Spotted Tail

Spotted Tail was born about 1823 in the White River country west of the Missouri River in present-day South Dakota. He was given the birth name of Jumping Buffalo.[8] Two of his sisters, Iron Between Horns and Kills Enemy, were married to the elder Crazy Horse (later known as "Worm"), in what was traditional Sioux practice for elite men. Spotted Tail may have been the maternal uncle of the famous warrior Crazy Horse, which meant he was a relative of the notable Touch the Clouds as well.[9] The young man took his warrior name, Spotted Tail, after receiving a gift of a raccoon tail from a white trapper; he sometimes wore a raccoon tail in his war bonnet. During the previous 40 years, the Lakota or Teton Sioux had moved from present-day Minnesota and eastern South Dakota to areas west of the Missouri. They had differentiated into several sub-tribes or bands, including the Saône (including the Sihasapa, his father's sub-tribe, the Minneconjou, the Itazipcho, the Hunkpapa, the Oohenonpa), Sichangu ("Brulé") and Oglala. During this time the people adopted the use of horses and expanded their range in hunting the buffalo across their wide grazing patterns.

Wife of Spotted Tail

Spotted Tail married and had children. He gained his first wife in 1842, after a deadly fight against chief Mahto Wakuwa ("Running Bear"), and, being the killed chief a famous warrior, young (not even twenty years old) Spotted Tail's reputation probably grew greatly increased. [10] Eugene Fitch Ware, a Fort Laramie army officer, wrote that Spotted Tail's daughter, Ah-ho-appa (Fallen Leaf), "... was one of those individuals found in all lands, at all places, and among all people; she was misplaced."[11] He suggested that she adopted some European-American practices, and that she was thought to be secretly in love with one of the officers at the fort. When she was dying in 1866, Fallen Leaf made her father promise that she would be buried on a hillside overlooking Fort Laramie. The entire garrison at the post helped Spotted Tail to honor her request by arranging for a ceremonial funeral, including a Christian service and Sioux ceremony. Many years later, Spotted Tail had her remains transported to the Rosebud Indian Agency in South Dakota and re-interred.[12]

On june 8th 1864 US Government representatives met several Teton chiefs, called in at Cottonwood by maj. George N O’Brien speaking for gen,. Mitchell, the new military commander along the Overland Road, pretending them to leave the Platte River, where the Cheyenne and the US Army were clashing, but Sinte Galeshka (who was to succeed Wakinyan Chika as Sichangu principal chief) and Nomkahpa (Two Strike), speaking for the Sichangu, and Owa Shicha (Bad Wound), Owa Chika [*] (Little Wound) e Zoolah (Whistler), speaking for the Oglala, didn’t accept, energetically clearing Platte River was a Teton country [13]. During the summer several raids were performed by young Teton warriors along North Platte and Sweetwater Creek against white intruders; in july a wagon train was attacked by the Oglala near the Platte River, kidnapping a woman; in august a Cheyenne and Teton Dakota party, including Nomkahapa and his Sichangu, attacked an other train, killing 11 men, burning the wagons and kidnapping a woman and a child, and, in the Little Blue Creek Valley, an Indian party (likely Teton Dakota) raided farms and wagons, kidnapping two women and three children at Liberty Farm; He Isnala and his son Mahpiua Icahtagya led a Minneconjou party of 30 men against Fort Laramie, stealing the whole stock and cheating the troops started after them with an artillery gun. After the Little Blue Valley raid many settlers left Nebraska border and gen. Robert B. Mitchell went upstream the Platte River and the Republican leading a strong military column, but he didn’t find the Indians, camping all together in a large village on Solomon River; Cheyenne, Arapaho and Sichangu (led by Sinte Galeshka, with Nomkahpa) and Oglala (led by Palani Wicakte (Pawnww Killer), war chief of Owa Chika’s Kiyuksa band, with Mahto Yotake, war chief of Zoolah’s True Oglala) Teton Dakota, make it unworkable the whole country; longer than one month (august 15th - september 24th) the way to Denver was interrupted becoming Latham Station the last stop of the coach on the South Platte and the mail had to be shipped through the Panama Channel and California, and even wagon trains carrying supplies dared to enter the Indian country only forming large convoys, before wagoners were forced to give out, while the Teton Dakota were ravaging Nebraska roaming the countries east of Fort Kearny, the Cheyenne were roaming the countries west of Fort Kearny and the Arapaho those farther west and the South Platte River until Denver proximities. Governor Evans asked for the 2nd Colorado Volunteers Cavalry, then busy in Kansas, and was authorized to enroll a new 3rd Colorado Volunteers Cavalry, whose soldiers subscribed for 100 days, commanded by col. John Chivington. On agust 18th capt. *. Mussey and his detachment engaged a party of Teton buffalo hunters but were routed by overcoming Cheyenne and Teton warriors, who reached and killed two soldiers. On october 22nd col. R. R. Livingston sent cavalry patrols to set fire to a 200 miles long strip of prairie along the Platte River, uselessly trying to keep the Indians out.[14]

The peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho massacre performed by Civington at Sand Creek (November 29, 1864) provoked the fury of them and their allies the Teton, who, in December united their camps on the Cherry Creek and called the war on the wasichu; in january 1865 Sinte Galeshka, Nomkahpa, Palani Wicakte, Tatanka Yotake and other Teton leaders joined the Cheyenne to avenge the Sand Creek massacre on Julesburg (January 1) scalping those who didn’t put theirselves in safety, and attacking again, sacking and burning the town, several weeks later (February 2), keeping to raid the country along the South Platte River destroying farms and post stations and plundering so many horses and cows to decide to hold only the best of them and free the others. Sand Creek’survivors joined Cheyenne people camping near the Smocky Hill River sources, and called the Teton Dakota and the Northern Arapaho to take part in the war on the wasichu: Cheyenne, Northern Arapaho, Sichangu Teton Dakota (led by Sinte Galeshka and Nomkahpa) and southern Oglala Teton Dakota (led by Palani Wicakte and Mahto Yotake) camped together on Cherry Creek, while gen. Sibley’s troops got togethere near Fort Lyon: after several raids along the Platte River the Indians collected a force of about 1.000 worriors, led by Sinte Galeshka (although the Sichangu war chief was aware the Indians culd never win definitely a war on the too powerful wasichu but only get temprary victories, he was a man of strong and proud nature and stronger feelings towards his own people, and the “butchery” on Motavato’s Cheyenne was too much to be tolerated, so he smoke the war pipe and kept the leadership of the uprising) [15], Nomkahpa, Palani Wicakte, Woquini and others, and, on January 5 (or 6) 1865, started moving to Julesburg, reaching the city’s vicinities at night on January 6; on January 1 a little party of Cheyenne warriors assailed some soldiers outside Fort Rankin (later named Fort Sedgwick)’s palisades, about one mile from Julesburg, garrisoned by a company of 7° Iowa Volunteers Cavalry, attracting outside the fort a detachment led by capt. N. J. O'Brien, and some civilians (altogether 60 men including 38 troopers), attracting them in an ambush and missing the complete success due to the excessive haste of some young warriors to charge before encirclement had been closed; O'Brien and his men tried to retreat, losing 14 troopers and four civilians killed; a coach filled with crew and passengers entered the fort just before the Indians reached its palisades: the Cheyenne and their allies sacked Julesburg and broke down the telegraph poles, then went back to Cherry Creek in the evening, triumphally reaching their camps on January 10. Gen. Mitchell immediately collected the available troops (500 men and several artillery guns) at Camp Cottonwood, calling them back from the stagecoach trail, and on january 16th marched on the Republican River, reaching the Cherry Creek, at this point deserted, on January 19: the Indians, having already moved on White Butte Creek, started again on January 26 to the South Platte River, crossing it on January 28 near Harlow’s Ranch, planning a big raid (after a sequence of raids along the South Platte River on farms and post stations, the warriors crossed the river having plundered so meny horses and cows that they decided to keep only the best and relinquish the other stock) before moving towards the Powder River on February 2, and joining Northern Cheyenne and other Oglala Teton Dakota;[16]

Spotted Tail agreed to the treaty, which in 1868 established the Great Sioux Reservation in West River, west of the Missouri River. In 1871, the senior Spotted Tail visited Washington, D.C. to meet the Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ely S. Parker and President Ulysses S. Grant. While there, he met with Red Cloud, a chief of the Oglala Lakota, and they agreed to work together on preserving Sioux rights and land.

