Crazy Horse (2608 words)

Crazy HorseWhen I think back of the stories that I have heard about how
the Native American Indians were driven from their land and
forced to live on the reservations one particular event comes to
my mind. That event is the Battle of the Little Big Horn. It is
one of the few times that the Oglala Sioux made history with them
being the ones who left the battlefield as winners. When stories
are told, or when the media dares to tamper with history, it is
usually the American Indians who are looked upon as the bad guys.

They are portrayed as savages who spent their time raiding wagon
trains and scalping the white settlers just for fun. The media
has lead us to believe that the American government was forced to
take the land from these savage Indians. We should put the blame
where it belongs, on the U.S. Government who lied, cheated, and
stole from the Oglala forcing Crazy Horse, the great war chief,
and many other leaders to surrender their nation in order to save
the lives of their people.

In the nineteenth century the most dominant nation in the
western plains was the Sioux Nation. This nation was divided into
seven tribes: Oglala’s, Brule’, Minneconjou, Hunkpapa, No Bow,
Two Kettle, and the Blackfoot. Of these tribes they had different
band. The Hunkpatila was one band of the Oglala’s (Guttmacher
12). One of the greatest war chiefs of all times came from this
band. His name was Crazy Horse.

Crazy Horse was not given this name, on his birth date in
the fall of 1841. He was born of his father, Crazy Horse an
Oglala holy man, and his mother a sister of a Brule’ warrior,
Spotted Tail. As the boy grew older his hair was wavy so his
people gave him the nickname of Curly (Guttmacher 23). He was to
go by Curly until the summer of 1858, after a battle with the
Arapaho’s. Curly’s brave charged against the Arapaho’s led his
father to give Curly the name Crazy Horse. This was the name of
his father and of many fathers before him (Guttmacher 47).

In the 1850’s, the country where the Sioux Nation lived, was
being invaded by the white settlers. This was upsetting for many
of the tribes. They did not understand the ways of the whites.

When the whites tore into the land with plows and hunted the
sacred buffalo just for the hides this went against the morale
and religious beliefs of the Sioux. The white government began to
build forts. In 1851, Fort Laramie was built along the North
Platte river in Sioux territory (Matthiessen 6).

In 1851, the settlers began complaining of the Indians who
would not allow them to go where they wanted. U.S. Agents drew up
a treaty that required the Indians to give safe passage to the
white settlers along the Oregon Trail. In return the government
promised yearly supplies of guns, ammunition, flour, sugar,
coffee, tobacco, blankets, and bacon. These supplies were to be
provided for fifty-five years. Ten thousand Sioux gathered at the
fort to listen to the words of the white government and to be
showered with gifts. In addition the treaty wanted the Indians to
allow all settlers to cross their lands. They were to divide the
plains into separate territories and each tribe was not to cross
the border of their territory. The treaty also wanted no wars to
be waged on other tribes. They wanted each Indian nation to
choose a leader that would speak for the entire nation. Many
Indians did not like this treaty and only after weeks of bribery
did the whites finally convince a sizable group of leaders to
sign. The Oglala’s were among those who refused (Matthiessen 6).

This Treaty however did not stop the trouble between the
Indians and the settlers. The Indians however, did not cause
violent trouble, they would perhaps approach a covered wagon to
trade or extract gifts of food. The most daring warrior might
make away with a metal pot or pan but nothing violent like the
books and movies lead us to believe (Matthiessen 7).

The straw that broke the camels back took place on August
17, 1854 when the relations between the Indians and Whites were
shattered. Among the settlers heading west was a group of Mormons
and as they were passing, a few miles south of Fort Laramie, an
Indian stole a cow. The Mormons reported this to Lieutenant Hugh
B. Fleming, the commander of the post. Fleming demanded that the
offender, High Forehead of the Minneconjou, face charges. Chief
Conquering Bear suggested that the Mormons come to his herd of
ponies and pick out the best pony he had to replace the cow,
which to the Sioux these ponies were their wealth. This seemed to
be a very gracious offer. Fleming would not agree and sent
Lieutenant John L. Grattan to bring back the warrior. When
Grattan arrived at Conquering Bears camp, he was given another
offer. This time they could choose five ponies from five herds
among the tribes. Grattan refused and began to open fire
(Guttmacher 14-19). This outrageous act of war was not called
for. The Mormons would have surely been satisfied with the ponies
or the money the ponies would have bought. The government just
did not want to keep the Indian-White relationship peaceful.

Crazy Horse, then called Curly, was only thirteen when the
soldiers and the Indians fought. The Indians outnumbered the
soldiers and won the battle (Guttmacher 20).

