Black Hoof: American Indians

Catecahassa or Black Hoof (c. 1740–1831) was the head civil chief of the Shawnee Indians in the Ohio Country of what became the United States. A member of the Mekoche division of the Shawnees, Black Hoof became known as a fierce warrior during the early wars between the Shawnee and Anglo- American colonists. Black Hoof claimed to have been present at the Battle of the Monongahela in 1755, when General Edward Braddock was defeated during the French and Indian War, although there is no contemporary evidence that Shawnees took part in that battle.

Little documentary evidence of Black Hoof's life appears in the historical record before 1795. He probably took part in the Battle of Point Pleasant during Lord Dunmore's War against the Virginia militia in 1774. During the American Revolutionary War, he may have taken part in the siege of Boonesborough in 1778, which was led by Chief Blackfish, as well as the subsequent defense of the Shawnee village of Chillicothe in 1779. In the Northwest Indian War, Black Hoof was defeated by "Mad" Anthony Wayne and, following the collapse of the Indian confederation, surrendered in 1795.

Like Little Turtle of the Miamis, Black Hoof decided that American Indians needed to adapt culturally to the ways of the whites in order to prevent decimation through warfare. During his later years, Black Hoof became an ally of the United States and was responsible for keeping the majority of the Shawnee nation from joining "Tecumseh's War", which became part of the War of 1812.

Black Hoof resisted the policy of Indian removal that the United States implemented soon after the War of 1812. He never signed a removal treaty, and continued to lead his tribe until his death in Saint Johns, Ohio in 1831. After his death, the Shawnee were eventually compelled to emigrate to the West.



Source: Wikipedia

This work released through CC 3.0 BY-SA - Creative Commons

Chief Joseph: American Indian

Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, Hinmatóowyalahtq̓it in Americanist orthography, popularly known as Chief Joseph, or Young Joseph (March 3, 1840 – September 21, 1904), succeeded his father Tuekakas (Chief Joseph the Elder) as the leader of the Wal-lam-wat-kain (Wallowa) band of Nez Perce, a Native American tribe indigenous to the Wallowa Valley in northeastern Oregon, in the interior Pacific Northwest region of the United States.

He led his band during the most tumultuous period in their contemporary history when they were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands in the Wallowa Valley by the United States federal government and forced to move northeast, onto the significantly reduced reservation in Lapwai, Idaho Territory. A series of events which culminated in episodes of violence led those Nez Perce who resisted removal including Joseph's band and an allied band of the Palouse tribe to take flight to attempt to reach political asylum, ultimately with the Sioux chief Sitting Bull in Canada.

They were pursued by the U.S. Army in a campaign led by General Oliver O. Howard. This 1,170-mile (1,900 km) fighting retreat by the Nez Perce in 1877 became known as the Nez Perce War. The skill with which the Nez Perce fought and the manner in which they conducted themselves in the face of incredible adversity led to widespread admiration among their military adversaries and the American public.

Coverage of the war in United States newspapers led to widespread recognition of Joseph and the Nez Perce. For his principled resistance to the removal, he became renowned as a humanitarian and peacemaker. However, modern scholars like Robert McCoy and Thomas Guthrie argue that this coverage, as well as Joseph's speeches and writings, distorted the true nature of Joseph's thoughts and gave rise to a "mythical" Chief Joseph as a "red Napoleon" that served the interests of the Anglo-American narrative of manifest destiny.

Joseph was born Hinmuuttu-yalatlat (alternatively Hinmaton-Yalaktit or Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, Nez Perce: "Thunder Rolling Down the Mountain" or ',Hinmatóoyalahtq'it – “Thunder traveling to higher areas”) in the Wallowa Valley of north eastern Oregon. He was known as Young Joseph during his youth because his father, Tuekakas, was baptized with the same Christian name, later becoming known as "Old Joseph" or "Joseph the Elder."

While initially hospitable to the region's newcomers, Joseph the Elder grew wary when settlers wanted more Indian lands. Tensions grew as the settlers appropriated traditional Indian lands for farming and grazing livestock.
Isaac Stevens, governor of the Washington Territory, organized a council to designate separate areas for natives and settlers in 1855. Joseph the Elder and the other Nez Perce chiefs signed a treaty with the United States establishing a Nez Perce reservation encompassing 7.7 million acres (31,000 km²) in present-day Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. The 1855 reservation maintained much of the traditional Nez Perce lands, including Joseph's Wallowa Valley.

An influx of new settlers caused by a gold rush led the government to call a second council in 1863. Government commissioners asked the Nez Perce to accept a new, much smaller reservation of 780,000 acres (3,200 km²) situated around the village of Lapwai in Idaho, and excluding the Wallowa Valley. In exchange, they were promised financial rewards and schools and a hospital for the reservation. Chief Lawyer and one of his allied chiefs signed the treaty on behalf of the Nez Perce Nation, but Joseph the Elder and several other chiefs were opposed to selling their lands, and did not sign.

Their refusal to sign caused a rift between the "non-treaty" and "treaty" bands of Nez Perce. The "treaty" Nez Perce moved within the new reservation's boundaries, while the "non-treaty" Nez Perce remained on their lands. Joseph the Elder demarcated Wallowa land with a series of poles, proclaiming, "Inside this boundary all our people were born. It circles the graves of our fathers, and we will never give up these graves to any man."

The non-treaty Nez Perce suffered many injustices at the hands of settlers and prospectors, but out of fear of reprisal from the militarily superior Americans, Joseph never allowed any violence against them, instead making many concessions to them in hopes of securing peace.

In 1873, Joseph negotiated with the federal government to ensure his people could stay on their land in the Wallowa Valley. But in 1877, the government reversed its policy, and Army General Oliver Howard threatened to attack if the Wallowa band did not relocate to the Idaho Reservation with the other Nez Perce. Joseph reluctantly agreed. Before the outbreak of hostilities, General Howard held a council at Fort Lapwai to try to convince Joseph and his people to relocate. Joseph finished his address to the general, which focused on human equality, by expressing his "[disbelief that] the Great Spirit Chief gave one kind of men the right to tell another kind of men what they must do." Howard reacted angrily, interpreting the statement as a challenge to his authority. When Toohoolhoolzote protested, he was jailed for five days.

The day following the council, Joseph, White Bird, and Looking Glass all accompanied Howard to look at different areas. Howard offered them a plot of land that was inhabited by Whites and Native Americans, promising to clear them out. Joseph and his chieftains refused, adhering to their tribal tradition of not taking what did not belong to them.

Unable to find any suitable uninhabited land on the reservation, Howard informed Joseph that his people had thirty days to collect their livestock and move to the reservation. Joseph pleaded for more time, but Howard told him that he would consider their presence in the Wallowa Valley beyond the thirty-day mark an act of war.

Returning home, Joseph called a council among his people. At the council, he spoke on behalf of peace, preferring to abandon his father's grave over war. Toohoolhoolzote, insulted by his incarceration, advocated war. The Wallowa band began making preparations for the long journey, meeting first with other bands at Rocky Canyon. At this council too, many leaders urged war, while Joseph argued in favor of peace. While the council was underway, a young man whose father had been killed rode up and announced that he and several other young men had already killed four white settlers. Still hoping to avoid further bloodshed, Joseph and other non-treaty Nez Perce leaders began moving people away from Idaho.

The Nez Perce War was the name given to the U.S. Army's pursuit of the over 800 Nez Perce and an allied band of the Palouse tribe who had fled toward freedom. Initially they had hoped to take refuge with the Crow nation in the Montana Territory, but when the Crow refused to grant them aid, the Nez Perce went north in an attempt to reach asylum with Sioux Chief Sitting Bull and his followers who had fled to Canada in 1876.

For over three months, the Nez Perce outmaneuvered and battled their pursuers traveling 1,170 miles across Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana.

