Old West Showdown by Bill Markley & KELLEN CUTSFORTH

Author:Bill Markley & KELLEN CUTSFORTH [Markley, Bill & CUTSFORTH, KELLEN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: TwoDot
Published: 2018-10-01T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

The Death of Crazy Horse

Just the Facts

The Wakinyan, Thunder Beings, came to the boy in a dream as he sat alone on a hill. A horse and rider emerged out of still water. The horse changed colors as they rode untouched against an onslaught of bullets and arrows, but in the end the rider was pulled down by his own people. Such was the dream of the boy who would be named Tasunke Witko, or Crazy Horse. Lakota historian Joseph M. Marshall III says of Crazy Horse, “I think of him as wica or ‘complete man.’ . . . A wica was the kind of man who demonstrated the highest Lakota virtues of generosity, courage, fortitude, and wisdom.”1

The boy who was first called Curly and Light Hair was born in present-day South Dakota’s Black Hills, in the year a hundred horses were taken, most likely 1840.2 He was born into the Oglala subgroup, one of the Seven Council Fires of the Lakota people. The boy grew up learning hunting and warfare.

Immigrants began traveling the Oregon Trail, and to help protect them, the federal government bought a trading post, Fort Laramie, in present-day Wyoming. In 1851, American peace commissioners held a council with plains tribes at Fort Laramie, persuading them to sign the Horse Creek treaty guaranteeing the tribes would not molest travelers along the Oregon Trail. The peace commissioners named the Brulé chief Conquering Bear chief of all the Sioux, even though he knew he could not speak for any of the other Lakota.3

In 1854, Curly visited Conquering Bear’s camp near Fort Laramie. A Mormon immigrant’s cow wandered into camp and someone killed it. On August 19, 1854, Second Lieutenant John Grattan, along with twenty men and two howitzers, entered Conquering Bear’s camp to arrest the cow killer. Conquering Bear offered to pay for the cow but refused to turn over the killer. Grattan ordered the cannons to be fired, severely wounding Conquering Bear, whose warriors quickly wiped out Grattan and his men. Curly was greatly affected by Conquering Bear’s wounding and subsequent death. On September 3, 1855, Curly was visiting Little Thunder’s camp on the Blue Water River in Nebraska Territory. He was away hunting when General William Harney’s troops attacked, killing men, women, and children. This attack reinforced Curly’s view that whites were killers and not to be trusted.

Curly later joined in a raid, killing two enemy warriors. In honor of his son’s accomplishments, Curly’s father gave him his own name—Crazy Horse.4

Crazy Horse continued his heroic exploits and was made a Shirt Wearer. Shirt Wearers lived not for themselves but for the people. He relinquished his position when he became embroiled in a personal dispute over a woman. The elders decreed that no one was ever to wear Crazy Horse’s shirt again.5 But this did not stop him from doing good deeds.

In June 1866, during peace negations at Fort Laramie, the Lakota learned that the army planned to build forts along the Bozeman Trail, running along the eastern slopes of Wyoming’s Bighorn Mountains.

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