Crazy Horse eventually became a leader of his people. In
today’s society our leaders are given money and gifts but in the
times of Crazy Horse it was almost the opposite. He was expected
to live modestly, keep only what he needed and give away the
rest. After hunting he would give the needy the choicest meat and
keep the stringy meat for himself. He did however, have the honor
and prestige that allowed him to make the decisions for the tribe
(Ambrose 125).

As well as other Sioux leaders, Crazy Horse lead his people
into the Powder River country. The reason for this move was to
leave behind the ways of the white man and continue living the
ways of the Sioux. The white man had brought to their country
sickness, liquor and damaging lifestyles much different from the
lifestyles of the Sioux.

In 1865, U.S. officials wanted to obtain land from the
Indians. They offered many different bribes, such as gifts and
liquor, to the Indians who lived around the forts. They were very
good at making the sell of land seem temporary and they convinced
many that what the right thing to do was sell. The land they
wanted was access land into the Powder River country. The
government did not have the luck they needed in obtaining the
land with money or bribes. So in the summer of 1865 they sent
more than two thousand soldiers from Fort Laramie into the Powder
River country (Ambrose 151).

In 1866 the government, knowing that the land they wanted
was worth much more, offered the Sioux fifteen thousand dollars
annually for access into Powder River country. The Indians did
allow whites to use the Bozeman Trail just as they allowed
immigrants to use the Holy Road. The U.S. Government had an
obligation to protect its citizens but not to provoke a crisis.

They did create a crisis when they established forts in the heart
of Oglala territory. After conquering the confederates the U.S.

Army was full of optimism and wanted desperately to have an all
out war to exterminate the Sioux. Although the Indians were
allowing the whites to use the Bozeman Trail, the government was
not satisfied. They wanted the legal right to use the trail. E.B.

Taylor, a government agent at one of the Indian Offices,
tricked some of the Indian Leaders into going to Fort Laramie in
1866 for a treaty. He deliberately attempted to deceive them; he
said nothing about building forts along the trail, only that they
wanted to use the Bozeman Trail. He offered them guns,
ammunition, gifts plus money. The Indians did not sell (Ambrose
213-214).

In June 1867, the government officials produced a new
treaty. This treaty, like all the ones before, only promised
lavish gifts to those who would sign. One of the Oglala chiefs,
Red Cloud, wanted more for his nation than the simple gifts
offered. He wanted the troops to move from the forts; Reno,
Philkearny and C.F. Smith. During the summer of 1868 his request
was accepted. The troops moved. A civil war hero William Tecumseh
Sherman moved into the territory as the new commander of the
plains. He had plans to get the treaty signed. His hopes were to,
shut up the congressional critics, get the Sioux to agree on a
treaty and maintain the army’s morale. After negotiations were
made Red Cloud lead one hundred-and twenty-five leaders of the
Sioux nations to sign the treaty of 1868. This treaty guaranteed
“absolute and undisturbed use of the Great Sioux Reservation. No
person shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or
reside in territory described in this article, or without
consent of the Indians pass through the same” (Matthiessen 7-8).

This treaty also stated that the hunting rights on the land
between the Black Hills and the Big Horn Mountains “as long as
the grass shall grow and the water flows”.(Guttmacher 73). It
forced the Indians to be farmers and live in houses. There could
be no changes made to the treaty without three fourths of all
adult males of the Sioux nation agreeing (Ambrose 282).

The Indians had divided into those who agreed with the
treaty, the “friendly” and those who wanted nothing to do with
the treaty, the “hostile”. The U.S. government did not recognize
these separate groups. They forbid trade with the Powder River
Indians until all Indians moved to the reservation. This was not
in the Treaty of 1868, (Guttmacher 76).

Even though the government was getting the best part of the
treaty they were not satisfied with progress. In 1871 the Indian
Appropriation Bill was passed which stated “hereafter no Indian
nation or tribe within the United States shall be acknowledged
or recognized as an independent nation, tribe or power with whom
the U.S. may contract by treaty” (Matthiessen 7-8).

General Armstrong Custer was appointed as the new commander
of the plains. He led the Seventh Calvary on a mission to subdue
a band of hostile Cheyenne. The calvary came across an Indian
village and attacked them instead. Black Kettle, the chief of the
village and his wife were killed as they rode to surrender. This
killing of 100 Cheyenne, mostly women and children, and 800
ponies was advertised as Custer’s victory against the brutal
savages (Guttmacher 81-82).

The U.S. Army led an expedition into the Sioux territory.

According to the Treaty of 1868 this expedition was not legal.

The expedition was to survey land for the Northern Pacific
Railroad. The railroad meant progress. (Guttmacher 81).

