Black Moon (chief)

Two Black Moons granddaughters and their husbands

Black Moon ( Wi Sapa ; * around 1821; † March 1, 1893 in the Cheyenne River Reservation, South Dakota ) was a chief of the Minneconjou - Lakota (not to be confused with the Hunkpapa chief of the same name). It was also known as the Loves War .

Life

Nothing is known about Black Moon's early years. He first appeared in 1869 as one of the chiefs who actively supported Sitting Bull's appointment as chief chief of the Lakota.

While a large part of the Minneconjou already lived in the Cheyenne River Reservation at the end of the Indian Wars, Black Moon joined the rebellious Sioux with a small tribal group in the early summer of 1876 and took part in the Battle of Little Bighorn . In 1877 he and his tribal group fled to the Wood Mountain area ( Saskatchewan , Canada ), the place where Sitting Bull and his Hunkpapa had found refuge from persecution by the US Army the year before . In the spring of 1878 there were a total of 5,000 Lakota in the Wood Mountain area.

While most of the Lakota chiefs, including Sitting Bull, decided in 1880/81 to surrender to the USA in order to avoid starvation (around 1880 the buffalo , the Sioux's livelihood, were almost completely exterminated), they decided Black Moon and some other chiefs to stay in Canada with around 250 men, women and children in order to continue the traditional hunting-based way of life as much as possible. In the winter months working in Canada who remained often on farms of white settlers, while in summer moose , elk hunting and small game. Due to the difficult living conditions, Black Moon decided in April 1889 to leave Canada with eleven families. After being arrested at the border and held for two weeks, they were allowed to go to the Standing Rock reservation, where Sitting Bull lived until his murder in December 1890. Two of the families returned to Canada in the fall of 1889. They included two granddaughters Black Moons, Emma Loves War (Tashúnke Núpawin) and Katrine Loves War (Ptesán-win) with their husbands. Emma Loves Wars' eldest son, John Okute Sica , was the first Lakota historian in Canada. A number of accounts of traditional Lakota life have come down to us from him.

In October 1890, Black Moon's family was relocated to the Cheyenne River Reservation. Part of the family joined Chief Spotted Elk when he fled the reservation to join the ghost dance movement. They were all murdered in the Wounded Knee massacre.

Black Moon died on the Cheyenne River Reservation in 1893.

literature

• Ron Papandrea: They Never Surrendered. The Lakota Sioux Band That Stayed in Canada. 2nd edition, Lightning Source 2009, ISBN 978-0-9746527-4-0