General Howard, leading the opposing cavalry, was impressed with the skill with which the Nez Perce fought, using advance and rear guards, skirmish lines, and field fortifications. Finally, after a devastating five-day battle during freezing weather conditions with no food or blankets, with the major war leaders dead, Joseph formally surrendered to General Nelson Appleton Miles on October 5, 1877 in the Bear Paw Mountains of the Montana Territory, less than 40 miles (60 km) south of Canada in a place close to the present-day Chinook in Blaine County.

Joseph's fame did him little good. By the time Joseph surrendered, 150 of his followers had been killed. Their plight, however, did not end. Although he had negotiated a safe return home for his people, General Sherman forced Joseph and four hundred followers to be taken on unheated rail cars to Fort Leavenworth in eastern Kansas to be held in a prisoner of war campsite for eight months. Toward the end of the following summer the surviving Nez Perce were taken by rail to a reservation in the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) for seven years. Many of them died of epidemic diseases while there.

In 1879, Chief Joseph went to Washington, D.C. to meet with President Rutherford B. Hayes and plead the case of his people. Although Joseph was respected as a spokesman, opposition in Idaho prevented the U.S. government from granting his petition to return to the Pacific Northwest. Finally, in 1885, Chief Joseph and his followers were allowed to return to the Pacific Northwest to settle on the reservation around Kooskia, Idaho. Instead, Joseph and others were taken to the Colville Indian Reservation far from both their homeland in the Wallowa Valley and the rest of their people in Idaho.

Joseph continued to lead his Wallowa band on the Colville Reservation, at times coming into conflict with the leaders of 11 other tribes living on the reservation. Chief Moses of the Sinkiuse-Columbia in particular resented having to cede a portion of his people's lands to Joseph's people, who had "made war on the Great Father."

In his last years Joseph spoke eloquently against the injustice of United States policy toward his people and held out the hope that America's promise of freedom and equality might one day be fulfilled for Native Americans as well. In 1897, he visited Washington again to plead his case. He rode in a parade honoring former President Ulysses Grant in New York City with Buffalo Bill Cody but he was a topic of conversation for his headdress more than his mission.

In 1903, Chief Joseph visited Seattle, a booming young town, where he stayed in the Lincoln Hotel as guest to Edmond Meany, a history professor at the University of Washington. It was there that he also befriended Edward Curtis, the photographer, who took one of his most memorable and well-known photographs. He also visited President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington that year. Everywhere he went, it was to make a plea for what remained of his people to be returned to their home in the Wallowa Valley. But it would never happen. An indomitable voice of conscience for the West, he died in September 1904, still in exile from his homeland, according to his doctor "of a broken heart." Meany and Curtis would help his family bury their chief near the village of Nespelem.

The Chief Joseph band of Nez Perce Indians who still live on the Colville Reservation bear his name in tribute to their prestigious leader. Joseph is buried in Nespelem, Washington, where many of his tribe's members still live.



Sources: Wikipedia

This work released through CC 3.0 BY-SA - Creative Commons

Cochise: American Indian

Cochise or A-da-tli-chi, in Apache K'uu-ch'ish "oak"; c. 1805 – June 8, 1874) was leader of the Chihuicahui local group of the Chokonen ("central" or "real" Chiricahua) and principal chief (or nantan) of the Chokonen band of the Chiricahua Apache and the leader of an uprising that began in 1861. Cochise County, Arizona is named after him.

Cochise (or "Cheis") was one of the most famous Apache leaders (along with Geronimo and Mangas Coloradas) to resist intrusions by Americans during the 19th century. He was described as a large man (for the time), with a muscular frame, classical features, and long black hair which he wore in traditional Apache style. He was about 1.78 m (5'10") tall and weighed about 175 lbs. In his own language, his name "Cheis" meant "having the quality or strength of oak."

Cochise and the Chokonen-Chiricahua lived in the area that is now the northern Mexican region of Sonora, New Mexico, and Arizona, which they had moved into sometime before the coming of the Europeans. As Spain and later Mexico attempted to gain dominion over their lands, the various Chiricahua groups became increasingly resistant. Cycles of warfare developed, which the Apaches mostly won. Eventually, the Spanish tried a different approach; they tried to make the Apaches dependent (thereby placating them) upon poor-quality firearms and liquor rations issued by the colonial government (this was called the "Galvez Peace Policy"). After Mexico wrested control of the territory from Spain, and didn't have the resources (and/or possibly the will) to continue it, the practice was ended. It had worked for quite a number of years, but the various Chiricahua bands resumed traditional raiding to acquire what they needed after the Mexicans no longer made provisions for them (in the 1830s).

As a result, the Mexican government began a series of military operations in order to either capture or neutralize the Chiricahuas, but they were fought to a standstill by the Apaches. As part of their attempts at controlling the Chiricahuas, Mexican forces began to kill Apache civilians. Oftentimes this would be accomplished with the help of American and Native American mercenaries, and paying bounties for scalps was not uncommon. Cochise's father was one of these victims. This hardened Cochise's resolve and gave the Chiricahuas Apaches more rationale for vengeance. Mexican forces did capture Cochise at one point in 1848 during an Apache raid on Fronteras, Sonora, but they exchanged him for nearly a dozen Mexican prisoners. 

The region inhabited by the Apache had experienced strife and tension between the Apache and European settlers beginning with Spanish occupation around 1600 until the greater part of the area was acquired by the United States in 1850, which ushered in a brief period of relative peace. In the late 1850s, Cochise may have even supplied firewood for the Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach station at Apache Pass.

The tenuous peace did not last as American encroachment into Apache territory continued, ending in 1861 with the Bascom Affair. An Apache raiding party had driven away a local rancher's cattle and kidnapped his twelve-year-old son (Felix Ward, who later became known as Mickey Free). Cochise and his band were falsely accused of the incident (which had actually been perpetrated by Coyotero Apaches). An unsuspecting Cochise was invited to the Army's encampment by an inexperienced Army officer (Lt. George Bascom), who assumed that Cochise was responsible. Although the Apache leader truthfully maintained his innocence, and offered to look into the matter with other Apache groups, the young officer attempted to arrest him. Cochise jumped to his feet and immediately escaped by drawing a knife and slashing his way out of the tent. Cochise may have been shot as he fled. Bascom did succeed in capturing some of Cochise's relatives, who apparently were caught by surprise as Cochise escaped. Cochise eventually also took hostages to use in negotiations to free the other Indian hostages. However, the negotiations fell apart, mostly because of Bascom's intransigence, but also because the arrival of more U.S. troops made Cochise believe that the situation was spiraling out of his control. Both sides eventually killed all their remaining hostages, and the Apache leader went to Mexico while things cooled off. Cochise's brother and two of his nephews were among the hostages executed by Bascom, which served to further enrage the Apache leader and foment about 11 years of relentless warfare which left southern Arizona a mostly burned-out wasteland (in terms of white and Mexican civilization). The death toll may have reached as many as 5,000 settlers and travelers (many historians believe this number is an extreme exaggeration, that the toll was more likely a few hundred). The treachery of Lt. Bascom is still remembered by the Chiricahuas' descendants today—they remember it as "Cut the Tent."

Cochise joined with his father-in-law Mangas Coloradas (Red Sleeves, Kan-da-zis Tlishishen), the powerful Chihenne-Chiricahua chief, in a long series of retaliatory skirmishes and raids on the white settlements and ranches. The Battle of Dragoon Springs was one of these engagements. During the raids, many people were killed on both sides, but the Apaches quite often had the upper hand, mostly because the United States was distracted by its own internal conflict—the looming Civil War, and did not have the resources in the area to deal with the Apaches from any position of strength. Additionally, the Apaches' were highly adapted to living and fighting in the hostile and unforgiving terrain of the southwest. It was many years before the Army, using tactics conceived by General Crook and later adopted by General Miles, were able to effectively challenge the Apache fighter on his own lands. 

At Apache Pass in 1862, Cochise and Mangas Coloradas, with around 500 fighters, held their ground against a New Mexico-bound force of California volunteers under General James Henry Carleton until caisson-mounted howitzer artillery fire was brought to bear on their positions in the rocks above.