Since the civil war the American economy was booming.

Railroad stocks led the way. On, September 18 1873, banking
crashed. Farm prices plummeted, grasshopper plaques ruined crops,
yellow fever struck in the Mississippi Valley, and unemployment
went sky high. The government figured that it’s role was to pour
money into the economy. The gold supply was insufficient.

President Grants solution to the economy was to open new
territory for exploration. So in the spring of 1874 troops were
sent to open a fort in the Black Hills. The government,
exaggerated at the best or lied at the worst, said the Indians
were not keeping up their part of the treaty. Custer was in
charge of this expedition. During this expedition Custer claimed
that there was gold in the Black Hills. Grant looked at this as
an opportunity to show the country he could pull them from the
depression and he opened the Black Hills for prospecting. This
broke the treaty of 1868 again (Ambrose 343-346). The Black Hills
was a sacred place to the Sioux. It was a place where spirits
dwelled, a holy place called Pa Sapa by the Sioux. The whites had
only the crudest concept of what the hills meant to the Indians.

By 1876 ten thousand whites lived in Custer City, the frontier
town of the southern Black Hills. Agency Indians were not living
very well on the reservations. Government agents were corrupt.

They would accept diseased cattle, rotten flour and wormy corn.

They would get a kickback on the profits. The Indians were
undernourished and even starving. The agents also claimed the
Indians exaggerated in their numbers just to receive more
rations. However, in a census conducted by the government trying
to prove this, they found that the Indians were actually claiming
less (Ambrose 359).

In 1876, the agencies were taken from the churches and given
to the army to control. This was petitioned to Washington with
statements that soldiers were obnoxious and their dislike for
Indians was very obvious. Also the army was corrupting the
Indians by introducing and encouraging alcohol and gambling. The
petition also stated that all the agency troubles had been caused
directly or indirectly by the soldiers. No change in policy was
done on behalf of these petitions (Kadlecek 33).

Unwilling to pay for the Black Hills and unable to defeat
the Sioux in war, on August, 15, 1876 Congress passed the Sioux
Appropriation Bill. This bill stated that further provisions
would not be given to the Sioux until the hostiles gave up the
Black Hills, Powder River country and Bighorn country. They would
also have to move to the Missouri River in Central Dakota or to
Oklahoma. Upset because of there defeat the Government demanded
unconditional surrender of the Sioux or they would starve those
in the agencies. Red Cloud and the other chiefs were told to sign
a treaty or their people would starve. Crazy horse and Sitting
Bull continued to fight for land that was stolen from them in a
misleading treaty (Ambrose 417-418). The Treaty of 1876 was not
signed by at least three fourths of the male members of the Sioux
nation as the Treaty of 1868 had stipulated. So they cheated by
calling the treaty an “Agreement” instead of a treaty (Friswold
19).

The government had changed or disturbed nearly every part of
the Indians lives. They had taken their horses (their wealth),
taken their land, taken the buffalo and taken their tipis. They
still had their religion. They had seven ceremonial rites of
which two were the most beneficial; the Vision Quest and the Sun
Dance. The Vision quest was an individual dance and the Sun Dance
a community affair. In June 1877 the biggest Sun Dance seen on
the reservation, twenty thousand strong, was held to honor Crazy
Horse. This was the last big Sun Dance (Kadlecek 37-42).

Crazy Horse was finally persuaded to bring his people in to
live on the reservation. Crazy horse was lied to when a
government official told him that he was needed at a conference.

He realized this was a trap when he saw bars on the windows. He
drew his knife and attempted to break loose. A white soldier,
William Gentiles, lunged at Crazy Horse with a fixed bayonet that
punctured his kidney. Crazy Horse died September, 5 1877
(Kadlecek 53).

The Sioux Indians had lost nearly everything that made them
a strong nation. In 1881 the government prohibited all
reservations from allowing the Sun Dance. The government went
against the First Amendment and took away the Sioux’s greatest
religious ceremony. General Sherman, never known as an Indian
lover, said a reservation was “a parcel of land inhabited by
Indians and surrounded by thieves” (Matthiessen 17). This type of
harassment did not stop. In 1887 the General Allotment Act (the
Dawes Act) was passed. This Act was designed to assist the
Indians to mainstream into America. Each male Indian was given
160 acres of land from the reservation. Of course the excess land
was taken by the government and sold to the whites. The Indians
were not accustom to dealing with thieves and the majority
of them lost their land through shady dealings (Matthiessen 17).

The U.S. Government used many deceptions to obtain the land
the Indians once owned. The Sioux Indians were not treated with
the most respect to say the least. They must be commended for
staying strong and still being a big part of the United States
today.