Crazy Horse is a Native American chief, born around 1840 and died on September 5, 1877, who was, with Sitting Bull, one of the great Lakota chiefs who fought against the American soldiers.
Its name in English (translated into French as "Crazy Horse") is the translation from the Lakota language of Tashunca-Uitco or, to respect the spelling, Tašúŋke Witkó, literally:"his horses have sacred fire" in Lakota.
Origins
Crazy Horse was born around 18402. His place of birth is also not known with certainty. Some sources indicate the banks of the South Cheyenne River, others the surroundings of present-day Rapid City, still others the surroundings of Sturgis, South Dakota.
Crazy Horse is a member of the Lakota Oglalas tribe. His father was also called Crazy Horse and changed it to Worm when he passed it on to him. His mother, Rattling Blanket, is a Lakota Miniconjou. Crazy Horse also had a sister whose name is not known and a half-brother, Little Hawk, born after his father's marriage to the two sisters of Spotted Tail, the leader of the Burned Lakotas.
The first name carried by Crazy Horse is that of Little Hair or Curly Hair, according to the sources. He inherited his father's name at the age of 18 after a fiery fight against the Inuna-ina.
Youth and vision
In 1854, he was present in the Burned Camp of Conquering Bear and witnessed the massacre of Grattan, as well as the death of Conquering Bear. The young Curley isolates himself in nature in search of a vision. He will remain in bed for three days waiting for a vision which will not come in the end. He then prepares to return to camp, but faints trying to get on his horse. He then dreams of a man mounted on a horse and crossing a cloud of bullets and arrows without being injured and a storm without reacting. A red-tailed hawk flies overhead. At the end of the vision, after resisting bullets and arrows, the horseman is unhorsed and knocked down by his people. The storm draws lightning on his face and hail on his body. He will wait several years to tell the story of his vision to his father. This one will then explain to him that the man of his dream was none other than him. From now on Curley is called Crazy Horse.
Afterwards, he covers himself in ground squirrel burrow dust to protect himself from bullets, paints lightning on his face and hail on his body, and clings a stuffed red hawk to his hair which he leaves loose. His vision forbidding him to take scalps, he won't take any.
Over the next few years, he built a solid reputation as a brave and efficient warrior. In 1865, he became a member of the prestigious warrior society of the Carriers of Shirts.
Red Cloud's War
In 1866, despite the opposition of the Lakotas, the American military, under the direction of Colonel Henry B. Carrington, built several forts (Fort Reno, Fort Kearny) along the Bozeman Trail from Fort Laramie to the Big Horn mining territory mountains. The Lakotas led by Chief Red Cloud decide to defend their lands.
It is in this context that Crazy Horse's first great feat took place. On December 21, 1866, a party of Indian warriors attacked a group of soldiers tasked with carrying wood near Fort Kearny. Captain William Fetterman is sent as reinforcements with 80 soldiers. With a dozen men, Crazy Horse leads the soldiers in pursuit, taunting them by stopping within rifle range to scrape the ice off his horse's hooves, pretending to rest... The warriors lure the soldiers into an ambush . Surrounded by 500 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, the American detachment is annihilated. It was to date the worst defeat for the American army in the Indian Wars in the Western Great Plains. This clash is called the Battle of Fetterman
Subsequently, the Union troops decided to evacuate the forts. Negotiations lead to the treaty of 1868 in which the US government recognizes the region between Upper Missouri, Wyoming, the Rockies and the Yellowstone River as Indian territory. For their part, the Lakotas undertake to let through authorized officers, agents and government employees.
However, if Red Cloud, Spotted Tail and all the influential Sioux chiefs signed the treaty, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull refused it and continued to live off the reservations, waging war against their traditional enemies and the white people.
The wedding
In 1870, Crazy Horse fell in love with Black Buffalo Woman. He decides to court her, but it is No Water, a reputedly violent man from an influential family, who obtains the young woman's hand. She divorces however to marry Crazy Horse. No Water does not accept divorce. Excited by what he believes to be a theft, he goes to the village of Crazy Horse with a group of friends. Entering Crazy Horse's teepee, No Water shoots him in the jaw. Seriously injured, Crazy Horse however survived his injury. In order to avoid further trouble, his wife Black Buffalo Woman goes back to live with No Water. The Lakotas force him to offer three horses to Crazy Horse to end the dispute.
In 1871, Little Hawk, Crazy Horse's younger brother, was killed during an expedition on the Platte River. The Lakota chief then marries the young widow, Black Shawl.
He finally has a daughter with Black Shawl. His wife contracts tuberculosis and his daughter (still very young) dies of cholera.
The new war
The discovery of gold in the Black Hills in 1874 encouraged the American military to invest in the region despite the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. On September 17, 1875, an official commission met with Red Cloud, Spotted Tail and the other Lakota chiefs and offered them to buy the territory at a ridiculously low price (six million dollars), which they hasten to refuse. It's war again.
In April 1876, Chief Sitting Bull invited the other Lakota chiefs to a grand council. A great Indian coalition is formed under his orders with the primary objective of preventing the growing infiltration of whites into their territory. Three military columns converge on the Indians.
It was Crazy Horse who led the first battle on June 17 when his army of Lakota and Cheyenne attacked Brigadier-General George Crook's 1,000 soldiers and 300 Indian scouts on the banks of the Rosebud River. The fight, undecided, ends with the loss of 22 warriors and about forty wounded on both sides. With General Crook retreating to his original base the next day, this battle is generally considered a strategic victory for the Native Americans.
