|
|
|
|
Crazy Horse was born on the Republican River in 1845. He was the son of an Ogallala medicine man and was the nephew of Spotted Tail. His mother died when he was a boy. When Crazy Horse was a young man he was already a legendary warrior. Before he was thirteen he stole horses from the Crow Indians. When Crazy Horse was just twenty he led a war party. Later he fought in the war of 1865-1868 led by Chief Ogallala against the American settlers in Wyoming. Crazy Horse also played a part in destroying William J. Fetterman's brigade at Fort Phil Kearny in 1867. |
|
| Crazy Horse earned his reputation by the Lakota for his fierce determination to preserve his peoples way of life. In 1868 Crazy Horse fought to prevent American encroachment on Lakota lands which led to the Fort Laramie Treaty, to help attack a surveying party went into the Black Hills by General George Armstrong Custer in 1873. | |
| In 1876 Crazy Horse became a leader of resistance when the War Department ordered all Lakota bands into their reservations. While a Cheyenne woman was Crazy Horse's first marriage he gathered a for of 1,200 Ogallala which was his tribe and Cheyenne at his village and turned back General George Cook June 17,1876, as Cook tried to advance up Rosebud Creek towards Sitting Bull's encampment on Little Bighorn. after this victory crazy Horse joined forces with Sitting Bull. On June25th he led his band into the counter back that destroyed Custer's 7th Cavalry, flanking the Americans from the north and west, while Hunkpapa worriers led by Chief Gall charged from south and east. | |
| Following the Lakota victory at Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull and Gall retreated to Canada but Crazy Horse stayed to battle General Nelson Miles as he pursued the Lakota and their allies relentlessly throughout the winter of 1876-1877. The content military harassment and decline of the buffalo population eventually caused Crazy Horse to surrender on May 6, 1877 except for Gall and Sitting Bull. Crazy Horse was last the important chief to yield | |
| Crazy Horse was killed when he was just thirty-three years old at Fort Robinson, Nebraska in 1877 while trying to talk his sick wife to her parents house without authorization, so General George Cook ordered him to be arrested because he feared that he was trying to plot a return to battle. He did not resist the arrest at first until he realized that he was to going to the guardhouse. When Crazy Horse reached the military camp Little Big Man and his cousin Touch-the-Cloud walked arm-in-arm with him. an officer walked back to the guardhouse and Touch-the-Cloud said to Crazy Horse "Cousin they will put you in a prison," and Crazy Horse responded "another white man's tricks! Let me go! Let me die fighting!" | |
| Crazy Horse struggled to get loose but Little Big Man and an officer had a hold of both of his arms and that is when a soldier ran him through a bayonet. His wound was so bad that he died later that night. His father carried him away singing his death song over him. The Indians told one another "He must not be further polluted by the white man." So they put his body somewhere in the Bad Lands and that is where his resting place is till this very day. | |
 |
|
