Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse ( English for possessed or crazy horse , Indian name [Lakota] Tashunka Witko [Tȟašúŋke Witkó, literally: His horse is crazy], pronunciation: tchaschunke witko; * around 1839, † September 5, 1877 in Fort Robinson , Nebraska ) was a leader of the Oglala Indians, a division of the western Sioux (own name Lakota ).
youth
Crazy Horse's exact date of birth is unknown. Chief He Dog , one of his closest friends, said in an interview on July 7, 1930: "Me and Crazy Horse were born in the same year and in the same season ... I am now 92 years old." According to this, Crazy Horse would be over the year 1838 was born.
Encouraging Bear , Spiritual Advisor to Crazy Horse, reported that Crazy Horse "was born in the year that the tribe he belonged to, the Oglala , stole 100 horses." If you believe the winter counts , the winter counts made by Cloud Shield and White Bull , then it is the year 1840.
His place of birth cannot be clearly determined either. A September 14, 1877 article in the New York Sun about Crazy Horse's death names the South Cheyenne River as the place of birth. All other sources name either Rapid Creek , near today's city of Rapid City , South Dakota , or Bear Butte near Sturgis , South Dakota, as the place of birth.
His father (* 1810) was also called Crazy Horse, but changed the name to Worm after people began to call his son Crazy Horse. His mother, Rattling Blanket Woman (* 1814) was a Minneconjou- Lacota. She allegedly hanged herself after Crazy Horse's brother was killed in a raid on the Absarokee tribe . His father then married two sisters of the Brulé Lakota chief Spotted Tail . From this marriage comes Crazy Horse's half-brother Little Hawk , who was killed in a battle on the Platte River in 1871.
Before Crazy Horse got its name, it was called Light Hair or Curly Hair . As was customary with the Lakota, the name changed with age. When he was about ten years old, his father changed his name to His Horse on Sight (according to other translations also: Horse stands in Sight , His Horse looking or His Horse partly showing ). The reason was that his son successfully on wild horses catch in the Sandhills of Nebraska had participated. When he was 18 years old, he got his final name Crazy Horse after a valiant battle with the Arapaho .
First battles with the US Army
Crazy Horse is said to have been in the Brulé-Teton camp near Fort Laramie in 1854 when it became the site of the so-called Grattan massacre . The Sioux chief Conquering Bear , the inexperienced U.S. infantry lieutenant John Lawrence Grattan and 29 soldiers were killed in this confrontation . Immediately after the Grattan incident, Crazy Horse went to the Sandhills, where he had a vision that would affect the rest of his life. The vision said that contrary to the Lakota custom, he should go to war without war paint and feather headdress, but with a layer of dust on his skin and head, then he would be invulnerable. After three days he returned to the camp. His father disagreed with his son missing for three days while the whole camp mourned Conquering Bear. When Crazy Horse said that he had gone to get a vision, his father became even angrier that such a sacred ceremony would have required certain pre-requisites.
In the following year 1855 Crazy Horse is also said to have observed the retaliation of the US Army for the Grattan incident when Colonel William S. Harney opened a Brulé-Teton camp under Chief Little in the Battle of Ash Hollow on Bluewater Creek ( Nebraska ) Thunder destroyed and numerous Lakota killed or abducted.
In the late 1850s and early 1860s, Crazy Horse's reputation as a warrior and fame among the Lakota continued to grow. There are few written sources about this period, as the majority of the armed conflicts between the prairie tribes took place among themselves.
On December 21, 1866, Crazy Horse led a combined force of about 1,000 Oglala, Cheyenne and Minneconjou warriors against US forces from Fort Phil Kearny . In this attack, the so-called Fetterman Skirmish , Crazy Horse and several other outstanding warriors lured a division of the US Army under the leadership of Captain William Fetterman into an ambush. Fetterman had previously boasted that if left alone with a company of his men riding through the Sioux Nation , he would single- handedly solve the problem. Crazy Horse had attacked a group of lumberjacks from the fort as a pretext, whereupon the commanding Colonel Carrington Fetterman and his men sent out to horror the lumberjacks, albeit under strict orders not to cross the ridge in front of the fort, otherwise visual contact would be lost . Crazy Horse had set up a classic ambush; As Fetterman and his men trudged through the thick snow over the ridge, they were faced with a superior force Oglala and Cheyenne, who fell on the surprised soldiers in no time at all. None of the soldiers survived the battle. This was the worst defeat of the US Army in the " Great Plains " until then .