Spotted Tail's delegation to Washington

In 1874, George Armstrong Custer led a reconnaissance mission into Sioux territory that reported gold in the Black Hills, an area held sacred by the local Indians. Formerly, the Army tried to keep miners out but did not succeed; the threat of violence grew. In May 1875, delegations headed by Spotted Tail, Red Cloud, and Lone Horn traveled to Washington, D.C. in a last-ditch attempt to persuade President Grant to honor existing treaties and stem the flow of miners into their territories. The Indians met with Grant, Secretary of the Interior Delano, and Commissioner of Indian Affairs Smith, who informed them that Congress wanted to resolve the matter by giving the tribes $25,000 for their land and resettling them into Indian Territory. The Indians rejected such a treaty, with Spotted Tail's reply to the proposition being as follows:

My father, I have considered all the Great Father told me, and have come here to give you an answer.... When I was here before, the President gave me my country, and I put my stake down in a good place, and there I want to stay.... I respect the Treaty (doubtless referring to the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie) but the white men who come in our country do not. You speak of another country, but it is not my country; it does not concern me, and I want nothing to do with it. I was not born there.... If it is such a good country, you ought to send the white men now in our country there and let us alone....

When the Black Hills' campaign started, both Rosebud (Spotted Tail's Sichangu) and Pine Ridge (Red Cloud's Oglala) reservations were put under strict military control and the two great chiefs were cautiously arrested.

In 1881, while he was still carrying on his struggle to defend the reservations and Lakota's life on their soil, and to counter the power of Government Indian agents over the reservation of Lakota people following the Black Hills War, Spotted Tail was killed by Crow Dog for reasons that have been disputed. Luther Standing Bear claimed Spotted Tail was killed by Crow Dog for having sold land not belonging to him and for taking the wife of a crippled man. Although these actions are said to have angered many Sioux leaders, Spotted Tail refused to give the woman back, claiming the United States government stood behind him. Several men decided to kill Spotted Tail but, before they could act, he was killed by Crow Dog on August 5, 1881.[17] According to historian Dee Brown: "White officials...dismissed the killing as the culmination of a quarrel over a woman, but Spotted Tail's friends said that it was the result of a plot to break the power of the chiefs."[4]

Spotted Tail, by Henry Farny

On August 5, 1881, after a long simmering feud, Crow Dog shot and killed Chief Spotted Tail on the Rosebud Indian Reservation. Crow Dog was arrested and tried in a territorial court in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, and found guilty of murder and sentenced to hang. In the case of Ex parte Crow Dog, the United States Supreme Court overturned the verdict because the Deadwood Court had no jurisdiction in a case of one Indian killing another on reservation lands.[18] Crow Dog was released and returned to the Rosebud.[19]

Spotted Tail's grave on the Rosebud Reservation

Spotted Tail is buried in Rosebud, South Dakota. A tribal university (Sinte Gleska University) on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota was named for him in 1971.[20]

Spotted Tail's death influenced critical Indian law principles, long after his death. The case of Ex parte Crow Dog established that Indian tribes retain their sovereignty. The case also motivated the immediate creation, starting in 1885 of a series of federal statutes laying out the division of power between federal courts and Indian tribal courts to try Indian and non-Indian persons, in different circumstances for different crimes on Indian reservations. However Ex parte Crow Dog also established the plenary powers doctrine, giving Congress the power to pass any law they choose (including laws altering treaties that had been previously entered into), even over the opposition of the tribe or tribes affected.

• Black Hills
• Ex parte Crow Dog

• Hyde, George E. (1974), Spotted Tail's Folk: A History of the Brulé Sioux, University of Oklahoma Press, p. 361, ISBN 978-0-8061-1380-7
• Griske, Michael (2005), The Diaries of John Hunton, Heritage Books, pp. 66–69, 91–96, ISBN 0-7884-3804-2