Leaders of the Oglala Sioux: The Lives and Legacies of Crazy Horse and Red Cloud

---

In , Sitting Bull was shot and killed while being arrested by U.

Sitting Bull is remembered for his great courage and his stubborn determination to resist white domination. Born in the Grand River Valley in what is now South Dakota , Sitting Bull, or Tatanka Yotanka, received early recognition from his tribe as a warrior and man of vision. During his youth he joined in the usual tribal raids for horses against traditional enemies such as the Crow and Assiniboin.

Because the Hunkpapa lived and hunted north of the early routes of western travel, Sitting Bull had little contact with whites until the Santee Sioux uprising in Minnesota in When the defeated Indians were driven west to the plains, he heard from them what life was like on a reservation.

Theodore Roosevelt Joins Bull Moose Party

In July , he was one of the defenders when Gen. Alfred Sully used artillery against a Teton encampment at Killdeer Mountain. With other Sioux leaders he soon took his followers to the pristine valleys of the Powder and Yellowstone rivers where buffalo and other game were abundant. He continually warned his followers that their survival as free Indians depended upon the buffalo. Beginning in the summer of columns of U. Sitting Bull had occasional encounters with them, learning their ways of fighting, their strengths and weaknesses.

After Red Cloud signed the Fort Laramie treaty of , and then agreed to live on a reservation, his influence waned. In , he and Lt. There are the Bureau of Indian Education schools, which are federally funded and often federally operated. Pushing her backpack aside to clear the table, she shrugged. With a slight smirk and black bangs nearly covering her eyes, the year-old explained that she only recently moved to Pine Ridge from Pierre and had spent nearly her entire life in the foster-care system. Pine Ridge is her fourth, and favorite, high school. But if she had been able to choose, she would have skipped high school and gone straight to college.

Sometimes maybe too long. From her difficult childhood experiences. From her involvement in social-justice volunteer work.

The Real Legacy of Crazy Horse

Despite a spotty academic record, when I spoke with Mousseau, all she could talk about was college and beyond. That post-high-school ambition is matched only by her passion for social justice. Mousseau is on the youth advisory board of a group called the Encampment , which encourages youth activism and brings members together to engage in community service and workshops, among other activities. Pine Ridge, like so many other Native American reservations in the United States, bears the scars of a history defined by discrimination and injustice and abuse. There, American troops slaughtered at least Sioux natives—roughly half of them women and children.

The carnage, which was instigated following a minor clash between a Lakota and a member of the U. The year before the Wounded Knee massacre, the U. It was more or less around the same time that, across the country, the U. A motto attributed to Colonel Richard Henry Pratt embodies the philosophy behind this practice: Children, many just a few years old, were often forcibly removed from their parents; some never saw their families again.

The elders get together once a month to discuss the state of education and related issues; my visit to the reservation happened to coincide with their March meeting, so I asked Dayna Brave Eagle, who oversees the Oglala Sioux tribal education agency, if I could stop by. The conversation eventually segued into one about college-going culture on Pine Ridge—a discussion that made it clear that for students like Mousseau, Spotted Thunder, and Rosales, the decisions around where to go to, what to study, and even whether to go at all are incredibly thorny.

But blindly pushing reservation youth toward college, particularly when campuses are far away, can set them up for failure. It can also mean depleting the reservation of human and social capital. Native Americans serve in the military at a higher rate than any other ethnic group, according to some statistics , and that has been the case since the American Revolution.

Maybe the best option for others is to go straight into the workforce. But things get tricky even when talking strictly about the Pine Ridge youth who are college-bound. Should they leave the state altogether? Leaving the reservation for college often means more than just moving elsewhere to get a degree—it can also mean landing in a place where your ethnic and cultural identity is no longer baked into the fabric of everyday life, a place where that identity is treated as insignificant or exotic. Of course, staying on the reservation has downsides, too.

Then there is the battle of expectations. And every student who leaves and comes back prematurely and never manages to return to school is just another Native who failed to fulfill her higher-education goals. Native Pathways sends coaches to high schools across South Dakota, North Dakota, Washington, Montana, Wisconsin, and Alaska to conduct workshops and provide one-on-one guidance. Perhaps most importantly, the coaches rigorously engage with prospective college-goers through social media and text messages to make sure students are on track in the search process and confident in their application choices.

I accompanied Davida Delmar, the coach assigned to Pine Ridge, as she visited schools across the reservation. She consistently encouraged students to friend her on Facebook, to add her on Snapchat, to take down her cell-phone number.

