their attention and inspire confidence. I told them that their Great Father, the President, desired to know all their griefs, in order to apply, once for all, the proper remedy. Then the two generals spoke, and gave particulars concerning their mission to the Indians; they promised that all the speeches made in the council should be faithfully transmitted to Washington and submitted to the President. Each chief, in the name of his band, showed all his mind. The council closed in the most perfect harmony, with a great feast, which all attended, big and little, old and young, and brought excellent appetites with them. I will give you hereafter some of the speeches that were improvised by the chiefs; they are models of good sense and eloquence.
June 9th, Sunday. A large number of Indians attended the divine service and instruction. The meeting was composed of whites, half-breeds and Indians of various bands. Two marriages were celebrated. The divine service was hardly ended when the head war-chief, Mazakampeska or Iron Shell, with several of his braves, presented himself in the camp and paid us his call. A council was held at
once. Iron Shell, after preambles too long to be reported here, declared " that he desired tranquillity and peace for his country; but to establish it, three conditions appeared to him absolutely necessary. First, he said, send all your soldiers out of the country; close all your public roads through the Black Hills; and prevent steamboats from coming up the Upper Missouri, so that the buffalo and other animals may not be disturbed." This was the conditio sine qua non of Mazakampeska.
General Sully made known to him " that the soldiers had been brought into the country by the massacres that had taken place in Minnesota and on the plains of the Missouri; that if these murders and massacres continued, the number of soldiers would be increased, until they would cover the country as the grasshoppers cover their fields. Bury the hatchet," added the general, " and the soldiers will return whence they came." He said further that he had come