"A very great vision is needed and the man who has it must follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky. I was hostile to the white man... We preferred hunting to a life of idleness.
   At times we did not get enough to eat and was not allowed to hunt. All we ever wanted was peace and to be left alone. Our villages were destroyed by soldiers. Long Hair (Custer) came...  They say we massacred him, but if we did not kill him then he would have killed us. We did not want to fight our first impulse was to flee but he had us surrounded so we had no choice but to fight our way out."  These are very strong words that came from Crazy Horse a couple weeks before he was murdered
   Crazy Horse had a rough childhood when he was growing up.  His mother had died when he was just a young child so he really had no memory of his mom, he was around war his whole life so it is not surprising that  he grew up and became a warrior.  Crazy Horses childhood  name was a peculiar one, it was Curly.  His very first raid was when he was about 12 years old, he raided the Crows of their horses.  He had a vision of a warrior that was untouchable no one could shoot or even hurt him, the warrior he saw in his vision was a warrior but he boar no scalps.  His first real war as a man was when he was 16 years old.  He took a wound to the leg by a gun, because he had taken 2 scalps.  After he came back to his dad his dad told him the reason he had got shot in the leg was because he had taken scalps and the warrior in the vision boar no scalps.
   Life on the reservations was very hard for the Indians.  Because, most of the time they did not have enough food or water and the people were starving.  All the Indians wanted to do was hunt and be free like they once were.  The buffalo was slowly disappearing because the white man was killing the buffalo to make profit off of it.  So Crazy Horse gathered a handful of warriors and left the reservations.  He joined with Sitting Bull and Red Cloud to start resisting against the white men.
    Crazy Horse and his warriors were using gorilla war fair to fight against the retreating soldiers.  The white soldiers were trying to retreat this is why the Indians were using this pacific kind of war tactics.  The soldiers were retreating on the Black Hills a sacred land for the Indians, the white men were retreating until they found a place were they could block themselves in so the Indians could not hurt their numbers no more.  The whole reason the Indians are attacking is because the soldiers burnt down all of their teepees and stole all of their horses.  So the Indians first attack was later that night during a snowstorm and stole the herd back.  Well the white soldiers started to open fire from where they were and the Indians were now on a retreat in the freezing cold.  
   Several people died along the way mostly women and children.  They fled to Crazy Horses embankment and he took them in and gave them all food, clothing, and a place to live and then Crazy horses people started to suffer.  after a while crazy horse some how got it to work out so they then became balanced.
   gold was discovered in the black hills, so you know what that means, the white invaded the Indians territory.  crazy horse did not approve of this so either by himself or with some fellow warriors he would attack the  settlers.  Custer attacked the little bighorn river and crazy horse was trying to run but he was barricaded in so he had no choice but to fight.  crazy horse and his warriors defeated most of the seventh cavalry and among those that were defeated was General George Armstrong Custer .  what they did to Custer after he was dead was they took sowing knives and stabbed wholes in his ear drums so that way in the next life he will be able to hear better because the Indians told him if he would attack that the Indians would destroy him and they did.  they did not cut his tendon underneath his arm or any other stuff.
   when crazy horse was put on a reservation after he have given up his wife got really sick so he was trying to take her to her mother and father but the soldiers stopped him for they thought he was going to get another band of men together and fight against them again so the seized him.  they took him to a holding place where there where several other Indians and when they showed crazy horse where he would be staying he freaked out because it was going to be in a cage and he did not want to be in a cage so he turned and ran as he was running a former Indian grabbed him and a soldier ran him through with a bayonet.
Nick Kolbek

8th American History

Rossville Jr. High

Plains History Project

2004

Bibliography