On August 2, 1867, Crazy Horse and 500 warriors suffered a major defeat in an attack on a logging column near the fort, as the soldiers of the escort were equipped for the first time with new Springfield breech loading rifles. Nevertheless, the ongoing guerrilla warfare of the Indians under the high command of Red Cloud contributed to the fact that the whites gave up the forts Reno, Phil Kearny and CF Smith in the hunting area on the Powder River ( Treaty of Fort Laramie 1868 ). In 1868 Crazy Horse was given the title Ogle Tanka Un , which can be translated as "shirt wearer".
In the summer of 1870, Crazy Horse married Black Buffalo Woman , who was already No Water's wife . It was the Lakota custom that a wife could divorce her husband at any time. This was done simply by moving out to live with relatives or a new husband. Removing the husband's personal belongings from the tent was also considered a divorce. The husband was expected to respect this so as not to burden the tribe's coexistence, even if compensation payments were made in part. No Water was out of camp when Crazy Horse and Black Buffalo Woman got married. When No Water found out about the connection, he looked for the two together with some warriors. When he found her, he shot Crazy Horse in the jaw. However, some tribal elders convinced Crazy Horse and No Water that no more blood should be shed. As compensation for the injury, Crazy Horse received three horses from No Water. Crazy Horse had to give up his title "shirt wearer" (leader) due to the incidents. Around the same time, his half-brother Little Hawk was killed. Sometime in 1871, Crazy Horse married his second wife, Black Shawl .
On August 14, 1872, he and Sitting Bull raided troops escorting railway workers on the Northern Pacific Railroad . In this battle, known as the " Arrow Creek Battle," there were minimal casualties on either side.
Little Bighorn Campaign
In 1875 a government commission tried in vain to buy the Black Hills (a kind of low mountain range, which is sacred to the plains Indians) from the Lakota , where rich gold deposits were assumed. In order to finally break the resistance, the US government initiated extensive military campaigns against the last free tribal associations that rallied around Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull .
On June 17, 1876, Crazy Horse carried out a surprise attack on about 1000 cavalrymen and infantrymen under Brigadier General George Crook with about 1500 Lakota and Cheyenne warriors . On the side of the US Army, 300 Shoshone and Crow warriors were also involved. This battle at Rosebud Creek was not very costly, but prevented Crook from uniting with the 7th US Cavalry Regiment under George A. Custer , which would later lead to the regiment's defeat in the Battle of Little Bighorn .
On June 25, 1876, around 3 p.m., Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment raided a Lakota and Cheyenne village on Little Bighorn. Crazy Horse repulsed the first attack led by Major Marcus Reno. When Reno's troops fled, Crazy Horse was able to pursue Custer and kill him and his troops to the last man. The troops were surrounded. While Crazy Horse attacked from the north and west, Hunkpapa warriors led by Chief Gall attacked the soldiers from the south and east.
In the following months, the US Army pursued the last free Sioux and Cheyenne detachments in a merciless campaign that also continued over the winter, which led to flight, devastating defeats and surrender of the Indians, not least because of the rapidly dwindling herds of bison, their livelihood.
On January 8, 1877, the warriors fought against the US cavalry in their last major battle, the battle on Wolf Mountain in Montana .
On May 8, 1877, Crazy Horse units surrendered to the US Army at Fort Robinson , Nebraska . He had realized that his people were weakened by cold and hunger and could no longer fight.
Last months and death
In the following period, Crazy Horse inevitably first came to terms with the army. On May 15, 1877 he was appointed NCO of the US Indian Scouts. He took the Franco Indian Nellie Larabee as his third wife. The army command asked him to go to Washington DC to meet the newly elected President Rutherford B. Hayes . Crazy Horse was initially willing to do this, but on the condition that his tribal group receive a reservation in the north. The negotiations turned out to be very difficult until Crazy Horse finally abandoned the plan to travel to Washington.
