by Dee Brown
SAGA
of the
SIOUX
An Adaptation from Dee Brown’s
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
By Dwight Jon Zimmerman
Henry Holt and Company
NEW YORK
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To my sister, Mary
—D. J. Z.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
NOTE TO THE READER
INTRODUCTION
OCETI SAKOWIN: THE GREAT SIOUX NATION
ONE Who Are the Sioux?
TWO War Begins in Minnesota
THREE The Santees Lose Their Homeland
FOUR War Comes to the Powder River
FIVE Red Cloud’s War
SIX The Fetterman Massacre
SEVEN A Treaty Is Signed
EIGHT Breaking the Treaty of Fort Laramie
NINE Victory at Little Bighorn
TEN The Death of Crazy Horse
ELEVEN Sitting Bull Returns Home
TWELVE The Death of Sitting Bull
THIRTEEN The Massacre at Wounded Knee
EPILOGUE Bittersweet Victory
TIME LINE
GLOSSARY
THE SIOUX CALENDAR
RECOMMENDED READING
SUGGESTED WEBSITES
INDEX
Copyright
Note to the Reader
WHEN EXPLORER CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS landed on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1492, he thought he had succeeded in reaching his goal of India. As a result, he called the natives he met “Indians.” Even after he and other explorers discovered that they had actually found a new continent, the name stuck. In the late 20th century, the term Native Americans became a popular replacement in an effort to help correct this historical wrong. Today both names are used, a practice that is repeated here in Saga of the Sioux.
Misnaming errors also extended to the names of tribes and people. Two common reasons for this were the varied skills of the translators, and the prejudices of the people receiving the translation. For instance, Sioux is an English corruption of a French word based on a name used by the Sioux’s old enemies the Ojibwa (you’ll learn more about this here). The most famous example of an individual being misnamed is the Sioux chief Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses. He was not afraid of his own horses. A more accurate translation would have been They-Fear-Even-His-Horses—meaning he was so dangerous in battle that just the sight of his horse inspired fear in his enemies. Perhaps if the original translator had recorded his name as Men-Afraid-of-His-Horses, he would have avoided creating such a misimpression.
Spellings of Native American names may also differ among sources due to the challenge of documenting nonwritten languages.
Undoing the errors of centuries is beyond the power of this one book. For the sake of clarity and comprehension, the well-known names such as Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses and others are used in this text, and their spellings follow Dee Brown’s original book.
A Ghost Dance ceremony. [LOC, USZ62-3726]
Introduction
“HISTORY IS WRITTEN BY THE VICTORS,” said British prime minister Winston Churchill. It’s easy to understand why. The victors want to brag about their success. The surviving victims often don’t want to talk about their defeat because the memory is too painful.
The history most people know about Indians is told from the point of view of the white people who conquered them. There’s another reason for this. Almost all Native American tribes in North and South America did not have a written language. And human nature being what it is, the conquerors, from the Spanish conquistadors to the U.S. Cavalry, wrote about their heroic deeds and pretty much ignored the bad things that happened to the Indians.
That’s why Dee Brown’s book, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, is so important. When published in 1971, it was as if a thunderbolt had struck. It used as many primary sources as possible—interviews with Indian chiefs who fought the battles, government records, letters, diaries, articles, and other documents—to tell the Indians’ side of the story from 1860 to 1890.
And what a sad story it is—a saga in which few white men are heroes. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee revealed that an overwhelming number of white settlers, hunters, soldiers, and men of authority were arrogant, greedy, racist, murderous, and cruel beyond belief. To get Indian land, they lied, cheated, stole, and killed those Indians who crossed their paths, from warriors to innocent women, children, and the elderly. Today it is difficult, if not impossible, to understand how these people could have done what they did and feel no shame. But that’s what happened—and not to just one tribe or nation. As Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee revealed, from sea to shining sea, it happened to them all.
Dee Brown’s classic is a big and powerful work. Condensing the entire book into one volume for a younger audience ran the risk of distorting it through oversimplifying the facts and unfairly leaving out many important events. All tribes suffered similarly from United States government policies and its citizens. Though all were eventually defeated, one nation stood out as having fought the longest and most successfully.
That is why this adaptation focuses on one Indian nation from Dee Brown’s book, the Sioux. As the largest and most powerful nation, the Sioux represent the story of the Native American experience in the American West. Their epic fight against the United States covered the entire three decades written about in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Their leaders included some of the most famous warrior chiefs in Indian history: Red Cloud, the Sioux’s greatest diplomat; Sitting Bull, the Sioux’s greatest strategist; and Crazy Horse, the Sioux’s greatest field general. The struggle to keep their land produced some of the most famous events in the Indian Wars: the Fetterman Massacre, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the Ghost Dance, and finally, the Massacre at Wounded Knee.
