Crazy Horse: The Wild West for Kids (Legends of the Wild West)
have acquired the exaggerations of legend Without anyone to contradict them people have felt free to add or change details In the last two years of his life Crazy Horse led the Lakota in two of the most famous battles of the American West the Rosebud and the Little Bighorn From this period a great deal of white and Native American documentation exists however the U S Army recollections and memoirs often are colored by the cultural assumptions and the racism of the time Army reports sometimes covered up embarrassing incidents or arguments and often tried to glorify minor engagements into victories or explain away defeats Native American testimony from these years while less bi ased is also not reliable Lakota and Cheyenne warriors worried about white revenge and often deliberately distorted the truth Plains Indians accounts of battles were usually centered on in dividuals They are useful in recalling personal incidents but they seldom have much to say about group behavior in warfare There are also problems in the translation of words and phrases In the final four months of Crazy Horse’s life he lived on a reservation For this period there are almost too many witnesses American and Lakota sources all seem to have an argument to make a side to take or a position to prove Stories contradict each other culminating in Crazy Horse’s incredibly contro versial death Historians are unable even to agree whether his death was murder or an accident a planned conspiracy or a huge mistake The wealth of material means that most biographies of Crazy Horse spend more than half of their pages on the last two years of his life from the Battle of the Rosebud to his death Where My Dead Lie Buried Despite the problems with the sources Crazy Horse was con sistent throughout most of his life From youth he associated with those Lakota who rejected negotiations with the United (cid:19)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:100)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:30)(cid:45)(cid:28)(cid:53)(cid:52)(cid:1)(cid:35)(cid:42)(cid:45)(cid:46)(cid:32)
States As the buffalo herds shrank many Lakota accepted the inevitable and settled on agencies and reservations suppos edly guaranteed by treaty There they would be fed by govern ment-issued rations and educated in the ways of the white world Until the last four months of his life Crazy Horse completely rejected the reservation system John Bourke who fought against him noted in On the Border with Crook Crazy Horse was one of the great soldiers of his day and generation he never could be friends of the whites because he was too bold and warlike in his nature Crazy Horse along with Sitting Bull came to symbolize Lakota military defiance Yet Crazy Horse was loved by his own people as much for his charity as for his courage His generosity with the buffalo he hunted and killed earned him the praise of everyone in the tribe His modesty was noteworthy in a society that emphasized boasting He kept no battle spoils except weapons he distrib uted food horses and other booty to the old and the poor Crazy Horse was a victim of bad timing In 1840 around the time he was born the Great Plains west of the Mississippi River was Indian country to belong forever to Native Americans He watched as the Lakota people dwindled because of war and disease The buffalo died and railroads and fences appeared on the Plains Whenever Lakota rights conflicted with the land hunger of American settlers ranchers mining companies and railroads the tribes came out second best The Lakota Indians repeatedly found themselves cheated and betrayed By the time of Crazy Horse’s death in 1877 there was no longer a free tribe or a wild Native American in all the Great Plains from Can ada to Texas In 37 years the U S government had broken every solemn treaty and promise Yet in an odd sense Crazy Horse’s death was perfectly timed He fought brilliantly in 1876 at the last great battles at the Rosebud and the Little Bighorn He became a symbol of La kota freedom courage and dignity Then he was killed at the (cid:47)(cid:35)(cid:32)(cid:1)(cid:40)(cid:52)(cid:46)(cid:47)(cid:32)(cid:45)(cid:36)(cid:42)(cid:48)(cid:46)(cid:1)(cid:50)(cid:28)(cid:45)(cid:45)(cid:36)(cid:42)(cid:45)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:100)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:20)
exact moment when the old life ways of the Plains Indians also died By a strange twist of fate Crazy Horse and the way of life died together Unlike Geronimo or Red Cloud he did not live to face the great change and his reputation was never sullied by imprisonment or compromise So for the Lakota people and for many Americans Crazy Horse remains a compelling symbol of resistance Yet almost nothing remains of him besides the stories No existing artifact can definitely be said to belong to him There is no long record of profound pronouncements There is no grave to visit because his parents deliberately refused to tell anyone where he was bur ied There are no accurate images of him because he never sat for a portrait or allowed himself to be photographed When the doctor who treated his wife tried to take a picture Crazy Horse This picture shows a model of the planned sculpture Because Crazy Horse refused to be photographed the monument serves as a symbolic tribute to the spirit of the Lako ta warrior and leader (cid:21)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:100)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:30)(cid:45)(cid:28)(cid:53)(cid:52)(cid:1)(cid:35)(cid:42)(cid:45)(cid:46)(cid:32)
told him My friend why should you wish to shorten my life by taking from me my shadow The lack of an image was an obvious problem when Korczak Ziolkowski began creating his Crazy Horse Monument but Zi olkowski never thought of his sculpture as a realistic portrait Instead he meant it as a symbolic tribute to the spirit of Crazy Horse the Lakota and to all Native Americans My lands are where my dead lie buried Crazy Horse supposedly said In the sculpture Crazy Horse will point into the distance to the lands that he loved and fought to defend In a short lifetime Crazy Horse stamped his personality on the Great Plains and Amer ican history Black Elk a Lakota warrior and medicine man concluded It does not matter where his body lies for it is grass but where his spirit is it will be good (cid:47)(cid:35)(cid:32)(cid:1)(cid:40)(cid:52)(cid:46)(cid:47)(cid:32)(cid:45)(cid:36)(cid:42)(cid:48)(cid:46)(cid:1)(cid:50)(cid:28)(cid:45)(cid:45)(cid:36)(cid:42)(cid:45)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:100)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:1)(cid:22)