The contemporary witnesses said that the attention that Crazy Horse received from the US Army, but also from the tribesmen who had been living in the reservation for some time, had aroused the envy of other chiefs such as Red Cloud and Spotted Tail . As is well known, they had settled in the reservation long before him and made arrangements with the whites. However, envy was probably not the main reason for the tensions between the leading Lakota, but rather a deep alienation between the real politicians Red Cloud and Spotted Tail and the war chief Crazy Horse, who underestimated the enormous social and economic upheavals across the entire territory of the USA. The growing disagreements were expressed in rumors that Crazy Horse wanted to return to his old warrior life.
In August 1877 it was announced in Fort Robinson that the Nez Percé under " Chief Joseph " broke out of their reservation in Idaho and fled north through Montana towards Canada . General Crook planned to send a strong force of Lakota warriors after them to stop them. Crazy Horse should lead the troop. Crazy Horse initially agreed to the plan, but only on the condition that they would then be able to hunt in the north. He reportedly promised that he would fight "until all of the Nez Perce were killed". The interpreter Frank Grouart translated this, however, by saying that Crazy Horse “will go north and fight until there is no white man left”. In the course of the negotiations there were so many misunderstandings - not least because of the wrong translations - that Crazy Horse finally refused any cooperation with the US Army. At the end of the talks he said explicitly that he had promised not to wage war more than he had surrendered. The alleged saying about the killing of all whites, however, was brought to General Philip Sheridan , who entrusted Crook with the clarification and final settlement of the matter. At one of the following discussions, members of the tribal chief expressed that he would have to be killed in the end. One of the Army officers even put a price on his head.
Some Lakota raised the Army's suspicion of Crazy Horse by telling Crook that Crazy Horse wanted to kill him at the upcoming meeting. Now at the latest, the army command decided to intern the chief. Crazy Horse found out about the conspiracy through friends and took his sick wife to her parents. This resulted in his enemies spreading rumors that he had fled Fort Robinson .
Crazy Horse turned to the Brulé Indian agent Lieutenant Jesse Lee . He advised him to return to Fort Robinson and clarify the matter. He followed this advice and returned to Fort Robinson on September 5, 1877. There, the guards and Crazy Horse hostile Lakota such as Little Big Man (also known as "Charging Bear") tried to arrest him. But Crazy Horse resisted and fled from the guardhouse. A large crowd had gathered in the forecourt, many of them enemies of the chief. In a scuffle with Little Big Man and others, Crazy Horse was stabbed in the lungs and left kidney with a bayonet by soldier William Gentiles . The chief died that night despite immediate help from the doctor Valentine McGillycuddy . Crazy Horse's father and Chief Touch the Clouds were also there. The dead man's bones were buried by his parents in a secret location near the Wounded Knee .
Controversies over his death
Every year on September 6th, Oglala-Dakota meet at the place of his death. The official date of death is given as September 5, however, as McGillycuddy had stated that he died before midnight.
John Gregory Bourke , who took part in the Indian Wars, wrote in his memoir "On the Border with Crook" that he had interviewed the warrior Little Big Man, who witnessed Crazy Horse's death and was himself wounded in the process. A year after the incident, the latter told him that Crazy Horse was being escorted by the guards to the guardhouse when he suddenly pulled two knives, one in each hand, from under his covers. A knife was made from the point of an army bayonet. Little Big Man was right behind Crazy Horse and wanted to prevent the soldiers from having a reason to kill him. So he grabbed Crazy Horse's two arms by the elbows and pulled them up and back. Crazy Horse struggled violently and Little Big Man couldn't hold an arm. Crazy Horse stabbed himself in the back with the swing of this arm.
When Bourke then asked him if the soldiers had stabbed Crazy Horse with their bayonets, Little Big Man explained that although they did, no one had hit Crazy Horse. One even thrust his bayonet into the wood of the guardhouse. This hole could still be seen in the guardhouse at the time Little Big Man was questioned. Little Big Man said that in the hours following the incident, the camp commandant suggested that the version be spread that the guard was responsible for Crazy Horse's death. This should probably have prevented riots between the individual tribes.
Bourke checked Little Big Man's information and examined the door of the guard house at Fort Robinson, where he found a deep hole that could only have been pounded by a bayonet. The statement was long believed because Little Big Man was allegedly the only Indian witness to the incident and because Crazy Horse had acquitted everyone else of guilt for his death to the camp commandant - his death was his own fault.