In this retelling of the saga of the Sioux, details about events that don’t directly deal with the Sioux story have been removed or condensed. Some extra information about people and locations mentioned in Dee Brown’s original text has been added to help readers who may be unfamiliar with those individuals and the places where they lived, fought, and died. And some names, such as “Bozeman Trail” for “Bozeman Road,” have been changed into a form more familiar to today’s readers in order to reduce confusion. There are two new sections: the first chapter and the epilogue. The first chapter provides important background about the Sioux people. The epilogue summarizes what has happened to them since 1890. It contains some previously unpublished material from Dee Brown’s files. It also briefly reveals the Sioux nation’s ongoing epic struggle to keep its identity and tells how, eventually, they were able to achieve a measure of success against a federal government that had so often wronged them.
Because most people are more familiar with the English translation of Sioux names, those translations are used throughout to avoid confusion. But, in the case of important chiefs, their native-language names are also included.
In the 30th-anniversary edition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown wrote, “We rarely know the full power of words, in print or spoken. It is my hope that time has not dulled the words herein and that they will continue through the coming generation to be as true and direct as I originally meant them to be.”
In 2011, as Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee celebrates its 40th anniversary, it is my hope that Saga of the Sio
ux will inspire readers to want to know more about this tragic chapter in our history. And that they will continue this quest of discovery by reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, as it remains a landmark history of the conquest of the West from the Native Americans’ point of view.
—DWIGHT JON ZIMMERMAN
An undated Mathew Brady studio photograph (opposite) of a delegation of Sioux and Arapaho led by Chief Red Cloud in Washington, D.C. Indians in photo, from left to right: (seated) Red Cloud, Big Road, Yellow Bear, Young-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses, and Iron Crow; (standing) Little Big Man, Little Wound, Three Bears, and He Dog. The white men are not identified. Note that Big Road, Young-Man-Afraid-of-His-Horses, and Iron Crow are wearing a large cross on their chests, indicating that they had converted to Christianity. Missionaries probably insisted they wear this large cross in order to publicize their success in converting important Sioux chiefs. [LOC, DIG-cwpbh -04474]
SAGA of the SIOUX
An 1890 photograph by John C. H. Grabill of a group of Minneconjou Sioux from Big Foot’s village. The Sioux man in white man’s clothing, standing fifth from the left and wearing a badge on his chest, is a Sioux reservation police officer. [LOC, DIG-ppmsc-02526]
Oceti Sakowin
(“Seven Council Fires”)
THE GREAT SIOUX NATION
When European settlers arrived in the New World of North and South America, they encountered a wide variety of Indian tribes that had made the land their home. Some Native American tribes were relatively small. Others had grown large enough to create a nation. Nations contained several tribes linked together through common languages, blood relations, and customs. Since Indians lived off the land, they usually separated into small bands, sub-bands, or subtribal units in order to make sure they could hunt and harvest enough food to eat. These subunits would regularly gather at sacred locations during the summer to perform religious ceremonies and discuss in council important matters affecting the nation.
These are the various groups that formed the Sioux Nation.
East
Santee (Dakota speakers)
Mdewakanton
Sisseton
Wahpekute
Wahpeton
Central
Wiciyelas(Nakota speakers)
Yankton
Yanktonais
West
Teton (Lakota speakers)
Blackfoot Sioux
Brulé
Hunkpapa
Minneconjou
Oglala
Sans Arcs
Two Kettles
The Prairie Chief, a photograph of a Sioux warrior on horseback taken by Edward S. Curtis around 1907. With the closing of the frontier in 1890, it was widely believed that Native Americans would soon be completely assimilated into white society and their traditional customs would vanish. This resulted in a movement, particularly in photographs, to record every aspect of Indian life before it was gone. Curtis was one of the great photographers of American Indians and of the American West. [LOC, USZ62-121906]
ONE
Who Are the Sioux?
My friends, this country that you have come to buy is the best country that we have … this country is mine, I was raised in it; my forefathers lived and died in it; and I wish to remain in it.
— CROW FEATHER OF THE SANS ARCS SIOUX
PROBABLY THE MOST FAMOUS Native American people of North America, the Sioux gave to history one of the great images of the American West: a proud Plains warrior on horse back. But the Sioux are much more than just that image. The Great Sioux Nation, known as Oceti Sakowin, or “ Seven Council Fires,” is one of the largest tribal confederations in North America. In general, its people are identified by one of their three language dialects (Dakota, Nakota, Lakota), location (the eastern Santee, central or middle Wiciyelas, and western Teton), and more specifically by their individual band or sub-band (such as Yankton or Oglala). For instance, Chief Red Cloud could be identified any one of three ways: as a Teton because he lived in the westernmost part of Sioux land, as a Lakota because this was the dialect he spoke, or as an Oglala because he was a member of that sub-band. (here.)
The name “Sioux” comes from what their enemies the Ojibwa called them: Na dou esse, which means “ Snakelike Ones” or “ Enemies.” French traders, the first to encounter both nations, spelled the Ojibwa word Nadousioux. The English and American traders, who came later, shortened it to Sioux.