According to scout John C. Cremony and historian Dan L. Thrapp, the howitzer fire sent the Apaches into an immediate retreat. But Carleton's biographer, Aurora Hunt, wrote, "This was the first time that the Indians had faced artillery fire. Nevertheless, they fought stubbornly for several hours before they fled." Geronimo later recalled in his autobiography that his people were winning the fight until "you fired your wagons at us." The Battle of Apache Pass was one of the rare pitched battles the Apaches fought against the United States Army. Normally, the Apaches' tactics involved "guerrilla-style" warfare. Capt. Thomas Roberts was persuaded by the engagement that it would be best to find a route around Apache Pass, which he did. Gen. Carleton thus continued unhindered to New Mexico and subsequently took over as commander of the territory. 

In January 1863 Gen. Joseph R. West, under orders from Gen. Carleton, was able to capture Mangas Coloradas by duping him into a conference under a flag of truce. During what was to be a peaceful parley session, the Americans took the unsuspecting Mangas Coloradas prisoner and later murdered him. This was just one more in a series of incidents that fanned the flames of enmity between the encroaching Americans and the Apache. For Cochise, the Americans held nothing sacred and had violated the rules of war by capturing and killing Mangas Coloradas during a parley session. Cochise and the Apaches continued their raids against American and Mexican settlements and military positions throughout the 1860s.

Following various skirmishes, Cochise and his men were gradually driven into the Dragoon Mountains but were nevertheless able to use the mountains for cover and as a base from which to continue attacks against the white settlements. Cochise managed to evade capture and continued his raids against white settlements and travelers until 1872. A treaty was finally negotiated by General Oliver O. Howard with the help of Tom Jeffords, who was Cochise's only white friend. 

After making peace, Cochise retired to his new reservation, with his friend Jeffords as agent, where he died of natural causes (probably abdominal cancer) in 1874. He was buried in the rocks above one of his favorite camps in Arizona's Dragoon Mountains, now called Cochise Stronghold. Only his people and Tom Jeffords knew the exact location of his resting place, and they took the secret to their graves.
Cochise's descendants are said to currently reside at the Mescalero Apache Reservation, near Ruidoso, New Mexico.  


The best-selling novel by Elliott Arnold in 1947 titled Blood Brother gives a fictionalized account of the latter part of this struggle and the friendship between Jeffords and Cochise.

In 1950, director Delmar Daves turned Arnold's novel into a movie re-titled Broken Arrow, featuring James Stewart as Jeffords and Jeff Chandler as Cochise. This was one of the first Hollywood movies to give a sympathetic picture of Native Americans in conflict with European Americans encroaching upon Indian land, and helped change the popular image of Native American people from negative to positive. The tall, handsome, deeply tanned Chandler, a Jewish actor born in Brooklyn, N.Y., portrayed Cochise as a noble, nearly tragic character forced to fight against the treacherous U.S. Army officers who led incursions into Apache territory. John Ford's representation of Cochise in the 1948 film Fort Apache was also positive to Native Americans. Broken Arrow (TV series) was a Western series which told a fictionalized account of the historical relationship between Indian agent Tom Jeffords (played by John Lupton) and the Chiricahua Apache chief Cochise (played by Michael Ansara). The show ran on ABC in prime time from 1956 through 1958 on Tuesdays at 9 PM Eastern time. This historical Apache was portrayed by Jeff Morrow in a 1961 episode of Bonanza. 

Cochise's grandson (Taza's son) played Cochise in the pilot episode of the classic 60s western series The High Chaparral despite being 92 years old and missing a leg (Cochise would not have yet have been 60 in 1870 when the series was set, and he remained bipedal throughout his life). Nino repeated the portrayal in episode 4 of the first series.

He married Dos-teh-seh (Dos-tes-ey, Doh-teh-seh – “Something-at-the-campfire-already-cooked”, b. 1838), the daughter of Mangas Coloradas, the leader of the Warm Springs and Mimbreño local groups of the Chihenne band. Their children were Taza (1842–1876) and Naiche (1856–1919). 

"Cochise" by Audioslave, off of their debut album, is named after the chief; In an interview, guitarist Tom Morello said that Cochise was "the last great American Indian chief to die free and absolutely unconquered. When several members of his family were captured, tortured, and hanged by the U.S. Cavalry, Cochise declared war on the entire Southwest and went on an unholy rampage, a warpath to end all warpaths. He and his warriors drove out thousands of settlers. Cochise the avenger, fearless and resolute, attacked everything in his path with an unbridled fury."

Cochise is the nickname given to the leader of rebel Volm troops fighting with the human resistance in Falling Skies.


Source: Wikipedia

This work released through CC 3.0 BY-SA - Creative Commons

Crazy Horse: American Indian

Crazy Horse (Lakota: Tȟašúŋke Witkó in Standard Lakota Orthography, IPA:tχaʃʊ̃kɛ witkɔ), literally "His-Horse-Is-Crazy" or "His-Horse-Is-Spirited"; ca. 1840 – September 5th, 1877) was a Native American war leader of the Oglala Lakota. He took up arms against the U.S. Federal government to fight against encroachments on the territories and way of life of the Lakota people, including leading a war party to victory at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876.

After surrendering to U.S. troops under General Crook in 1877, Crazy Horse was fatally wounded by a military guard while allegedly resisting imprisonment at Camp Robinson in present-day Nebraska. He ranks among the most notable and iconic of Native American tribal members and has been honored by the U.S. Postal Service with a 13¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.

Sources differ on the precise year of Crazy Horse's birth, but they agree he was born between 1840 and 1845. According to a close friend, he and Crazy Horse "were both born in the same year at the same season of the year", which census records and other interviews place at about 1845. Encouraging Bear, an Oglala medicine man and spiritual adviser to the Oglala war leader, reported that Crazy Horse was born "in the year in which the band to which he belonged, the Oglala, stole One Hundred Horses, and in the fall of the year", a reference to the annual Lakota calendar or winter count. Among the Oglala winter counts, the stealing of 100 horses is noted by Cloud Shield, and possibly by American Horse and Red Horse owner, as equivalent to the year 1840-41. Oral history accounts from relatives on the Cheyenne River Reservation place his birth in the spring of 1840. On the evening of his son's death, the elder Crazy Horse told Lieutenant H. R. Lemly that his son "would soon have been thirty-seven, having been born on the South Cheyenne river in the fall of 1840".

Crazy Horse was named at birth Cha-O-Ha ("In the Wilderness" or "Among the Trees", meaning he was one with nature.) His mother's nickname for him was "Curly" or "Light Hair"; as his light curly hair resembled that of his mother. 

Crazy Horse was born to parents from two tribes of the Lakota division of the Sioux, his father was an Oglala and his mother was a Miniconjou. His father, born in 1810, was also named Crazy Horse. One account said that after the son had reached maturity and shown his strength, his father gave him his name and took a new one, Waglula (Worm). (Another version of how the son Crazy Horse acquired his name was that he took it after having a vision.) His mother was Rattling Blanket Woman (born 1814). Crazy Horse's cousin (son of Lone Horn) was Touch the Clouds. He saved Crazy Horse's life at least once and was with him when he died. 

Rattling Blanket Woman was the daughter of Black Buffalo and White Cow (also known as Iron Cane). Her older siblings were Lone Horn (born 1790–1795, died 1875) and Good Looking Woman (born 1810). Her younger sister was named Looks At It (born 1815), later given the name They Are Afraid of Her. The historian George Hyde wrote that Rattling Blanket Woman was Miniconjou and the sister of Spotted Tail, who became a Brulé head chief.

In the summer of 1844, "Waglula" (Worm) went on a buffalo hunt. He came across a Minneconjou Lakota village under attack by Crow warriors. He led his small party of warriors to the village and rescued it. Corn, the head man of the village, had lost his wife in the raid. In gratitude he gave Waglula his two eldest daughters as wives: Iron Between Horns (age 18) and Kills Enemy (age 17). Corn's youngest daughter, Red Leggins, who was 15 at the time, requested to go with her sisters; all became Waglula's wives.

