Bullet Proof Garments

The Ghost Dance, promising that all whites would disappear and all Indians be reborn to eternal life, spread across the western reservations.  When it reached the Dakota Sioux in 1890, they took to wearing "ghost shirts" painted with magical symbols that would turn away the bullets of any gun that attacked them. 

As the movement spread through Pine Ridge, Standing Rock, Cheyenne River and Rosebud Reservations, the Indian agents grew more and more suspicious.  A peaceful ritual that needed bullet proof garments?  The Ghost Dance seemed to be an obstacle to the white man's program to assimilate and civilize the Indian more that it was anything else.

A kind of religious frenzy developed with many Sioux abandoning their daily tasks, emptying out the schools, spending day and night dancing and chanting to the Ghost Dance.  Agents started saying  Indians were acting crazy and wild, dancing in the snow.  They asked for immediate protection and troops were send to Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations to stand ready to assist.

Valentine McGillycuddy (remember him?) saw the Ghost Dance differently.  He saw it as a harmless expression.  As a former Indian agent dispatched by the U.S. government to assess the situation, he recommended patience, allowing the dances to continue.  "The troops have frightened the Indians.  If the Mormons prepare for the second coming of their Christ, the U.S. Army is not put in motion to prevent them.  Why should the Indians not have the same privilege?" 

Few listened to McGillycuddy's warning, "If the troops remain, trouble is sure to come."

Next time...Trouble comes
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Today in Pioneer History: "On March 19, 1864, Charles Marion Russell, one of the greatest artists of the American West  in St. Louis.  During long, often tedious days watching over cattle on the open range, Russell sketched the scenes around him. In the winter, when many cowboys were unemployed, Russell lived in various frontier towns and painted pictures to pay for his food and lodging. Friends said Russell also began carrying modeling clay with him during this time, making small sculptures during his spare moments.