A few days later, on June 25, the 7th Cavalry of General George Armstrong Custer launched his troops on the village of Sioux, Cheyennes and Arapaho united on the banks of the Little Bighorn River. The Native Americans repel the first assault led by Commander Marcus Reno, then decide to counterattack. Custer's detachment, outnumbered, is crushed by the warriors of Crazy Horse and Gall. There are 268 killed and 52 wounded among the military.
After this victory, Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull are forced to separate their troops, as their horses required large amounts of grass. Crazy Horse will settle on the banks of the Rosebud River while Sitting Bull leaves to hunt bison on the Big Dry. Colonel Nelson A. Miles attacks him by surprise and succeeds in beating him. Sitting Bull manages to escape to Canada through the Bad Lands.
On January 8, 1877, Miles attacked Crazy Horse at Wolf Mountain. The Native Americans manage to stall, taking advantage of a snowstorm. But his tribesmen, starving and sick, are demoralized.
Surrender
At the end of this long winter, the Oglalas are starving, exhausted and surrounded by thousands of regular soldiers and Amerindian scouts, among whom there are already Sioux and Cheyenne.... Seeing themselves in the impossibility to cross the Canadian border, influenced by his people and by Indians who came from the reservations to convince him to join them, he went to Fort Robinson in the territory of Nebraska with 889 Oglalas on May 6, 1877. At the time of his surrender, hundreds, thousands of Indians gather as it passes and sing.
Murky circumstances of Crazy Horse's death.
In the reserve, the American agents create dissension between the different chiefs. Chef Red Cloud, jealous of Crazy Horse's reputation, spreads rumors about him.
Shortly after, the Americans asked Crazy Horse to accompany them and serve as a scout to wage war against the Nez-Percé of Chief Joseph, who fled from their reserve. Crazy Horse refuses at first, then, in front of the insistence of the soldiers, declares “If we take this path [the war against the Nez-Percé] we will fight until the death of the last Nez-Percé. However, the interpreter, probably in the pay of Red Cloud, jealous of the success of Crazy Horse, declares that he wants to "kill all the white people".
Worried by this event and by rumours, General Crook announces that he wishes to meet Crazy Horse.
The latter is taken to a building in Fort Robinson. The Oglala chief enters, expecting to find Crook and to be able to explain himself to him. He then realizes that it is a prison with bars on the doors. Crazy Horse struggles and tries to escape, pulls out a knife he had kept hidden on him. He is then held back by the prison guard, his former comrade in arms and friend, who was once one of his lieutenants, Little Big Man. The soldier on guard shoves his bayonet into his abdomen (other sources say Little Big Man stabbed him with the knife Crazy Horse was holding).
Crazy Horse is carried to a bed and dies in the night, surrounded by his parents, on September 5, 1877. According to sources, his last words were:"My father, I am seriously injured, tell the people not to rely on me”.
Burial
Crazy Horse's body was returned to his parents who buried him in an undisclosed location somewhere in the Wounded Knee Valley.
Physical and moral description
Captain Bourke, who witnessed its surrender in 1877, describes it as follows :
“I saw in front of me a young man not more than 30 years old and six feet tall, with a scar in the face. His expression and countenance were filled with nobility, but also with anger and sadness. He looked like a man accepting his fate with dignity. While talking to Frank Gouard (the interpreter) he seemed to take a certain pleasure, but at other times he remained morose and reserved. All the Indians held him in high reputation for courage and generosity. When he ran in front of the enemy, none of his warriors had the right to pass him. He had made a hundred friends because of his charity to the poor, and he made a point of keeping nothing for himself when dividing up the spoils, except weapons of war. I have never heard an Indian pronounce his name without putting an accent of deep respect on it. »
Quotes around Crazy Horse
“Crazy Horse is the bravest man I have ever seen. ", the Arapaho warrior (Inuna-ina) Waterman, about Crazy Horse at the battle of Little Bighorn.
"They killed him because they could not conquer him. ", the Oglala Flying Hawk warrior, commenting on the murder (which some Indian witnesses may say was an accident) of Crazy Horse at Fort Robinson.
"We don't sell the ground on which we walk! », Crazy Horse.
The birth of a legend
The absence of photographs, the fact that Crazy Horse always refused to live in a house and to renounce the traditions of his people, to learn English and also the fact that the location of his burial is unknown contribute to making him one of the most beloved Native American leaders, a myth, a true hero of the Native American resistance.
In 1948, in response to the desecration of the Black Hills by white people with the construction of Mount Rushmore, a gigantic monumental sculpture was built not far from Mount Rushmore. The Crazy Horse Memorial sculpture is still not completed. The Crazy Horse Memorial is expected to be the largest sculpture in the world when it's finished.
Crazy Horse is considered to be one of the greatest warlords in the West.
Photography
There are many controversies over alleged photographs, but it is unclear whether they are genuine or not. However, it is more likely that he was never photographed, for several reasons:Crazy Horse was very suspicious of white people, and only spent a few months in the reserve, during which he avoided as often as possible contact with them. It is more difficult to think that Crazy Horse could have remained motionless for the long minutes necessary to obtain a good shot, in front of those he considered his enemies. Finally, to conclude, it suffices to quote the words of the young chef to a photographer who asked him to take a picture of him:“Why would you want to take my shadow? »