According to Frederick Hoxie's Encyclopedia of North American Indians(1996), Crazy Horse was the third in his male line to bear the name of Crazy Horse, which in Oglala is Tasunke Witko. Tasunke Witko III (1840–77) was the son of Rattling Blanket Woman and Tasunke Witko II. The love of his life was Black Buffalo Woman, whom he courted, but she married another man named No Water. At one point, Crazy Horse persuaded Black Buffalo Woman to run away with him. No Water borrowed a pistol and ran after his wife. When he found her with Crazy Horse, he fired at him, gravely injuring him in the face and leaving a noticeable scar. Crazy Horse was married two times: first to Black Shawl, and second to Nellie Larrabee (Laravie). Nellie Larrabee was assigned to spy on Crazy Horse for the military, so the "marriage" is suspect. Only Black Shawl bore him any children: a daughter named They Are Afraid of Her, who died at age three. 

Crazy Horse lived in the Lakota camp with his younger brother, High Horse (son of Iron Between Horns and Waglula) and a cousin Little Hawk. (Little Hawk was the nephew of his maternal step-grandfather, Corn.) The camp was entered by Lt. Grattan and 28 other US troopers, who intended to arrest a Minniconjou man for having stolen a cow (The cow had wandered into the camp, and after a short time someone butchered it and passed the meat out among the people). A conflict known as the Grattan massacre ensued and the Sioux killed the US Army forces.

After having witnessed the death of the Lakota leader Conquering Bear, Crazy Horse began to get trance visions. His father Waglula took him to what today is Sylvan Lake, South Dakota, where they both sat to do a hemblecha or vision quest. A red-tailed hawk led them to their respective spots in the hills; as the trees are tall in the Black Hills, they could not always see where they were going. Crazy Horse sat between two humps at the top of a hill north and to the east of the lake. Waglula sat south of Harney Peak but north of his son.

Crazy Horse's vision first took him to the South where, in Lakota spirituality, one goes upon death. He was brought back and was taken to the West in the direction of the wakiyans (thunder beings). He was given a medicine bundle to protect him for life. One of his animal protectors would be the white owl which, according to Lakota spirituality, would give extended life. He was also shown his "face paint" for battle, to consist of a yellow lightning bolt down the left side of his face, and white powder. He would wet this and put marks over his vulnerable areas; when dried, the marks looked like hailstones. His face paint was similar to that of his father, who used a red lightning strike down the right side of his face and three red hailstones on his forehead. Crazy Horse put no makeup on his forehead and did not wear a war bonnet. Lastly, he was given a sacred song that is still sung by the Oglala people today and he was told he would be a protector of his people

Crazy Horse received a black stone from a medicine man named Horn Chips to protect his horse, a black-and-white pinto he named Inyan (rock or stone). He placed the stone behind the horse's ear so that the medicine from his vision quest and Horn Chips would combine—he and his horse would be one in battle.

Through the late 1850s and early 1860s, Crazy Horse's reputation as a warrior grew, as did his fame among the Lakota. The Lakota told accounts of him in their oral histories. His first kill was a Shoshone raider who had murdered a Lakota woman washing buffalo meat along the Powder River. Crazy Horse fought in numerous battles between the Lakota and their traditional enemies, the Crow, Shoshone, Pawnee, Blackfeet, and Arikara, among Plains tribes.

In 1864, after the Third Colorado Cavalry decimated Cheyenne and Arapaho in the Sand Creek Massacre, Lakota Oglala and Minneconjou bands allied with them against the US military. Crazy Horse was present at the Battle of Platte Bridge and the Battle of Red Buttes in July 1865. Because of his fighting ability, in 1865 Crazy Horse was named a Ogle Tanka Un (Shirt Wearer, or war leader) by the tribe.

On December 21st, 1866, Crazy Horse and six other warriors, both Lakota and Cheyenne, decoyed Capt. William Fetterman's 53 infantrymen and 27 cavalry troopers under Lt. Grummond into an ambush. They had been sent out from Fort Phil Kearny to follow up on an earlier attack on a wood train. Crazy Horse lured Fetterman's infantry up a hill. Grummond's cavalry followed the other six decoys along Peno Head Ridge and down toward Peno Creek, where several Cheyenne women taunted the soldiers. Meanwhile, Cheyenne leader Little Wolf and his warriors, who had been hiding on the opposite side of Peno Head Ridge, blocked the return route to the fort. The Lakota warriors swept over the hill and attacked the infantry. Additional Cheyenne and Lakota hiding in the buckbrush along Peno Creek effectively surrounded the soldiers. Seeing that they were surrounded, Grummond headed his cavalry back to Fetterman.

The combined warrior forces of nearly 1,000 killed all the US soldiers, in what became known at the time to the white population as the Fetterman Massacre. It was the Army's worst defeat on the Great Plains up to that time. The Lakota and Cheyenne call it the Battle of the Hundred in the Hand.


On August 2nd, 1867, Crazy Horse participated in the Wagon Box Fight, also near Fort Phil Kearny. Lakota forces numbering between 1000 and 2000 attacked a wood-cutting crew near the fort. Most of the soldiers fled to a circle of wagon boxes without wheels, using them for cover as they fired at the Lakota. The Lakota took substantial losses, as the soldiers were firing new breech-loading rifles. These could fire ten times a minute compared to the old muzzle-loading rate of three times a minute. The Lakota charged after the soldiers fired the first time, expecting the delay of their older muskets before being able to fire again. The soldiers suffered only five killed and two wounded, while the Lakota suffered between 50 and 120 casualties. Many Lakota were buried in the hills surrounding Fort Phil Kearny in Wyoming

In the fall of 1867, Crazy Horse invited Black Buffalo Woman to accompany him on a buffalo hunt in the Slim Buttes area of present-day northwestern South Dakota. She was the wife of No Water, who had a reputation for drinking too much. It was Lakota custom to allow a woman to divorce her husband at any time. She did so by moving in with relatives or with another man, or by placing the husband's belongings outside their lodge. Although some compensation might be required to smooth over hurt feelings, the rejected husband was expected to accept his wife's decision. No Water was away from camp when Crazy Horse and Black Buffalo Woman left for the buffalo hunt.

No Water tracked down Crazy Horse and Black Buffalo Woman in the Slim Buttes area. When he found them in a tipi, he called Crazy Horse's name from outside. When Crazy Horse answered, No Water stuck a pistol into the tipi and aimed for Crazy Horse. Touch the Clouds, Crazy Horse's first cousin and son of Lone Horn, was sitting in the tipi nearest the entry. He knocked the pistol upward as No Water fired, deflecting the bullet to Crazy Horse's upper jaw. No Water left, with Crazy Horse's relatives in hot pursuit. No Water ran his horse until it died and continued on foot until he reached the safety of his own village.

Several elders convinced Crazy Horse and No Water that no more blood should be shed. As compensation for the shooting, No Water gave Crazy Horse three horses. Because Crazy Horse was with a married man's wife, he was stripped of his title as Shirt Wearer (leader)  

Crazy Horse married Black Shawl, a member of the Oglala Lakota and relative of Spotted Tail. The elders sent her to heal Crazy Horse after his altercation with No Water. Crazy Horse and Black Shawl Woman were married in 1871. Black Shawl gave birth to Crazy Horse's only child, a daughter named They Are Afraid Of Her, who died in 1873. Black Shawl outlived Crazy Horse. She died in 1927 during the influenza outbreaks of the 1920s.