The Sioux originally lived along the southeast coast of North America— the Santee River in South Carolina got its name from the Santee Sioux. They were gradually pushed west by other tribes, like the Ojibwa, who were themselves pushed west by white settlers. By the 17th century, the Sioux had settled in the north-central section of the North American continent. Like many other Native American peoples, the Sioux were nomads. They were primarily hunters, though the eastern Santees also did some farming, with buffalo being their most important source of food.
The Indian of the Plains as He Was by Charles Marion Russell, one of the great contemporary artists and sculptors of the American West. Russell greatly admired the American Indians, and his illustrations of them are distinguished by their sensitive treatment. [LOC, USZ62-115207]
Though the Sioux had chiefs who had individual leadership responsibilities (such as war chiefs), the important decisions that affected the tribe were always discussed in groups called councils. Councils included the chiefs, as well as medicine men and other respected members of the tribe. Council gatherings were always public affairs held in front of the rest of the tribe, and everyone had a right to speak.
An 1891 photograph by John C. H. Grabill of a young Oglala girl sitting in front of a tepee with her puppy. The smaller tepee on the left is probably a shelter for her dog. [LOC, USZ62-22970]
The most sacred land for the Sioux, particularly the Lakota, is Paha Sapa, the Black Hills of South Dakota. According to their tradition, it is there that Wakantanka, the Great Spirit, created them and gave them their sacred symbols and rites, including the Sun Dance.
At its height, the Great Sioux Nation stretched from Wisconsin and Minnesota to Montana and Wyoming, and from North Dakota to Iowa and Nebraska. They were proud, fierce, and feared warriors. It would take the United States government about 30 years to finally defeat them.
This 1907 Grabill photograph is titled War Preparation and shows a reenactment demonstrating how Sioux warriors got ready before they rode off to fight. [LOC, USZ62-121907]
The opening battles of that campaign would begin in the eastern part of their territory, in the Santee land of Minnesota at the same time the United States was fighting the Confederacy in the American Civil War (1861–1865).
TWO
War Begins in Minnesota
Yes; they fight among themselves, but if you strike at them they will all turn on you and devour you and your women and little children just as the locusts in their time fall on the trees and devour all the leaves in one day.
— LITTLE CROW OF THE SANTEE SIOUX
DURING THE 10 YEARS leading up to the Civil War, more than 150,000 white settlers pushed into Santee country. This was the result of two treaties signed in 1851: the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux and the Treaty of Mendota. By agreeing to the treaties, these woodland Sioux surrendered nine-tenths of their land. They were crowded into two reservations, also known as agencies: the Upper Sioux Agency near Granite Falls and the Lower Sioux Agency near Redwood Falls. Both were on the Minnesota River in southwest Minnesota. In return, the Santee were guaranteed that this reservation land was theirs forever, and they were supposed to receive cash and annual payments called annuities totaling $2,806,000.
Because they had so little land left, the Santee were forced to give up their traditional way of life and to learn how to farm like the white man. This was something the government wanted all along. Sixty-one-year-old Ta-oya-te-duta (Little Crow) was one of the chiefs who signed the treaties. Little Crow was a third-generation chief of the Mdewakanton. He had been to Washingt
on to see the Great Father, President James Buchanan, and had agreed to learn how to dress and live like a white man. He had joined their Episcopalian religion and started a farm. He had hoped that the Santee and the white men would be able to live together peacefully. But those hopes had been dashed.
Little Crow, a chief of the Santee Sioux and leader of the war against the white men in Minnesota in 1862. [LOC, USZ61-83]
Over the years, promised annuities did not always arrive on time. This forced the Santee to buy their food, clothing, and other goods on credit from traders authorized by the government to sell to the Indians. The Santee learned to hate the credit system because they had no control over the accounts. Traders would charge high prices. Sometimes they would cheat by saying they had sold the Santee supplies when they hadn’t. When the Santee protested to the agents from the Office of Indian Affairs, the government agency responsible for Indian welfare, the agents sided with the traders.
In the summer of 1862, relations reached the breaking point. Drought had struck in 1861 and returned in 1862. With the Indians’ crop yields so poor, many Santees had to buy food on credit. Earlier that summer the Lower Agency Mdewakantons took their growing resentment out on Little Crow, accusing him of betraying them when he signed away their lands by treaties. They elected Traveling Hail to be their speaker in place of Little Crow. Though Little Crow was still a chief, few of his own people now listened to him.
At the end of the month known to the Sioux as the Moon of the Red Blooming Lilies (July), several thousand Santees assembled in front of the warehouse and fort compound in the Upper Sioux Agency to collect their annuities so that they might buy food. The money did not arrive. They heard rumors that the Great Council in Washington (Congress) had spent all their money fighting the Civil War and could not send anything to the Indians. Little Crow and some of the other chiefs went to their agent, Thomas Galbraith. They asked him to issue food from the agency warehouse, which was filled with provisions.
