Crows meet a friend they always give him something; so we do with you.  You say you have a book that tells about the Great Spirit.  We always give the Great Spirit something.  I think that is good.  We see the sun, we give him something; and the moon and the earth, we give them something.  We beg them to take pity on us.  The sun and moon look at us, and the ground gives us food.  Yon come and see us, and that is why we give you something. We are men like each other; our religion is different from yours.

The old folks are dying off; then who will own the land?  I went to Fort Laramie; the old Indians signed the treaty.

We came back to the camp and told the young men and they said we had done wrong and they did not want to have anything to do with it.  They said, "We love the Great Father, and hold on to the hands of our white friend. All theiother Indian tribes fight the whites ; we do not do so. We love the whites, and we want them to leave us a big country."

All the other Indians go and talk with the Great Father.  You take them to Washington; they are bad; they hide their hearts; but they talk good to the Great Father, and you do more for them than for us.  This I want to tell you; yesterday you spoke to us and we listened to you.  If you wish to have peace with all the Indians get them all together and make peace with them.  Then I will make peace with them, too.

The Great Spirit made these mountains and rivers for us, and all this land.  We were told so, and when we go down the river hunting for food we come back here again.  We cross over to the other river, and we think it is good.  Many years ago the buffalo got sick and died, and Mr. Maldron gave us annuity goods, and since then they have given us something every year.

The guns you gave us we do not point at the whites.  We do not shoot our white friends.  We are true when we look in your face.  On our hands is no white man's blood.  When you give us ems to go and fight the Sioux we fight them to keep our lands from them.  When we raise our camp and go for buffalo some white men go with us; they see what we are doing; they see that we jump over the places that are bloody.  On the other side of the river below, there are plenty of buffalo; on the mountains are plenty of elk and black-tail deer; and white-tail deer are plenty at the foot of the mountain.  All the streams are full of beaver.  In the Yellowstone River the whites catch trout; there are plenty of them.  The white men give us food; we know nothing about it.  Do not be in a hurry; when we are poor, we will tell you of it.

At Laramie we went to see the commissioners.  Now commissioners come to see us, and we listen to what you say.  The commissioners told us at Laramie if we remained good friends of the whites we would be taken care of for forty years.  Since we made that treaty it is only five years.  You are in a hurry to quit giving us food.  I am a young man yet, my teeth are all good.  They told us at Laramie we would get food till we were old, and our children after us.  This is not the place for the agency, on this point of rocks.  We would like to know who built the agency here.  They told us they would give us our food.  They promised to send a good agent and good traders, and if they were not good they would be taken away.  Pease never treated us wrong. The young men and the children he always, treated right; all that was sent for us he gave us; he was not a thief; he treated us well, and we do not want him to go away from us.

On Sheep Mountain white men come; they are my friends; they marry Crow women, they have children with them; the men talk Crow.  When we come from hunting we get off at their doors, and they give us some-thing to eat. We like it.  We raised Shane, (the interpreter,) he was a boy when he came here.  You ask us what we have to say, and that is what we tell you.  Here is the doctor when our people are sick, he doctors them. He has two children by a Crow woman; we like him.

Here are our traders; when we go huntingthey give us ammunition; they gave me a revolver to kill buffalo. We do not know anything about Cross, (a new trader;) we do not know his face. We want the soldiers at Ellis to take the part of the Crows.  When they come hero to see the giving of annuity goods we give them robes to take with them, and when they hear bad talk about the Crows, we want them to speak well of us.  When we camp here some of the whites run off with our horses into the mountains.  We know about it, but we do not say anything.  We have a strong heart, as firm as a rock, and we say nothing about it, but you want to hear what we have to say and I tell you.  In Gallatin Valley the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and Sioux made a raid and the people blamed the Crows with it.  We want them to quit speaking bad about us.

On the Missouri River the whites have married into all the different Indian tribes.  Their brothers-in-law, the white men, come here and steal our horses.  We follow them and find who have them.  Some of the Crows, went to the Missouri River and got some Crow horses.  The white people sent word they were their horses and we sent them all back.  We claim our horses, but they are not brought back.

When we set up our lodge-poles, one reaches to the Yellowstone; the other is on White River; another one goes to Wind River; the other lodges on the Bridger Mountains. This is our land, and so we told the commissioners at Fort. Laramie; but all kinds of white people come over it, and we tell you of it, though we say nothing to them.  On this side of the Yellowstone there is a lake; about it are buffalo.  It is a rich country; the whites are on it; they are stealing our quartz; it is ours, but we say nothing to them.  The whites steal a great deal of our money.  We do not want them to go into our country.  We would like needle-guns to get game and fight the Sioux this we tell you.