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3. Little Crow
- University of Nebraska Press
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His name was Little Crow. As a boy he had attended a mission school, where he learned to read and write Dakota. Then he had left his father’s village in Kaposia, near St. Paul, and headed west for the prairie, where he had married four sisters in succession and earned a reputation for card playing, gambling, and wildness. His father on his deathbed had urged his wayward son to give up his roistering and accept the responsibilities of becoming chief. But one of Little Crow’s half brothers had contested the prodigal son’s right to be chief, and with the entire tribe watching, the half brother had greeted Little Crow’s return to the Kaposia village with shotgun in hand and told him to leave. Little Crow had folded his arms over his chest as a sign of his defiance. “Shoot,” he said, “where all can see. I am not afraid.” The eventual shot shattered Little Crow’s forearms. A surgeon wanted to amputate his hands, but Little Crow refused to let him. The wounded forearms eventually healed, but 3. Little Crow 28 . . little crow for the rest of Little Crow’s life, his wrists hung so crookedly that he hid them under a folded blanket at councils. As chief of his band he wore a headdress of weasel tails and buffalo horns, and he carried the dried skin of a crow as a talisman against evil. Little Crow, with piercing hazel eyes, a long face, and a nose like the bill of a hawk had a face that suggested fiery intransigence, but he was described by whites as “suave,” a shrewd diplomat, and a passionate orator who could never be cheated in discussions of his tribe’s affairs. Still, in 1857 he had been a member of a party of Dakota chiefs who had gone to Washington and who in tall plug hats had looked oddly dignified as they agreed to accept further reservation confinement and ceded a ten-mile strip of reservation land to the U.S. government for a pittance. Little Crow had at first objected. “You promised us we would have this land forever. Now you want to take half away.” Despite his objections, Little Crow had eventually signed the treaty with the other chiefs. Back at the two agencies, the young tribal hunters had considered the “Dutchman’s” farming a futile solution to hunger. Hunting was the solution to starvation. Now Little Crow and the other chiefs had given up the only part of the reservation that had thick woods and plentiful game. It was nearly unforgivable. The resentment over the ceding of land was still felt in June 1862 during an election for speaker for the entire Dakota nation. Little Crow was a candidate, along with Traveling Hail and Big Eagle, two other respected tribal chiefs from the Dakota nation. The title seemed logically Little Crow’s because he was a passionate speaker and could argue forcefully. Additionally, he was a dignified figure with or without a plug hat. But Chief Traveling Hail was elected by an overwhelming majority. For Little Crow it was a bitter disappointment. Still, Little Crow had shown bravery and tactical ingenuity [3.227.252.87] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 15:16 GMT) little crow . . 29 in battle. He was restless and full of energy. Once, guiding a party of mounted white men on an elk hunt, he had trotted alongside the hunters and chatted effortlessly for twenty-five miles each day of the hunt. It was the kind of inexhaustible vitality expected of battle chiefs. And it was he to whom the Dakota soldiers now turned for a leader, “shouting mad with enthusiasm.” Little Crow was fifty-two years old and sound asleep on the first floor of the two-story brick house the government had built for him at his village when the soldiers pounded on his door at dawn. Birds sounded cheerful wakeup calls. A little of the cold bite of fall was in the air. Little Crow sat up in bed and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He hardly seemed to be the spirited leader the warriors needed, but he carefully positioned his headdress while as many of the 150 members of the Lower Agency’s Soldiers’ Lodge as could crowded into his house and seated themselves. He listened carefully as they excitedly told the story of what had happened at Acton. His sixteen-year-old son, Wowinapa, stood behind him. The...