Nov 21, 2024 - Sale 2687

Sale 2687 - Lot 10

Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
(AMERICAN INDIANS.) Seneca R. Cowles. Long descriptive letters by a civilian employee of the Cheyenne Agency. 3 Autograph Letters to daughter Rosa Bingham, one of them signed; minor wear, short separations at folds. Cheyenne River Indian Agency, SD, 1871
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Seneca Roe Cowles (1828-1901) was raised in western New York and served as a major during the Civil War. After the war he went west to work as a civilian engineer with the Cheyenne River Indian Agency in South Dakota.

His 23 July 1871 letter describes the scene not long after the inauguration of the reservation era. "The Indians at the agencies as a general thing I think are disposed to be all right, and anyone connected with the agency is perfectly safe with a reasonable distance of camp. But if found far outside I would not warrant anyone's safety. There is two kind of Indians, although both belong to the Sioux nation. One kind are those that remain around the agencys and the other that stay out on the Plains and hunt for their living. The former are called friendly and the latter hostile." The friendlies "walk around camp from morning till night . . . while the hostiles are away on the hunt for what they eat, drink & wear. . . . The bucks have a dance every day, and sometimes in the evening. No squaws take any part except three or four who act as waiters in handing out water or something to eat. Their dancing is very different than ours. They have a sort of a drum that is hung on four stick drive into the ground, the head up. Around this drum sit perhaps eight or ten bucks, with each a sort of bat that they ply on the drum, and at the same time sing some kind of jargon that the party dance by. Their dancing is a kind of gimnasium performance."

On 16 October 1871, he describes a white man named Fielder who "has lived among the Indians since he was 9 years old" and is "to all intents and purposes an Indian. . . . He has seen many a white man shot down in cold blood by the Indian and he utterly helpless to render the white any ade or assistance."

His 30 December 1871 letter describes a large Christmas dance held "about five miles above here on the river" by a "half-breed French & Indian" where "the whiskey had commenced to take effect and things began to look rather squally" and "a young half breed who had lost his cap thought he could whip any man in the house, at the same time having a revolver slung to his side." Cowles describes--to his daughter--dancing with Indian women all evening and arriving home at 7 the next morning.

With--a letter of reference for Cowles by Theodore Koues as Indian Agent; 3 letters to or from Cowles, 1892-1897; and a 25-page manuscript historical essay titled "Sketch of all the Indians Tribes that Inhabited this Continent at the Commencement of the Settlement of it by the White Man."

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