OCR Text |
Show 179 It was especially galling to them to have Negro troops of the Ninth Cavalry sent among them. Special Agent E. E. White was in charge at the time; he graphically describes the reaction of the Indians to the approaching black soldiers: At 12 o'clock I started on the return trip to Uintah. About half way we met five Indians coming from Uintah as fast as their ponies could carry them. As they drew near and signalled to us to stop, we saw that they had been riding hard and were greatly excited. It gave me a very painful shock. I was afraid some new trouble had occurred at Uintah. The leader was an old head man named Sour, whom Davis and I both knew to be one of the best disposed Indians on the Reservation. But he was now terribly excited. He did not wait to get nearer than a hundred yards to begin shouting: "Buffalo soldiers'. Buffalo soldiers'. Coming. Maybe so to-morrow. Indians saw them at Burnt Fort yesterday, coming this way. Don't let them come! We can't stand it! It's very bad-very bad!" . . . "You did not tell us that 'buffalo soldiers' were coming, and we did not agree for them to come. We did not think about them at all." . . ^Leaping from his pony and rushing up to me as I sat in the buggy, he rubbed his hand briskly over my black coat sleeve and then over his face and exclaimed with great vehemence in broken English: "All over black! All over black, buffalo soldiers! Injun heap no like him!!" Then rubbing his head all over withe a jerk of his hand, he almost screamed: "Woolly head! Woolly head! All same as buffalo-! What you call him, black white man? Nigger! NIGGER!!!"16 1 f\ White, op. cit., pp. 147-149, |