Casting a ripple

Me!!

My friend, I do not blame you for this. Had I listened to you this trouble would not have happened to me. I was not hostile to the white men. Sometimes my young men would attack the Indians who were their enemies and took their ponies. They did it in return. We had buffalo for food, and their hides for clothing and for our tepees. We preferred hunting to a life of idleness on the reservation, where we were driven against our will. At times we did not get enough to eat and we were not allowed to leave the reservation to hunt. We preferred our own way of living. We were no expense to the government. All we wanted was peace and to be left alone. Soldiers were sent out in the winter, they destroyed our villages. The "Long Hair" [Custer] came in the same way. They say we massacred him, but he would have done the same thing to us had we not defended ourselves and fought to the last. Our first impulse was to escape with our squaws and papooses, but we were so hemmed in that we had to fight. After that I went up on the Tongue River with a few of my people and lived in peace. But the government would not let me alone. Finally, I came back to the Red Cloud Agency. Yet, I was not allowed to remain quiet. I was tired of fighting. I went to the Spotted Tail Agency and asked that chief and his agent to let me live there in peace. I came here with the agent [Lee] to talk with the Big White Chief but was not given a chance. They tried to confine me. I tried to escape, and a soldier ran his bayonet into me. I have spoken.

Of studie took he most cure and most hede. Noght o word spak he more
than was nede, And that was seyd in forme and reverence, And short and
quik, and ful of hy sentence. Souninge in moral vertu was his speche,
And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.
  --Geoffrey Chaucer

kosmicdebris......................................







1812:

War of 1812: USS United States captured HMS Macedonian, which
later became the first British warship to be brought into an American
harbor.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_United_States_vs_HMS_Macedonian>

1944:

Heinrich Himmler ordered a crackdown on the Edelweiss Pirates,
a nonconformist youth group that assisted army deserters and others
hiding from the Nazis.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edelweiss_Pirates>

1980:

Proceedings on the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of
International Child Abduction, a multilateral treaty providing an
expeditious method to return a child taken from one member nation to
another, concluded at The Hague.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Convention_on_the_Civil_Aspects_of_International_Child_Abduction>