The famous meeting between Sitting Bull, James Walsh and U.S. General Alfred H. Terry took place on October 17, 1877 at Fort Walsh, Saskatchewan. The meeting was brokered by Major Walsh.. During the months that Sitting Bull had been in Canada (he crossed the border with the first of the Sioux refugees in November, 1876), he and Major Walsh had developed a great deal of respect for one another. In Major Walsh, Sitting Bull saw an honest, trustworthy representative of Canadian law. In turn, Major Walsh respected Sitting Bull’s determination and considered him a friend. Sitting Bull had absolutely no respect for the American General Terry, and General Terry had no use for a “redskin.”
At the meeting, General Terry delivered a message from the President of the United States. The American President, he said, desired a lasting peace and was willing to grant a full pardon to the Sioux if they gave up their guns and horses and moved to the reserve set aside for them.
Sitting Bull replied:
For 64 years, you have kept and treated my people bad; what have we done that caused us to depart from our country? We could go nowhere, so we have taken refuge here. We did not give you our country; you took it from us; see how I live with these people; look at these eyes and ears; you think me a fool; but you are a greater fool than I am; this is a Medicine House; you come to tell us stories, and we do not want to hear them; I will not say any more. I shake hands with these people; that part of the country we came from belonged to us, now we live here.
Major Walsh treated Sitting Bull with complete respect, and he promised the Sioux protection in Canada from the American bluecoats, as long as they obeyed the laws of Canada and did not make raids into the US. Those were terms that Sitting Bull agreed to and honoured.
