A Different Version of the Sioux Camp Invasion: Bears Belly

Bear's Belly and Strikes Two tell a quite different version of this story . As the white soldiers left to tell Custer of their findings, the Indian scouts traveled closer and investigated further. There were no sightings of any Dakota, but a campfire remained lit and what looked like evidence of fresh kills near it. Dried meat hung around the campfire. Several horses were outside of the camp grazing on the prairie.

The scouts knew the Dakota were still there and were few compared to their party, but they appeared to be out hunting and unaware they were found at this time. There were woods nearby where the Dakota most likely were engaged in hunting and gathering at the time. The scouts returned to their overlook and waited for orders on what to do next. When Custer and his men arrived, three parties of Indian scouts were formed. One party was to surround the Dakota camp, while the other two were told to attack.

Custer came upon his scouts who had attacked a lone teepee set up as a decoy in the area. Custer rode upon them, admonishing them for stopping and disobeying his orders as they investigated. Custer was angry enough to hint at cowardliness in them and said, “If any man of you is not brave, I will take away his weapons and make a woman of him,” to which one of the scouts shot back, “Tell him if he does the same to all his white soldiers who are not so brave as we are, it will take him a very long time indeed," (Libby 121-122). The banter was one of silliness and respect, proving to one another that they were in it together and would fight without discord.

Strikes Two, an Arikara scout, was given the lead of one war party that attacked the camp from one side. Bear’s Belly was given another party that swung around to attack from the opposite end. As the sound of horses charging and the Arikara yelling filled the valley where the camp was, women and children poured out of the teepees, and one naked male warrior came out screaming, holding his gun above his head. Bear's Belly quickly identified that many in the Sioux camp weren't warriors. Most seemed underdressed, unaware, and surprised at the attack, lacking the necessary resources typical for the Dakota.

A couple of boys had attempted to run away while wearing a yellow blanket and carrying a fish with them, but they dropped the blanket and fell to the ground in surrender, terrified and crying. Some women tried to flee into the woods, a typical tactic as the Dakota and other Indian tribes in the area often protected their women or children from battle by hiding them in the woodland areas surrounding a given battlefield.

There were times when women did take part in the fighting, killing other soldiers and Indians as battle and wartime necessitated. Yet, when the Dakota went into battle, as well as other Indian tribes, they would often send their women and children away from camp if the fight was close by to avoid any unnecessary loss of human life. Bear's Belly and the other scouts yelled after the women to return to their tipis instead of fleeing to the woods.

Bear’s Belly and the others quickly found out there wouldn’t be much of a fight as the scouts continued their invasion of the camp. The only man in camp was naked and had a gun that didn’t work; there was no hammer in the weapon, rendering it useless for anything other than bludgeoning. The naked man surrendered. He walked into his tipi and grabbed a pipe to signal he wanted to smoke to make peace with the invading warriors.

Custer entered the camp once the all clear was sounded and spoke with the man through an interpreter. He then told the naked warrior and the women and children in the camp that they were all now his prisoners and that they would join Custer's party. These Dakota were not warriors but were now captives of Custer. A white soldier was ordered to remain in the camp with the Dakota to oversee them. Another white soldier was ordered to observe them on an overlooking hill as they packed up camp to join Custer's party.

Pretty soon, three more Dakota men who had left earlier to go hunting arrived. These Dakota men spoke to those who had captured the camp and persuaded them to trade a horse for a gun from Custer. The deal was to take place at Custer's camp, however, so the white soldier ordered to stay at the Dakota camp along with the white soldier ordered to keep watch from above left their posts and brought the three men to Custer, who agreed to their proposal.

The Dakota didn't bring a horse with them, so the hunter who wanted to buy the gun was told to go back and get the horse he wished to trade, but Custer wanted the other two to remain at his camp along with the old Dakota warrior, wary of any potential tricks. The one Dakota left while the others stayed. Custer then put his own Dakota scouts in charge of the Dakota captives and left them alone.

After a bit of time passed, a minor revolt occurred. One of the Dakota hunters escaped to a nearby creek. The other Dakota hunter then began to fight with the Dakota scouts, wrestling on horseback with each other until finally the Dakota scout drew his weapon and fired. The captured Dakota had fled towards the creek where the other hunter first escaped. At the sound of the shot, the Arikara scouts joined the fray, firing at the escaping Dakota hunters who managed to escape in the chaos. However, they were able to keep the old Dakota man, One Stab, whom they initially captured when they invaded the camp. The scouts returned to the Dakota camp they had invaded earlier and found the camp had disappeared.

Bear's Belly and the other Arikara scouts tracked the Dakota until nightfall but couldn’t find where they went and turned around to return to camp. There, they found One Stab, the remaining Dakota warrior, tied up to an iron pin by Custer's soldiers but allowed free movement of his hands while the rest of his body was immovable. Custer wanted to keep One Stab alive as a guide. The Arikara wanted to kill him to prevent any more deception from coming from the Sioux.

The old warrior chief, defiant and unforgiving, told the Indian scouts and Custer's men who stood nearby stories of how there was a large force of Dakota soldiers in the area and that each of Custer’s men would be killed by them all. The Arikara scouts were annoyed by this old man and his threats and wanted to get rid of him even more. By evening, the old man's defiance waned as he would wail and cry, saying he was as good as dead and that his children would mourn him.

Custer had a change of heart for the old man and decided to let him go, angering the Arikara. Bear's Belly recounts how Custer gave the old Dakota chief a suit and hat and some other items of use to him. The Arikara scouts were mortified. Why would Custer do this when they had agreed they would decimate the Sioux? They planned on still killing the man, but Custer knew either through the Arikara’s actions towards the man or through an interpreter telling them what the Arikara planned to do at night. So Custer released the Dakota captive in the middle of the night, and no one saw him again.

Custer had initially been given orders not to engage with any obstacles. Killing some Dakota would have added more fuel to the fire as Custer and his men wandered through Dakota territory illegally but at the behest of the government that first made it illegal in the first place. It is no surprise then to understand why Custer wanted to let the man go despite having invaded the Sioux camp in the first place.

This article is part of a larger series on Bears Belly.