Uncle Sam, Trustee
a few favored chiefs, every treaty or agreement since 1868 with any of the numerous Sioux tribes has been compelled to exhibit the signatures of three-fourths of the adult males concerned. If one wonders how an Indian treaty happened to contain a provision so sweeping, so certain in its meaning, and wholly without the usual convenient loophole, "at the discretion of the President," or some other authority vested in the party of the first part,—a trick that has let the force out of nearly every Indian treaty,—he should remember that in 1868 the Sioux nation could muster as many warriors as the whole United States army was able to send against them; the settlements of the great Northwest, the Union Pacific railroad,—then building,—and at times even the army itself, were at the mercy of such powerful chiefs as Spotted Tail, and Red Cloud, made desperate by what they regarded as the invasion of their country, and the extinction of their game. The treaty of Fort Laramie was no one-party affair; but even under the stern necessity of securing protection for the frontier and the cessation of hostilities, it is to be doubted whether this covenant would have found a place in the treaty without some undermining provision attached, had its lasting import been fully realized.
Coming at once to the events directly concerned in this discussion, in the summer of 1901 United States Indian Inspector James McLaughlin negoti-
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