The
Sioux, Therefore, Saw With Jealousy The American Traders Pushing
Their Way Up The Missouri; Foreseeing That The Upper Tribes Would
Thus Be Relieved From All Dependence On Them For Supplies; Nay,
What Was Worse, Would Be Furnished With Fire-Arms, And Elevated
Into Formidable Rivals.
We have already alluded to a case in which Mr. Crooks and Mr.
M'Lellan had been interrupted in a trading voyage by these
ruffians of the river, and, as it is in some degree connected
with circumstances hereafter to be related, we shall specify it
more particularly.
About two years before the time of which we are treating, Crooks
and M'Lellan were ascending the river in boats with a party of
about forty men, bound on one of their trading expeditions to the
upper tribes. In one of the bends of the river, where the channel
made a deep curve under impending banks, they suddenly heard
yells and shouts above them, and beheld the cliffs overhead
covered with armed savages. It was a band of Sioux warriors,
upwards of six hundred strong. They brandished their weapons in a
menacing manner, and ordered the boats to turn back and land
lower down the river. There was no disputing these commands, for
they had the power to shower destruction upon the white men,
without risk to themselves. Crooks and M'Lellan, therefore,
turned back with feigned alacrity, and, landing, had an interview
with the Sioux. The latter forbade them, under pain of
exterminating hostility, from attempting to proceed up the river,
but offered to trade peacefully with them if they would halt
where they were.
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