However, this version ignored the fact that Little Big Man was by no means the only Indian present - Crazy Horse was stabbed to death in front of hundreds of Lakota. Above all, Little Big Man was one of the chief's bitterest enemies at the time. He was one of the Lakota who wanted to arrest him or even kill him. The description of the camp commandant about the supposed last words of the dying man is also to be mistrusted, since it was supposed to exculpate him too clearly - quite apart from the fact that Crazy Horse spoke just as little English as the commandant Lakota.
In the end, the war chief's death was a consequence of the controversy within the tribe about future policy in dealing with the US government and the extremely anti-Indian attitude of the generals in charge, who took advantage of the mood against the chief. Crazy Horse, who had previously only regarded himself as a war chief and never as a politician, had become more and more isolated in the course of the conflict over the hoped-for reserve in the north and in the end could only count on the support of a few families. Only a short time after his death, however, many of his former supporters secretly left the agency and moved across the Canadian border, where Sitting Bull was still running a free Lakota group. The Red Clouds and Spotted Tails reservation was soon canceled. The reservation Indians had to move again despite the resistance Red Clouds, this time to the Missouri .
Crazy Horse Memorial
Crazy Horse is now commemorated by a monumental monument, the Crazy Horse Memorial , which is currently being carved into a mountain in South Dakota, similar to the Mount Rushmore National Memorial . Korczak Ziolkowski started the sculpture in 1948, his wife and seven of his ten children are continuing the project. When completed, it will be 195 m high and 172 m wide.
Irritations about a photo
There is a lot of debate about whether the only photo that Crazy Horse is supposed to show really depicts him. Surgeon Valentine McGillycuddy, who knew Crazy Horse personally, denied this and doubted there was even a photo of him. Crazy Horse didn't want to be photographed. It is possible that the person depicted is Crazy Horse's brother, who was very similar to him and who had himself photographed.
Other contemporaries, such as Bourke, who had known Crazy Horse personally, reported a large scar on his face left by No Water's shot in an argument over his wife. Such a scar cannot be seen in the photo.
literature
- Mari Sandoz: Crazy Horse, the Strange Man of the Oglalas, a biography. 1942, ISBN 0-8032-9211-2 German-language edition: Mari Sandoz: Feuerross. The adventurous life story of the Indian chief Crazy Horse . Swiss printing and publishing house, Zurich 1963
- Stephen E. Ambrose: Crazy Horse and Custer. The epic clash of two great warriors at the Little Bighorn. 1975
- Robert Clark: The Killing of Chief Crazy Horse. Three Eyewitness Views by the Indian, Chief He Dog the Indian White, William Garnett the White Doctor, Valentine McGillycuddy. 1988, ISBN 0-8032-6330-9
- Russel Freedman: The Life and Death of Crazy Horse . Drawings by Amos Bad Heart Bull, Holiday House, New York 1996
- Debating Crazy Horse. Is this the Famous Oglala . In: Whispering Wind magazine. Volume 34, No. 3, 2004 (A discussion on the improbability of the Garryowen photo being that of Crazy Horse (the same photo shown here). The clothing, the studio setting all date the photo 1890–1910.)
- Joseph M. Marshall III: The Journey of Crazy Horse. A Lakota History. 2004
- Larry McMurtry: Crazy Horse. Translated by Michael Mundhenk. Claassen Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-546-00377-2
- Kingsley M. Bray: Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life . University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 2006
- The Authorized Biography of Crazy Horse and His Family. Part One: Creation, Spirituality and the Family Tree. William Matson and Mark Frethem Producers. Surviving Crazy Horse family gives detailed account of their lineage. Taken from over 100 hours of video taped Crazy Horse family oral history and footage of his battle, spiritual, and domestic camp sites and put on DVD. www.reelcontact.com 99 minutes 2006
Web links
- Literature by and about Crazy Horse in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Crazy Horse |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Tashunka Witko (real name); Tȟašúŋke Witkó; Crazy horse (translation) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Leader of the Oglala |
| DATE OF BIRTH | around 1839 |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 5, 1877 |
| Place of death | Fort Robinson , Nebraska |