American Horse (elder)

Actually experiencing a campus before attending is especially key for Native kids, explained Delmar, a Navajo who went to Brown University as an undergraduate and returned to her home state to pursue a graduate degree at Northern Arizona University. Lyle Jacobs, who graduated from Red Cloud in and attended Duke University on a full-tuition scholarship, likewise stressed the importance of finding peer groups. Speaking on an alumni panel hosted by Red Cloud one afternoon, he admitted to an audience of high-schoolers that he was close to dropping out his entire first semester.

The Battle of Slim Buttes was the first U. Brigadier General George R. Crook , one of the U. Army's ablest Indian fighters led the " Horsemeat March ", one of the most grueling military expeditions in American history destroying Oglala Chief American Horse's village at Slim Buttes and repelling a counter-attack by Crazy Horse. The American public was fixed on news of the defeat of General George Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn ; and war correspondents with national newspapers fought alongside General Crook and reported the events.

The Battle of Slim Buttes signaled a series of punitive blows that ultimately broke Sioux armed resistance to reservation captivity and forced their loss of the Black Hills "Paha Sapa". Following the Battle of the Little Big Horn , Lakota leaders split up, each doing what they thought best for their people. Most were heading back to the reservations. On September 9, , Chief American Horse's camp of 37 lodges, about people, of whom 30 to 40 were warriors, was attacked and destroyed by General George Crook at the Battle of Slim Buttes.

Navigation menu

All the agency Sioux were drifting back to the agencies with their packs full of dried meet, buffalo tongues, fresh and dried buffalo berries, wild cherries, plums and all the staples and dainties which tickled the Indian palate. Crook destroyed food, seized three or four hundred ponies, arms and ammunition, furs and blankets. One man found eleven thousand dollars in one of the tipis. Others found three 7th Cavalry horses; letters written to and by 7th Cavalry personnel; officers' clothing; a large amount of cash; jewelry; government-issued guns and ammunition.

At the onset of a stampede of Indian ponies and cavalry charge, Chief American Horse with his family of three warriors and about twenty-five women and children retreated into one of the ravines that crisscrossed the village amongst the tipis. The winding dry gully was nearly 20 feet deep and ran some yards back into a hillside.

Trees and brush obstructed the view of the interior. One of the men started to go past that spot on the hill, and as he passed the place he and his horse were both shot. This cave or dugout was down in the bed of a dry creek. The Indian children had been playing there, and dug quite a hole in the bank, so that it made more of a cave than anything else, large enough to hold a number of people. Wenzel's horse was also shot and killed. An attempt was made to dislodge the Indians and several troopers were wounded.

Reward Yourself

But the savages were so confident of succor from Crazy Horse and his much larger force, who were encamped only a dozen miles to the west, and to whom they had sent runners early in the morning, that they were defiant to the last. Chief American Horse, anticipating relief from other villages, constructed a dirt breastworks in front of the cave and geared for a stout defense.

On September 9, , General Crook's relief column endured a forced march of twenty-miles to Slim Buttes in about four hours and a half hours arriving at The whole cheering command entered the valley, and the village teemed with activity like an anthill which had just been stirred up. The camp held thirty-seven lodges.

A three- or four-year-old girl was discovered, but no bodies were found. Over 5, pounds of dried meat was found and was a "God-send" for the starved troopers. General Crook then turned his full attention to Chief American Horse and his family in the ravine. The soldiers opened upon it an incessant fire, which made the surrounding hills echo back a terrible music. The papooses wailed so loudly, and so piteously, that even not firing could not quell their voices.

General Crook ordered the men to suspend operations immediately, but dozens of angry soldiers surged forward and had to be beat back by officers. This was accepted by the besieged, and Crook in person went into the mouth of the ravine and handed out one tall, fine looking woman, who had an infant strapped to her back. She trembled all over and refused to liberate the General's hand. Eleven other squaws and six papooses were taken out and crowded around Crook, but the few surviving warriors refused to surrender and savagely re-commenced the fight.

Chief American Horse refused to leave, and with three warriors, five women and an infant, remained in the cave.

Exasperated by the increasing casualties in his ranks, Crook directed some of his infantry and dismounted cavalry to form across the opening of the gorge. On command, the troopers opened steady and withering fire on the ravine which sent an estimated 3, bullets among the warriors. Pourier recalled that he first saw American Horse kneeling with a gun in his hand, in a hole on the side of the ravine that he had scooped out with a butcher knife. Two of the squaws were also wounded.

What is Kobo Super Points?

Eleven were killed in the hole. He came marching out of that death trap as straight as an arrow. Holding out one of his blood-stained hands he shook hands with me. The Indian replied in Lakota, "American Horse.

• Gridiron Bully (Jake Maddox Sports Stories)
• Whats a Nice Girl Like Me Doing in a Gene Pool Like This?
• POW: Diary of a Prisoner of War
• The Freedom Merchants
• Whats Forever For
• Dash Diet: Lose Weight Quickly (Dash Diet Books)