A Note on 100 Voices by Bruce Brown 100 Voices: Full List * Crow/Arikara * Sioux/Cheyenne * American * Rosebud Guided Tours: Crazy Horse at the Little Bighorn * Crazy Horse at the Rosebud Features: Who Killed Custer? * Who Killed Custer? Audio Book Features: Crazy Horse Surrender Ledger * Winter Count of Crazy Horse's Life Features: Bogus Crazy Horse Photos * Unsung 7th Cavalry Scouts Saga Features: Indian Battlefield Tactics * Woman Warriors * Little Bighorn Maps Features: U.S. Medal of Honor Winners * U.S. Atrocities * Indian Atrocities Features: Little Bighorn Mysteries * Virtual Museum

Red Feather's Story of
Crazy Horse's Surrender
A Brule Sioux's account of the surrender of Crazy Horse

RED FEATHER'S ACCOUNT

What is the date by your calendar? Write it down that I am telling you the story of Crazy Horse on July 8, 1930. I will tell you the true facts about Crazy Horse because I am a Catholic now and it is a part of my religion to tell the truth.

"Black Beard" made a treaty with the Indians. In this treaty boundaries were set to the country of the Dakotas. The Indians all stayed together inside these boundaries. The white people kept sending to Crazy Horse to leave his country and come in to the agency, but he wanted to keep his own land. The Indians always stayed inside these boundaries, and they are still inside them. So are a lot of white people.

Some Indians who were staying at the agency kept coming out to Crazy Horse to ask him to come in to the agency. One of these Indians was named Keeps-the-Sword [AKA Sword, the elder], the other Spotted Tail.

Crazy Horse and another chief named He Dog were camping on the Powder River. Keeps-the-Sword and Spotted Tail took tobacco out to them and killed a lot of buffaloes. They told Crazy Horse that the agent wanted him. If he would go in to the agency, the agent would issue rations, blankets, and clothing, and then allow him to go back home. Crazy Horse didn't want to go. He didn't answer them for a long time. He told them to go over to the other Indians (He Dog's band), and he would do the same as the others did. These others were camping in the White Mountains (Big Horn Mountains). Crazy Horse did not take the tobacco; he sent it over to the others.

After they took it over, they had a big council of all the chiefs of both bands. The man that took the tobacco said the agent sent them; that is why they came. One old man named Iron Hawk spoke first and answered, "You see all the people here are in rags; they all need clothing; we might as well go in." Crazy Horse said whatever all the rest decided to do, he would do. So they all agreed to go in. They promised to go over, get the rations and the clothing, and return west of the Black Hills again.

The Nebraska Indian Wars Reader edited by R. Eli Paul, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE 1998, p 196 - 198

NOTE:

Red Feather was Black Shawl Woman's brother, and thus Crazy Horse's brother-in-law (Standing Bear family photo from Crazy Horse: A Lakota Life by Kingsley M. Bray). Personally, I have doubts about the authenticity of this photo for a couple reasons. First, Black Shawl Woman died shortly after Crazy Horse in 1877, while the building behind this woman looks too substantial to have existed at Ft. Robinson in 1877. Secondly, the woman in this photo does not have the emaciated, sunken look of a consumptive near death. Here is Red Feather's account of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.