"Red Cloud also arranged to send a young woman to live in Crazy Horse's lodge. Interpreter William Garnett described (Nellie Larrabee) as "a half-blood, not of the best frontier variety, an invidious and evil woman." Nellie, also referred to as Chi-Chi and Brown Eyes Woman, was the daughter of a French trader and a Cheyenne woman. Garnett's first-hand account of Crazy Horse's surrender alludes to Nellie as the "half blood woman" who caused Crazy Horse to fall into a "domestic trap which insensibly led him by gradual steps to his destruction" 

On June 17th, 1876, Crazy Horse led a combined group of approximately 1,500 Lakota and Cheyenne in a surprise attack against brevetted Brigadier General George Crook's force of 1,000 cavalry and infantry, and allied 300 Crow and Shoshone warriors in the Battle of the Rosebud. The battle, although not substantial in terms of human losses, delayed Crook's joining with the 7th Cavalry under George A. Custer. It contributed to Custer’s subsequent defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

A week later at 3:00 p.m. on June 25, 1876, Custer's 7th Cavalry attacked a large encampment of Cheyenne and Lakota bands along the Little Bighorn River, marking the beginning of his last battle. Crazy Horse's actions during the battle are unknown.  

Hunkpapa warriors led by Chief Gall led the main body of the attack. Crazy Horse's tactical and leadership role in the battle remains ambiguous. While some historians think that Crazy Horse led a flanking assault, ensuring the death of Custer and his men, the only proven fact is that Crazy Horse was a major participant in the battle. His personal courage was attested to by several eye-witness Indian accounts. Water Man, one of only five Arapaho warriors who fought, said Crazy Horse "was the bravest man I ever saw. He rode closest to the soldiers, yelling to his warriors. All the soldiers were shooting at him, but he was never hit." Sioux battle participant, Little Soldier, said, "The greatest fighter in the whole battle was Crazy Horse."

On September 10th, 1876, Captain Anson Mills and two battalions of the Third Cavalry captured a Miniconjou village of 36 tipis in the Battle of Slim Buttes, South Dakota. Crazy Horse and his followers attempted to rescue the camp and its headman, (Old Man) American Horse but they were unsuccessful. The soldiers killed American Horse and much of his family after they holed up in a cave for several hours.

On January 8th, 1877, Crazy Horse's warriors fought their last major battle at Wolf Mountain, against the US Cavalry in the Montana Territory. His people struggled through the winter, weakened by hunger and the long cold. Crazy Horse decided to surrender with his band to protect them, and went to Fort Robinson in Nebraska.  

Crazy Horse and other northern Oglala leaders arrived at the Red Cloud Agency, located near Fort Robinson, Nebraska, on May 5th, 1877. Together with He Dog, Little Big Man, Iron Crow and others, they met in a solemn ceremony with First Lieutenant William P. Clark as the first step in their formal surrender.

For the next four months, Crazy Horse resided in his village near the Red Cloud Agency. The attention that Crazy Horse received from the Army drew the jealousy of Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, two Lakota who had long before come to the agencies and adopted the white ways. Rumors of Crazy Horse's desire to slip away and return to the old ways of life started to spread at the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies. In August 1877, officers at Camp Robinson received word that the Nez Perce of Chief Joseph had broken out of their reservation in Idaho and were fleeing north through Montana toward Canada. When asked by Lieutenant Clark to join the Army against the Nez Perce, Crazy Horse and the Miniconjou leader Touch the Clouds objected, saying that they had promised to remain at peace when they surrendered. According to one version of events, Crazy Horse finally agreed, saying that he would fight "till all the Nez Perce were killed". But his words were apparently misinterpreted by a half-Tahitian scout, Frank Grouard (not be confused with Fred Gerard, another U.S. Cavalry scout during the summer of 1876), who reported that Crazy Horse had said that he would "go north and fight until not a white man is left". When he was challenged over his interpretation, Grouard left the council. Another interpreter, William Garnett, was brought in but quickly noted the growing tension. 

With the growing trouble at the Red Cloud Agency, General George Crook was ordered to stop at Fort Robinson. A council of the Oglala leadership was called, then canceled, when Crook was incorrectly informed that Crazy Horse had said the previous evening that he intended to kill the general during the proceedings. Crook ordered Crazy Horse's arrest and then departed, leaving the military action to the post commander at Fort Robinson, Lieutenant Colonel Luther P. Bradley. Additional troops were brought in from Fort Laramie. On the morning of September 4, 1877, two columns moved against Crazy Horse's village, only to find that it had scattered during the night. Crazy Horse fled to the nearby Spotted Tail Agency with his sick wife (who had become ill with tuberculosis). After meeting with military officials at the adjacent military post of Camp Sheridan, Crazy Horse agreed to return to Fort Robinson with Lieutenant Jesse M. Lee, the Indian agent at Spotted Tail.

On the morning of September 5th, 1877, Crazy Horse and Lieutenant Lee, accompanied by Touch the Clouds as well as a number of Indian scouts, departed for Fort Robinson. Arriving that evening outside the adjutant's office, Lieutenant Lee was informed that he was to turn Crazy Horse over to the Officer of the Day. Lee protested and hurried to Bradley's quarters to debate the issue, but without success. Bradley had received orders that Crazy Horse was to be arrested and taken under the cover of darkness to Division Headquarters. Lee turned the Oglala war chief over to Captain James Kennington, in charge of the post guard, who accompanied Crazy Horse to the post guardhouse. Once inside, Crazy Horse struggled with the guard and Little Big Man and attempted to escape. Just outside the door, Crazy Horse was stabbed with a bayonet by one of the members of the guard. He was taken to the adjutant's office, where he was tended by the assistant post surgeon at the post, Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy, and died late that night. 

Dr. McGillycuddy, who treated Crazy Horse after he was stabbed, wrote that Crazy Horse "died about midnight". According to military records, he died before midnight, making it September 5, 1877.

John Gregory Bourke's memoir of his service in the Indian wars, On the Border with Crook, describes a different account of Crazy Horse's death. He based his account on an interview with Crazy Horse's relative and rival, Little Big Man, who was present at Crazy Horse's arrest and wounding. The interview took place over a year after Crazy Horse's death. Little Big Man said that, as Crazy Horse was being escorted to the guardhouse, he suddenly pulled two knives from under his blanket and held one in each hand. One knife was reportedly fashioned from an army bayonet. Little Big Man, standing behind him, seized Crazy Horse by both elbows, pulling his arms up behind him. As Crazy Horse struggled, Little Big Man lost his grip on one elbow, and Crazy Horse drove his own knife deep into his own lower back. The guard stabbed Crazy Horse with his bayonet in the back. The chief fell and surrendered to the guards.

When Bourke asked about the popular account of the guard bayoneting Crazy Horse first, Little Big Man said that the guard had thrust with his bayonet, but that Crazy Horse's struggles resulted in the guard's thrust missing entirely and lodging his bayonet into the frame of the guardhouse door. Little Big Man said that in the hours immediately following Crazy Horse's wounding, the camp commander had suggested the story of the guard's being responsible to hide Little Big Man's role in the death of Crazy Horse and avoid any inter-clan reprisals.

Little Big Man's account is questionable; it is the only one of 17 eyewitness sources from Lakota, US Army, and "mixed-blood" individuals, that fails to attribute Crazy Horse's death to a soldier at the guardhouse. The author Thomas Powers cites various witnesses who said Crazy Horse was fatally wounded when his back was pierced by a guard's bayonet

The identity of the soldier responsible for the bayoneting of Crazy Horse is also debatable. Only one eyewitness account actually identifies the soldier as Private William Gentles. Historian Walter M. Camp circulated copies of this account to individuals who had been present who questioned the identity of the soldier and provided two additional names. To this day, the identification remains questionable


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American Indians: Sitting Bull

It is commonly thought that Sitting Bull was born on the Grand River in Dakota Territory, however in 2007, Sitting Bull's great-grandson revealed family knowledge that Sitting Bull was born along the Yellowstone River, south of present-day Miles City, Montana. He was named Jumping Badger at birth. In traditional Lakota fashion, he was later given one of his father's names, Tȟatȟaŋka Iyotȟaŋka, translated as "Sitting Bull", due to a leadership role in a battle between the Lakota and Crow people.

