Beatbeat

Captola Ulalah Cook, in front of her home on the Pamunkey Reservation in King William County, Virginia - Pamunkey - 1919
{Note: Captola Ulala Cook was born in 1893, in King William County, Virginia, the daughter of Wahansacook (aka George Major Cook) & Theodora Octavia Dennis. Later, Captola Ulalah Cook married Issac Henry Miles. Mrs. Captola Ulalah (Cook) Miles died in 1973.}

After the Civil War, several Native communities, like the Cheyenne, took in black people displaced by the war, including orphaned children. They had little to offer but they opened their homes and integrated them into their communities and families.
Mrs. Amos Chapman, her daughter, sister (Cheyenne), and a girl of African-American descent. 1886

Charlo (also Charlot; Claw of the Little Grizzly or Small Grizzly-Bear Claw) (c. 1830-1910) was the leader of the Bitterroot Salish from 1870 to 1910.
Charlo was born around 1830, before there was a permanent white colony in what is now Montana. His father was Chief Victor (a lot of horses or a lot of horses). Charlo grew up in the Bitterroot Valley, the ancestral home of his people, where every landscape had a coyote story, tribal event, or family history attached to it. The inhabitants of Charlo practiced a seasonal walk, going once or twice a year in the plains to hunt buffalo. During Charlo’s childhood, the Radiceamara Salish were recovering from a population decline caused by smallpox and wars fueled by the westward movement of the plains tribes who had driven the Great Plains Salish in previous generations. In 1841, Jesuit priests opened the Sainte-Marie Mission in the Bitterroot Valley, which became a religious and social center for the tribe. It also became Montana's first permanent white colony. So when Charlo came of age, his people were taken in a diplomatic dance to forge alliances with western tribes, to defend their ancestral buffalo hunting rights in the face of pressure from the plains tribes, and to maintain peace. peace with the growing white population. Charles married a woman named Margaret, and they had three children: Martin, Ann Felix and Victor.
In 1855 the Treaty of Hellgate was signed and he became a major force influencing Charlo's path. This treaty between the Salish, Pend d'Oreilles and Kootenais and the United States government provided for the Flathead Indian Reservation in the lower valley of the Flathead River and a second provisional reserve in the Bitterroot Valley. The treaty called for an inquiry into the Bitterroot Valley, after which the President would decide which valley would be "best suited to the needs of the Flathead Tribe." The treaty also promised to keep the Bitterroot Valley closed to white settlement until the investigation was completed. The treaty effectively weakened the Salish tribe's legal claims to Bitterroot Valley. Father Adrian Hoecken, SJ, watched the council's work and thought the treaty was a joke, writing: “What a tragic and ridiculous comedy the whole council has demonstrated. It would take too long to write everything down - oh well! Not a tenth of this was really understood by either side, as Ben Kyser [the translator] speaks very poorly and is not good at translating into English. Congress did not ratify the treaty until 1859, leaving the Salish people in limbo. When the treaty was finally ratified, the government messed up almost everything. In particular, the government never fully examined the valley as promised and, distracted by the civil war, languished over whether to create a reserve in the Bitterroot Valley. He also failed to keep the white settlers out of Bitterroot as promised.
Charlo spent the rest of his life trying to hold the US government accountable for keeping its promises and standing up for the rights of his people to set aside land against white efforts to open up the reservation.

"Grandma how do you deal with pain?"
"With your hands, dear. When you do it with your mind, the pain hardens even more."
“With your hands, grandma?"
"Yes, yes. Our hands are the antennas of our Soul. When you move them by sewing, cooking, painting, touching the earth or sinking them into the earth, they send signals of caring to the deepest part of you and your Soul calms down. This way she doesn't have to send pain anymore to show it.
"Are hands really that important?"
"Yes my girl. Think of babies: they get to know the world thanks to their touch.
When you look at the hands of older people, they tell more about their lives than any other part of the body.
Everything that is made by hand, so it is said, is made with the heart because it really is like this: hands and heart are connected.
Think of lovers: When their hands touch, they love each other in the most sublime way."
"My hands grandma... how long since I used them like that!"
"Move them my love, start creating with them and everything in you will move.
The pain will not pass away. But it will be the best masterpiece. And it won't hurt as much anymore, because you managed to embroider your Essence.”

Why was Custer defeated?
Custer was defeated at the Battle of the Little Bighorn because he made a lot of fundamental errors.
1. He acted alone - even though Gibbon's last words to him were - Custer, don't be greedy. Wait for us.
2. Instead of going round the Wolf Mountains, Custer force-marched his men through the mountains. His troops and horses arrived tired after the long march.
3. He weakened his forces by dividing them into three - although this was classic US Army tactics.
4. He expected the Sioux warriors to scatter and run. Instead they outmanoeuvred and surrounded him.
5. He was hugely outnumbered.
6. He was arrogant and over-confident, and wanted the victory to bolster his political ambitions, he was considering running for President in future. He ignored the advice of his Crow scouts to wait for reinforcements.
7. The Sioux leaders - especially Crazy Horse - were expert and experienced generals.
8. The Native Americans regarded the war as their last chance - they fought with desperation.
9. The Sioux were determined - The whites want a war and we will give it to them, said Chief Sitting Bull.
10. Custer had poor information - he did not know how big the Sioux army was, nor that they were armed with Wi******er repeating rifles.
Although Crazy Horse may have won the Battle of Little Bighorn, it was only a temporary halt to the advances of the Plains settlers and American army. If anything, it made them more determined to force the Native Americans onto smaller and smaller reservations.