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Updated: June 8, 2025
I was face to face with the most noted war-chief of America: whose name, though new to me, was at that moment dreaded from Oregon to Arispe, from the banks of the Rio Bravo to the sierras of Alta California. It was Walker the war-chief of the Utahs the friend of the celebrated trapper, whose name he had adopted; and which, by the modification of Utah orthoepy, had become Wa-ka-ra.
So the war-chief of a little band of savages is but one of their number, whom they follow as their bravest and most wary. But when large bodies come to act together, personal selection becomes more difficult, a blinder obedience becomes necessary and can be enforced, and from the very necessities of warfare when conducted on a large scale absolute power arises.
There had been no General Council since the one at which the treaty of passage was made with the Lenni-Lenape; therefore I knew that the War-Chief had planned this sending of dark messages in advance, messages which no Young-Man-Who-Never-Turns-Back had any right to understand.
Out across the deep-green meadow we marched, the others trailing on either side with eager advice to me, or chattering of contests past, when Walter Butler and Brant he who is now war-chief of the loyal Mohawks cast hatchets for a silver girdle, which Brant wears still; and the patroon, and Sir John, and all the great folk from Guy Park were here a-betting on the Mohawk, which, they say, so angered Walter Butler that he lost the contest.
What we awaited came with the dawn, and, in the first grey pallour of the breaking day, we saw their advanced guard; Cayugas and Senecas of the fierce war-chief Hiokatoo, every Indian stripped, oiled, head shaved, and body painted for war; first a single Cayuga, scouting swiftly; then three furtive Senecas, then six, then a dozen, followed by their main body.
Having assembled to the number of a hundred or so, the chiefs held a long consultation, each talking loudly from his horse, with many gestures. After some minutes, the head war-chief declared in a high, rough voice that the man must go to the Yellow-Eyes with the peace-sign, and that they must not do anything to make the Yellow-Eyes afraid.
They were host and guest; and as if with the restlessness of his thoughts, the host arose from his seat, and passed through the porch and stood on the bleak rock under the light of the moon; and so seen, he seemed scarcely human, but some war-chief of the farthest time, yea, of a time ere the deluge had shivered those rocks, and left beds on the land for the realm of that icy sea.
On the 9th of May he passed over to Florida with four hundred selected men of his regiment, and a considerable party of Indians, headed by Molochi, son of Prim the late chief of the Creeks; Raven, war-chief of the Cherokees; and Toonahowi, nephew of Tomo Chichi. On the evening of the 10th, part of the Carolina forces arrived.
It could be but one, the only one among all the tribes who would have dared to come, and to come alone, Multnomah, the war-chief, who knew not what it was to fear the living or the dead.
And yet the great war-chief of the Brulés Sintogaliska Spotted Tail, the white man's friend, gave solemn warning not to trust the Ogallallas. "Red Cloud's heart is bad," he said. "He and his people are moving from the reservations to the mountains. They mean trouble."
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