During the Dakota War of 1862, in which Sitting Bull's people were not involved, several bands of eastern Dakota (eastern Sioux) killed an estimated 300 to 800 settlers and soldiers in south-central Minnesota in response to poor treatment by the government and in an effort to drive the whites away. Despite being embroiled in the American Civil War, the United States Army retaliated in 1863 and 1864, even against bands which had not been involved in the hostilities. In 1864, two brigades of about 2200 soldiers under Brigadier General Alfred Sully attacked a village. The defenders were led by Sitting Bull, Gall and Inkpaduta. The Sioux were driven out, but skirmishing continued into August.

In September, Sitting Bull and about 100 Hunkpapa Sioux came across a small party near what is now Marmarth, North Dakota. They had been left behind by a wagon train commanded by Captain James L. Fisk to effect some repairs to an overturned wagon. When he led an attack, Sitting Bull was shot in the left hip by a soldier. The bullet exited out through the small of his back, and the wound was not too serious.

Sitting Bull led numerous war parties against Fort Berthold, Fort Stevenson, and Fort Buford and their environs from 1865 through 1868. Although Red Cloud was a leader of the Oglala Sioux, his leadership and attacks against forts in the Powder River Country of Montana were supported by Sitting Bull's guerrilla attacks on emigrant parties and smaller forts throughout the upper Missouri River region. By early 1868, the U.S. government desired a peaceful settlement to Red Cloud's War. It agreed to Red Cloud's demands that Forts Phil Kearny and C.F. Smith be abandoned. Chief Gall of the Hunkpapas (among other representatives of the Hunkpapas, Blackfeet, and Yankton Sioux) signed a form of the Treaty of Fort Laramie on July 2nd, 1868 at Fort Rice (near Bismarck, North Dakota)Sitting Bull did not agree to the treaty. He continued his hit-and-run attacks on forts in the upper Missouri area throughout the late 1860s and early 1870s. The events of –1868 mark a historically debated period of Sitting Bull's life. According to historian Stanley Vestal, who conducted interviews with surviving Hunkpapa in 1930, Sitting Bull was made "Supreme Chief of the whole Sioux Nation" at this time. Later historians and ethnologists have refuted this concept of authority, as the Lakota society was highly decentralised. Lakota bands and their chiefs made individual decisions.

Sitting Bull's band of Hunkpapa continued to attack migrating parties and forts in the late 1860s. When in 1871 the Northern Pacific Railway conducted a survey for a route across the northern plains directly through Hunkpapa lands, it encountered stiff Sioux resistance. The same railway people returned the following year accompanied by federal troops. Sitting Bull and the Hunkpapa attacked the survey party, which was forced to turn back. In 1873, the military accompaniment for the surveyors was increased again, but Sitting Bull's forces resisted the survey "most vigorously."

The Panic of 1873 forced the Northern Pacific Railway's backers (such as Jay Cooke) into bankruptcy. This halted construction of the railroad through Sioux territory. After the discovery and new wealth from gold in California, other men became interested in the potential for gold mining in the Black Hills. In 1874, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer led a military expedition from Fort Abraham Lincoln near Bismarck, to explore the Black Hills for gold and to determine a suitable location for a military fort in the Hills. Custer's announcement of gold in the Black Hills triggered the Black Hills Gold Rush. Tensions increased between the Sioux and European Americans' seeking to move into the Black Hills.

Although Sitting Bull did not attack Custer's expedition in 1874, the US government was increasingly pressured to open the Black Hills to mining and settlement. It was alarmed at reports of Sioux depredations (encouraged by Sitting Bull). In November 1875, the government ordered all Sioux bands outside the Great Sioux Reservation to move onto the reservation, knowing full well that not all would comply. As of February 1, 1876, the Interior Department certified as "hostile" those bands who continued to live off the reservation. This certification allowed the military to pursue Sitting Bull and Lakota bands as "hostiles".

According to the historian Margot Liberty, many Lakota bands allied with the Cheyenne during the Plains Wars because they thought the other nation was under attack by the US. Given this connection, she suggests the major war should have been called "The Great Cheyenne War". Since 1860, the Northern Cheyenne had led several battles among the Plains Indians. Before 1876, the US Army had destroyed seven Cheyenne camps, more than those of any other nation. However, other historians such as Robert M. Utley and Jerome Greene also use Lakota oral testimony as the basis for their conclusions that the Lakota coalition, of which Sitting Bull was the ostensible head, was the primary target of the federal government's pacification campaign.

During the period 1868–1876, Sitting Bull developed into the most important of Native American chiefs. After the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) and the creation of the Great Sioux Reservation, many traditional Sioux warriors, such as Red Cloud of the Oglala and Spotted Tail of the Brulé, moved to reside permanently on the reservations. They were largely dependent for subsistence on the US Indian agencies. Many other chiefs, including members of Sitting Bull's Hunkpapa band such as Gall, at times lived temporarily at the agencies. They needed the supplies at a time when white encroachment and the depletion of buffalo herds reduced their resources and challenged Native American independence.

In 1875, the Northern Cheyenne, Hunkpapa, Oglala, Sans Arc, and Minneconjou camped together for a Sun Dance, with both the Cheyenne medicine man White Bull or Ice and Sitting Bull in association. This ceremonial alliance preceded their fighting together in 1876. Sitting Bull had a major revelation. Sitting Bull's refusal to adopt any dependence on the white man meant that at times he and his small band of warriors lived isolated on the Plains. When Native Americans were threatened by the United States, numerous members from various Sioux bands and other tribes, such as the North Cheyenne, came to Sitting Bull's camp. His reputation for "strong medicine" developed as he continued to evade the European Americans.

After the January 1st ultimatum of 1876, when the US Army began to track down Sioux and others living off the reservation as hostiles, Native Americans gathered at Sitting Bull's camp. The chief took an active role in encouraging this "unity camp". He sent scouts to the reservations to recruit warriors, and told the Hunkpapa to share supplies with those Native Americans who joined them. An example of his generosity was Sitting Bull's taking care of Wooden Leg's Northern Cheyenne tribe. They had been impoverished by Captain Reynold's March 17, 1876 attack and fled to Sitting Bull's camp for safety.

The Hunkpapa chief provided resources to sustain the new recruits. Over the course of the first half of 1876, Sitting Bull's camp continually expanded, as natives joined him for safety in numbers. His leadership had attracted the warriors and families of an extensive village, estimated at more than 10,000 people. General Custer came across this large camp on June 25, 1876. Sitting Bull did not take a direct military role in the ensuing battle; instead he acted as a spiritual chief and performed the Sun Dance, in which he fasted and sacrificed over 100 pieces of flesh from his arms.

Custer’s 7th Cavalry advance party attacked Cheyenne and Lakota tribes at their camp on the Little Big Horn River (known as the Greasy Grass River to the Lakota) on June 25, 1876. The U.S. Army did not realize how large the camp was. More than 2,000 Native Americans had left their reservations to follow Sitting Bull. Inspired by a vision of Sitting Bull’s, in which he saw U.S. soldiers being killed as they entered the tribe’s camp, the Cheyenne and Lakota fought back. Custer's badly outnumbered troops lost ground quickly and were forced to retreat. The tribes led a counter-attack against the soldiers on a nearby ridge, ultimately annihilating them.

<sup>The Native Americans' victory celebrations were short-lived. Public shock and outrage at Custer's death and defeat, and the government's knowledge about the remaining Sioux, led them to assign thousands more soldiers to the area. Over the next year, the new American military forces pursued the Lakota, forcing many of the Native Americans to surrender. Sitting Bull refused to surrender and in May 1877 led his band across the border into Saskatchewan, Canada. He remained in exile for many years near Wood Mountain, refusing a pardon and the chance to return. When passing the border to Saskatchewan, the Canadian Mounties of the region came and spoke with Sitting Bull about certain rules he and his men had to follow. During this meeting, James Morrow Walsh, commander of the North West Mounted Police, explained to Sitting Bull they were on British soil and so they must obey British law. Welsh clarified that he enforced the law on everyone and that every person had a right to justice. If they obeyed than he would do everything he can to protect him and his men. Walsh became an advocate for Sitting Bull and they became very good friends till the end.

