John Mato Watakpe “Charging Bear” Grass was born in a camp on the Grand River, South Dakota. The surname Grass (Pezhi or Piji) is dynastic and was borne by his father and his grandfather, both of whom were with the Sioux allies in the expedition under Col. Henry Leavenworth against the Arikaras in 1823.
At some time, young Grass was baptized and received into the Catholic church, according to tradition by Father De Smet, who christened him John.
Grass early distinguished himself in battle, and at seventeen, for exploits performed against the Crows and the Mandans, he received his warrior name, Mato Watakpe (Charging Bear), which also had been borne by his ancestors.
About the same time, to prove his endurance, he underwent the extreme ordeal of the sun dance. Though he was later to become one of the leading exponents of a peace policy, he probably took part in some of the conflicts with the whites in the fifties and sixties.
Fanny Wiggins Kelly, in an account of her captivity among the Sioux in 1864, mentions him as Jumping Bear and gratefully credits him with having saved her life on one occasion and with having subsequently aided in effecting her ransom.
After the conflict of 1876-77, his prestige returned; and a few years later, with the adherence of Gall, the former war chief, to his side, his influence became dominant.
At Fort Yates, on the Standing Rock Agency, he served for many years as the chief justice of the Court of Indian Offenses, an office which he held at his death, and he took part in many treaty councils with the whites.
A new commission, headed by Charles Foster, former governor of Ohio, in the following year, offered more favorable terms, and Grass, though for a time demanding further concessions, in the end led his people to accept the proposed treaty.
Grass died, after a winter’s illness, at his home south of Fort Yates and was buried in the local Catholic cemetery.
Grass strongly opposed war, which he declared would be ruinous, and urged upon his people the necessity of gradually abandoning the chase for more settled occupations.
As a Court, he stoutly defended the rights of his people, and as an Indian commissioner at the council of 1888, relative to the cession of certain lands in the present South Dakota, brought the proceedings to a close because of a belief that the government commissioners were seeking an unfair advantage.
Grass, in his youth, became noted as an orator, and in the agitation against the whites during the early seventies he made full use of his powers.
On the entry of the United States into the World War, Grass advised the young men to enlist; and his grandson, Albert Grass (Walking Elk), killed at Soissons, was one of the first of the American Expeditionary Force to fall in battle.
Grass was six feet, two inches tall, of stalwart frame, with features expressive of high intelligence and resolute will. As a judge, he was regarded as stern but just.
As an orator he stood with the first among his people, and as a councilor, fitted for his part with strong native sense and an exceptional skill in argumentation, he had no superior.
Quotes from others about the person
“Grass struck me, ” wrote Foster, “as an intellectual giant in comparison with other Indians, ” and James McLaughlin, in 1910, mentioned him as “the ablest orator and most influential surviving chief of the Sioux. ”
