crazy horse the strange man of the oglalas

When the War Department ordered all Lakota bands onto their reservations in 1876, Crazy Horse became a resistance leader. And he fought to prevent American encroachment on Lakota lands following the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, helping to attack a surveying party sent into the Black Hills by General George Armstrong Custer in 1873. He refused, for example, to allow any photographs to be taken of him.

Fetterman’s brigade at Fort Phil Kearny in 1867.Ĭrazy Horse earned his reputation among the Lakota not only by his skill and daring in battle but also by his fierce determination to preserve his people’s traditional way of life. Crazy Horse fought in the 1865-68 war led by the Oglala chief Red Cloud against American settlers in Wyoming and played a crucial role in destroying William J. He stole horses from the Crow Indians before he was thirteen and led his first war party before turning twenty. All other sources point to Bear Butte outside Sturgis, South Dakota.Įven as a young man, Crazy Horse was a legendary warrior. A September 14, 1877, article in the New York Sun reporting Crazy Horse’s death gave his birthplace as the South Cheyenne River. The location of Crazy Horse’s birth is also debatable. Encouraging Bear, a spiritual adviser to Crazy Horse, reported that Crazy Horse was born in the fall “in the year in which the band to which he belonged, the Oglala, stole 100 horses.” According to winter counts kept by Cloud Shield and White Bull, that year was 1840. He Dog, one of his former warriors, said during an interview on July 7, 1930, “I and Crazy Horse were both born in the same year and at the same season of the year … I am now 92 years old.” That would mean that Crazy Horse was born about 1838. Noted for his courage in battle, his people recognized him as a great leader committed to preserving the traditions and values of the Lakota way of life and for leading his people into a war against the takeover of their lands by the federal government.Ĭrazy Horse’s exact birth date is not determined.

Tašhúŋka Witkó was a respected member of the Oglala Sioux tribe.

Crazy horse the strange man of the oglalas