Also while in Canada Sitting Bull met with chief Crowfoot, who was a chief of the Blackfeet, long-time powerful enemies of the Lakota and Cheyenne. Sitting Bull wished to make peace with the Blackfeet Nation and Crowfoot. Being a renowned advocate for peace himself, Crowfoot eagerly accepted the tobacco peace offering. Sitting Bull was so impressed by the Blackfeet chief that he named one of his sons after him. Sitting Bull and his men only stayed in Canada for 4 years. Due to the smaller size of the buffalo in Canada, sitting Bull and his men found it difficult to find food enough to feed is people. His people were starving and exhausted. Furthermore, due to Sitting Bull’s presence in the country there had been a growth in tension between the Canadian government and the United – States government. Before Sitting Bull left Saskatchewan, it was rumored that he met with is good friend Walsh for the last time before going back to the States. When meeting with his friend for the last time, it was whispered that he gave Walsh his headdress due to the respect he had of him and the friendship he had with him and it is now at the Royal Ontario Museum.</sup>

Hunger and desperation eventually forced Sitting Bull, and 186 of his family and followers to return to the United States and surrender on July 19, 1881. Sitting Bull had his young son Crow Foot surrender his Winchester lever-action carbine to Major David H. Brotherton, commanding officer of Fort Buford in the parlor of the Commanding Officer's Quarters in a ceremony the next day. He told the 4 soldiers, 20 warriors and other guests in the small room, that he wished to regard the soldiers and the white race as friends but he wanted to know who would teach his son the new ways of the world. Two weeks later, after waiting in vain for other members of his tribe to follow him from Canada, the Army transferred Sitting Bull and his band to Fort Yates, the military post located adjacent to the Standing Rock Agency, which straddles the present-day boundary of North and South Dakota. Sitting Bull and his band of 186 people were kept separate from the other Hunkpapa gathered at the agency. Army officials were concerned that the famed chief would stir up trouble among the recently surrendered northern bands. On August 26, 1881, he was visited by the census taker William T. Selwyn, who counted twelve people in the Hunkpapa leader's immediate family. Forty-one families, totaling 195 people, were recorded in Sitting Bull's band. The military decided to transfer him and his band to Fort Randall, to be held as prisoners of war. Loaded onto a steamboat, the band of 172 people was sent down the Missouri River to Fort Randall (near present-day Pickstown, South Dakota on the southern border of the state). There they spent the next 20 months. They were allowed to return north to the Standing Rock Agency in May 188.

In 1884, Sitting Bull was allowed to leave the reservation to join Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show as a Show Indian. He earned about $50 a week for riding once around the arena, where he was a popular attraction. Although it is rumored that he cursed his audiences in his native tongue during the show, the historian Utley contends that he did not. Historians have reported that Sitting Bull gave speeches about his desire for education for the young, and reconciling relations between the Sioux and whites. The historian Edward Lazarus wrote that Sitting Bull reportedly cursed his audience in Lakota in 1884, during an opening address celebrating the completion of the Northern Pacific Railway. Sitting Bull stayed with the show for four months before returning home. During that time, audiences began to consider him a celebrity and a romanticized warrior. He earned a small fortune by charging for his autograph and picture, although he often gave his money away to the homeless and beggars.

In 1883, rumors floated that Sitting Bull had been baptized into the Catholic Church. James McLaughlin, Indian agent at Standing Rock Agency, dismissed these reports, saying that "The reported baptism of Sitting-Bull is erroneous. There is no immediate prospect of such ceremony so far as I am aware."

 Sitting Bull returned to the Standing Rock Agency after working in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. In 1890, James McLaughlin, the U.S. Indian Agent at Fort Yates on Standing Rock Agency, feared that the Lakota leader was about to flee the reservation with the Ghost Dancers, so he ordered the police to arrest him. On 14th December 1890, McLaughlin drafted a letter to Lt. Bullhead that included instructions and a plan to capture the chief. The plan called for the arrest to take place at dawn on December 15, and advised the use of a light spring wagon to facilitate the chief's removal before his followers could rally. Bullhead decided against using the wagon. He intended to have the police officers force Sitting Bull to mount a horse immediately after the arrest. Around 5:30 a.m. on December 15, 39 police officers and four volunteers approached Sitting Bull's house. They surrounded the house, knocked and entered. Bullhead told Sitting Bull that he was under arrest and led him outside. The camp awakened and men converged at the house of their chief. As Bullhead ordered Sitting Bull to mount a horse, he explained that the Indian Affairs agent needed to see him and then he could return to his house. Sitting Bull refused to comply and the police used force on him. The Sioux in the village were enraged. A Sioux known as Catch-the-Bear shouldered his rifle and shot Bullhead who, in return, fired his revolver into the chest of Sitting Bull. Another police officer, Red Tomahawk, shot Sitting Bull in the head, and the chief dropped to the ground. He died between 12 and 1 p.m. A close-quarters fight erupted, and within minutes several men were dead. Six policemen were killed immediately and two more died shortly after the fight. Sitting Bull and seven of his supporters lay dead, along with two horses.

Sitting Bull's body was taken to Fort Yates to be placed in a coffin (made by the Army carpenter) and for burial. In 1953 Lakota family members exhumed what they believed to be his remains, to be reinterred near Mobridge, South Dakota, his birthplace.




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Pocahontas: American Indian

 Pocahontas was born Matoaka, and later known as Rebecca Rolfe. It is unclear of her exact birth, but she passed away in March 1617. She was a Virginia Indian notable for her association with the colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia. She was the daughter of Powhatan, the paramount chief of a network of tributary tribal nations in the Tidewater region of Virginia. In a well-known historical anecdote, she is said to have saved the life of an Indian captive, Englishman John Smith, in 1607 by placing her head upon his own when her father raised his war club to execute him.

Pocahontas was captured by the English during Anglo-Indian hostilities in 1613, and held for ransom. During her captivity, she converted to Christianity and took the name Rebecca. When the opportunity arose for her to return to her people, she chose to remain with the English. In April 1614, she married tobacco planter John Rolfe, and in January 1615, bore him a son, Thomas Rolfe.

In 1616, the Rolfe’s traveled to London. Pocahontas was presented to English society as an example of the civilized “savage” in hopes of stimulating investment in the Jamestown settlement. She became something of a celebrity, was elegantly fêted, and attended a masque at Whitehall Palace. In 1617, the Rolfe’s set sail for home, but Pocahontas died at Gravesend of unknown causes. She was buried in a church in Gravesend, but the exact location of her grave is unknown.

Numerous places, landmarks, and products in the United States have been named after Pocahontas. Her story has been romanticized over the years, and she is a subject of art, literature, and film. Her descendants through her son Thomas include members of the First Families of Virginia, First Ladies Edith Wilson, Nancy Reagan, and astronomer Percival Lowell.

Pocahontas's birth year is unknown, but some historians estimate it to have been around 1595 based on the accounts of Captain John Smith. In “A True Relation of Virginia“ (1608), Smith described the Pocahontas he met in the spring of 1608 as being “a child of tenne years old“. In a letter written in 1616, he again described her as she was in 1608, but this time she had grown slightly to “a child of twelve or thirteen years of age“. Pocahontas was the daughter of Powhatan, the paramount chief of Tsenacommacah, an alliance of about thirty Algonquian-speaking groups and petty chiefdoms in Tidewater Virginia. Her mother, whose name and specific group of origin are unknown, was one of dozens of wives taken by Powhatan; each wife gave him a single child and then was sent back to her village to be supported by the paramount chief until she found another husband.

Pocahontas's childhood was probably a little different from that of most girls who lived in Tsenacommacah. She learned how to perform what was considered to be women's work, which included foraging for food and firewood, farming, and searching for the plant materials used in building thatched houses. As she grew older, she probably helped other members of Powhatan's household with preparations for large feasts. Serving feasts such as the one presented to John Smith after his capture was a regular obligation of the Mamanatowick, or paramount chief.

