"
Goaded to desperation, a party of Little Crow's young "bucks," in
August, 1862, began their depredations and spilled white blood at Acton.
Returning to their chief's camp near the agency, they told their fellow
braves what they had done. The hot-headed young warriors immediately
demanded of Little Crow that he put on the "war-paint" and lead them
against the white men. The chief severely rebuked the "young men" who
had committed the murders, blackened his face (a sign of mourning),
retired to his _teepee_ and covered his head in sorrow.
His braves surrounded his tent and cut it into strips with their knives.
They threatened to depose him from the chiefship unless he immediately
put on the "war-paint" and led them against the whites. They knew that
the Civil War was then in progress, that the white men were fighting
among themselves, and they declared that now was the time to regain
their lost hunting-grounds; that now was the time to avenge the thievery
and insults of the Agents who had for years systematically cheated them
out of the greater part of their promised annuities, for which they had
been induced to part with their lands; that now was the time to avenge
the debauchery of their wives and daughters by the dissolute hangers-on
who, as employees of the Indian Agents and licensed traders, had for
years hovered around them like buzzards around the carcasses of
slaughtered buffaloes.
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