Crazy Horse was an Oglala Sioux Indian chief who fought against being relocated to an Indian reservation. He took part in the Battle of Little Big Horn.
Background
Crazy Horse was born with the Native American name Tashunka Witco around 1840 near what is present-day Rapid City, South Dakota, United States.
The details of how he came to acquire the name Crazy Horse are up for debate. One account says that his father, also named Crazy Horse, passed the name on to him after his son had demonstrated his skills as a warrior.
Crazy Horse's birth had come during a great time for the Lakota people. A division of the Sioux, the Lakota represented the largest band of the tribe. Their domain included a giant swath of land that ran from the Missouri River to the Big Horn Mountains in the west. Their contact with whites was minimal, and by the 1840s the Lakota were at the peak of their power.
Education
In the 1850s, however, life for the Lakota began to change considerably. As white settlers began pushing west in search of gold and a new life out on the frontier, competition for resources between these new immigrants and the Lakota created tension. Military forts were established in parts of the Great Plains, bringing in even more white settlers and introducing diseases that took their toll on the native Indian populations.
In August 1854, everything boiled over in what became known as the Grattan Massacre. It started when a group of white men, led by Lieutenant John Grattan, entered a Sioux camp to take prisoner the men who had killed a migrant's cow. After Chief Conquering Bear refused to give in to their demands, violence erupted. After one of the white soldiers shot and killed the chief, the camp's warriors fought back and killed Grattan and his 30 men.
The Grattan Massacre is widely considered the conflict that kicked off the First Sioux War between the United States and the Lakota. For the still young Crazy Horse, it also helped establish what would be a lifetime of distrust for whites.
Career
As conflicts escalated between the Lakota and the United States, Crazy Horse was at the center of many key battles. In one important victory for his people, Crazy Horse led an attack on Captain William Judd Fetterman and his brigade of 80 men. The Fetterman Massacre, as it came to be known, proved to be a huge embarrassment for the United States military.
Even after the signing of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, which guaranteed the Lakota important land, including the coveted Black Hills territory, Crazy Horse continued his fight.
Beyond his seemingly mystical ability to avoid injury or death on the battlefield, Crazy Horse also showed himself to be uncompromising with his white foes. He refused to be photographed and never committed his signature to any document. The aim of his fight was to retake the Lakota life he'd known as a child when his people had full run of the Great Plains.
Following the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, and the United States government's backing of white explorers in the territory, the War Department ordered all Lakota onto reservations. Crazy Horse and Chief Sitting Bull refused. On June 17, 1876, Crazy Horse led a force of 1,200 Oglala and Cheyenne warriors against General George Crook and his brigade, successfully turning back the soldiers as they attempted to advance toward Sitting Bull's encampment on the Little Bighorn River.
A week later Crazy Horse teamed up with Sitting Bull to decimate Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his esteemed Seventh Cavalry in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, perhaps the greatest victory ever by Native Americans over United States troops.
Following the defeat of Custer, the United States Army struck back hard against the Lakota, pursuing a scorched-earth policy whose aim was to extract total surrender. While Sitting Bull led his followers into Canada to escape the wrath of the Army, Crazy Horse continued to fight.
But as the winter of 1877 set in and food supplies began to shorten, Crazy Horse's followers started to abandon him. On May 6, 1877, he rode to Fort Robinson in Nebraska and surrendered. Instructed to remain on the reservation, he defied orders that summer to put his sick wife in the care of his parents.
After his arrest, Crazy Horse was returned to Fort Robinson, where, in a struggle with the officers, he was bayoneted in the kidneys. He passed away with his father at his side on September 5, 1877.
Years after his death, Crazy Horse is still revered for being a visionary leader who fought hard to preserve his people's traditions and way of life. The Crazy Horse Memorial is located in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Started in 1948, the monumental sculpture is an ongoing project, carved from Thunderhead Mountain, and located about 17 miles from Mount Rushmore. It is set to be part of a museum and cultural center honoring Native Americans.
Crazy Horse is remembered for his courage, leadership, and tenacity of spirit in the face of near-impossible odds.
His legacy is celebrated in the Crazy Horse Memorial, an uncompleted monumental sculpture located in the Black Hills, not far from Mount Rushmore. Started in 1948 by sculptor Korczak Ziółkowski (who also worked on Mount Rushmore), the Crazy Horse Memorial would be the largest sculpture in the world when completed. Operated by the nonprofit Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation, the sculpture grounds are open to the public and reportedly receive more than one million visitors each year.
In 1982, the American government issued postage stamps in his name, under the Great Americans series.
Religion
Like other American Indians, Crazy Horse believed in spirits and everything other related to their culture.
Politics
Crazy Horse was on the opposite side with the United States military during the American Indian Wars but he never fought without a reason. All the attacks his warriors made against the soldiers were because they were breaching the territory of Lakota.
Views
After witnessing the Grattan Massacre in 1854, Crazy Horse went on a vision quest with his father. He had a vision where a warrior was riding his horse when a thunderstorm came and lightning struck him, leaving him a mark on his cheek. In the vision, this warrior also told Crazy Horse not to take any war trophies, such as scalps, and as long as he does that, he would go through battles unharmed. Crazy Horse acted on the prophecy, drew a lightning bolt on his cheek, which became his "face paint," and avoided to take scalps of his enemies. Crazy Horse believed in the medicine of Native Americans, which is why he accepted a black stone given to him by Woptura, a medicine man from his tribe.
Personality
Even as a young boy, Crazy Horse stood out. He was fair-skinned and had brown, curly hair, giving him an appearance that was noticeably different from other boys his age. These physical differences may have laid the groundwork for a personality that even among his own people made him a loner and a bit distant.
Physical Characteristics:
Crazy Horse had the same light curly hair of his mother.
Quotes from others about the person
"...he was a queer man and would go about the village without noticing people or saying anything. In his own teepee, he would joke, and when he was on the warpath with a small party, he would joke to make his warriors feel good. But around the village, he hardly ever noticed anybody, except little children. All the Lakotas like to dance and sing; but he never joined a dance, and they say nobody ever heard him sing. But everybody liked him, and they would do anything he wanted or go anywhere he said."
Interests
Horsemanship
Politicians
Touch the Clouds
Connections
Black Buffalo Woman was Crazy Horse's first love. They met in 1857, but she married a man named No Water while Crazy Horse was on a raid. Crazy Horse continued to pay her attention and in 1868 eloped with her while No Water was on a hunting party.
He and Black Buffalo Woman spent one night together before No Water took back his wife, shooting Crazy Horse in the nose and breaking his jaw. Despite fears of violence between villages, the two men came to a truce. Crazy Horse insisted that Black Buffalo Woman shouldn't be punished for fleeing and received a horse from No Water in compensation for the injury.
Crazy Horse eventually married Black Shawl, who died of tuberculosis, and later a half-Cheyenne, half-French woman named Nellie Larrabee. Black Buffalo Woman's fourth child, a girl, was a light-skinned baby suspected of being the result of her night with Crazy Horse.