At the time Pocahontas was born, it was common for Powhatan Indians to be given several personal names, to have more than one name at the same time, to have secret names that only a select few knew, and to change their names on important occasions. Bestowed at different times, the names carried different meanings and might be used in different contexts. Pocahontas was no different. Early in her life she was given a secret name, Matoaka, but later she was also known as Amonute. None of these names can be translated.

The name Pocahontas was a childhood nickname that probably referred to her frolicsome nature; according to the colonist William Strachey, it meant “little wanton“. The 18th-century historian William Stith claimed that her real name, it seems, was originally Matoax, which the Indians carefully concealed from the English and changed it to Pocahontas, out of a superstitious fear, lest they, by the knowledge of her true name, should be enabled to do her some hurt. According to the anthropologist Helen C. Rountree, Pocahontas revealed her secret name to the English only after she had taken another religious - baptismal - name, Rebecca.

Pocahontas's Christian name, Rebecca, may have been a symbolic gesture to Rebecca of the Book of Genesis who, as the mother of Jacob and Esau, was the mother of two “nations“, or distinct peoples. Pocahontas, as a Powhatan marrying an Englishman, may have been seen by herself and by her contemporaries as being also, potentially, the mother of two nations.
 

Pocahontas has been considered in popular culture to be a princess. In 1841, William Watson Waldron of Trinity College, Dublin, in Ireland, published “Pocahontas, American Princess: And other Poems” calling Pocahontas the beloved and only surviving daughter of the king. Indeed, Pocahontas was a favorite of her father's - his “delight and darling“, according to the colonist Captain Ralph Hamor, but she was not in line to inherit a position as a weroance, subchief, or mamanatowick (paramount chief). Instead, Powhatan's brothers, sisters, and his sisters' children all stood in line to succeed him.

Pocahontas's mother's status would have been lowly. In his “Relation fo Virginia” (1609), the colonist Henry Spelman, who had lived among the Powhatan serving as an interpreter, noted Chief Powhatan's many wives. Each wife gave the paramount chief one child, after which she not only resumed her status as a commoner but was also sent back where she had come from.

Pocahontas is most famously linked to the English colonist Captain John Smith, who arrived in Virginia with just more than a hundred other settlers in April 1607. After building a fort on a marshy peninsula poking out into the James River, the Englishmen had numerous encounters over the next several months with the Natives of Tsenacommacah, some of them friendly, some hostile. Then, in December 1607, while exploring on the Chickahominy River, Smith was captured by a hunting party led by Powhatan's younger brother (or close relative) Opechancanough and brought to Powhatan's capital at Werowocomoco. In his 1608 account, Smith described a large feast followed by a long talk with Powhatan. He does not mention Pocahontas in relation to his capture; in fact, in this account, he does not meet Pocahontas for the first time until a few months later. In 1616, however, Smith wrote a letter to Queen Anne in anticipation of Pocahontas's visit to England. In this new account, his capture included the threat of his own death “... at the minute of my execution“, he wrote, “she (Pocahontas) hazarded the beating out of her own brains to save mine; and not only that, but so prevailed with her father, that I was safely conducted to Jamestown.”

 

Early histories did establish that Pocahontas befriended Smith and the Jamestown colony. Pocahontas often went to the settlement and played games with the boys there. When the colonists were starving, “every once in four or five days, Pocahontas with her attendants brought him (Smith) so much provision that saved many of their lives that else for all this had starved with hunger.” As the colonists expanded their settlement further, the Powhatan felt their lands were threatened, and conflicts arose again.

In late 1609, an injury from a gunpowder explosion forced Smith to return to England for medical care. The English told the Powhatans that Smith was dead. Pocahontas believed that account and stopped visiting Jamestown. Only much later she learned that he was living in England when she traveled there as the wife of John Rolfe.



Historical records do not suggest that Smith and Pocahontas were lovers, or even that she was a suitable age for the like. The romance is featured only (but repeatedly) in fictional versions of their relationship (such as the 1995 animated film by Walt Disney). The first romance was written about them in the early 19th century, suggesting the story's mythic appeal. Accounts of such a romance have been repeated in films made in the United States as late as 2009.

Current Mattaponi tradition holds that Pocahontas' first husband was Kocoum, the main Patawomeck weroance, who was murdered by the English after her capture in 1613. However, Kocoum's actual identity, location and even existence have been widely debated among scholars for centuries, with several historians arguing that the only mention of a “Kocoum” in any English document is taken from a brief statement written ca. 1616 by William Strachey in England that Pocahontas had been living married to a private captaine called Kocoum for two years. Since 1614 is certainly when she married John Rolfe, and no contemporary records even hint at any previous husband, it has accordingly been suggested that this private captaine called Kocoum was in fact a nickname for Rolfe himself, with the reference being later misunderstood as one of Powhatan's officers. There was a Powhatan military rank called kokoraws, sometimes translated ‘captain‘, and scholarly debate has also raged whether Strachey could have meant this as one of his famously divergent spellings, as a gloss to 'Captayne'. In addition, the date of Strachey's original statement has been widely disputed by numerous authors attempting either to make the case, or refute, that Pocahontas had been previously married. If there was such a marriage and Kocoum was not murdered, it likely ended, according to Powhatan custom, when Pocahontas was captured.

Pocahontas and Rolfe were married on April 5, 1614, and lived for two years on Rolfe's plantation, Varina Farms, which was located across the James River from the new community of Henricus. They had a child, Thomas Rolfe, born on January 30, 1615.

 

In March 1617, Rolfe and Pocahontas boarded a ship to return to Virginia; the ship had only gone as far as Gravesend on the River Thames when Pocahontas became gravely ill. She was taken ashore and died in John Rolfe's arms at the age of twenty-two. It was not known what caused her death, but theories range from smallpox, pneumonia, or tuberculosis, to her having been poisoned. According to Rolfe, she died saying, “all must die, but tis enough that her child liveth“. Her funeral took place on March 21, 1617 in the parish of Saint George’s, Gravesend. The site of her grave is thought to be underneath the church's chancel, though since that church was destroyed in a fire in 1727 her exact gravesite is unknown. Her memory is honored with a life-size bronze statue at St. George's Church by William Ordway Partridge.

After her death, increasingly fanciful and romanticized representations of Pocahontas were produced. The only contemporary portrait of Pocahontas is Simon van de Passe’s engraving of 1616. In this portrait, he tried to portray her Virginia- Native American features. Later portraits often portrayed her as more European in appearance. The myths that arose around Pocahontas' story portrayed her as one who demonstrated the potential of Native Americans to be assimilated into European society. For example, the United States Capitol displays an 1840 painting by John Gadsby Chapman, “The Baptism of Pocahontas”, in the Rotunda. A government pamphlet, entitled “The Picture of the Baptism of Pocahontas”, explained the characters in the painting, and praised the Jamestown settlers for introducing Christianity to the “heathen savages“.


In another development, Pocahontas' story was romanticized. Some writers preferred accounts of a love story between her and John Smith. The first to publish such a story at length was John Davis in his “Travels in the United States of America” (1803). In the 19th century, John Brougham produced a burlesque, “Po-ca-hon-tas“, or “The Gentile Savage”.

Several films about Pocahontas have been made, beginning with a silent film in 1924. “Captain John Smith and Pocahontas” was released in 1953 with Jody Lawrance as the title role heroine. The Walt Disney Company’s 1995 animated feature “Pocahontas” presented a fictional love affair between Pocahontas and John Smith. In addition, Pocahontas teaches Smith respect for nature. The sequel, “Pocahontas II: Journey To A New World”, depicts her journey to England and her meeting and falling in love with John Rolfe. In 2005 Terrence Malick directed “The New World”, a movie depicting the founding of the Jamestown, Virginia settlement, and featuring O’orianka Kilcher as Pocahontas.

“Pocahontas: The Legend” is the second feature film based on her life. Neil Young recorded a song about Pocahontas on his album “Rust Never Sleeps” in 1979.

  

Source: Wikipedia

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