The Killing of Crazy Horse by Thomas Powers

Author:Thomas Powers
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Library, Native Americans, Native American, Biography & Autobiography, Biography, History
ISBN: 9780375414466
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2010-11-02T10:00:00+00:00

During his first weeks at the Red Cloud Agency it was evident that Crazy Horse had determined on peace. He had one overriding goal: to secure an agency in the north. To achieve this goal he expected to go to Washington with the other chiefs. He intended to live like the whites. He enlisted as a scout in the Army and accepted the rank of sergeant. He met on several occasions with newspaper correspondents. He gave presents to his white visitors. But whites often did not know what to make of him.

Crook’s aide John Bourke was one of the first to meet Crazy Horse after his arrival, and his description of their brief exchange is filled with tension and contradiction. On the very day of the chief’s arrival Bourke went to see him in the company of Frank Grouard, who had arranged to take Crazy Horse to dinner. They found the chief sitting in front of his lodge while two women busied themselves roasting coffee and preparing food. Someone had told Bourke that Crazy Horse at the Little Bighorn had killed one of Custer’s men with a stone war club while the soldier struggled to control his horse. This fact appears to have colored the impression of the chief which formed in Bourke’s mind.

Frank is the only one whom Crazy Horse seems at all glad to see [he wrote in his diary]. To the rest of the world he is sullen and gloomy. His face is quiet, rather morose, dogged, tenacious, and resolute. His expression is rather melancholic … Crazy Horse remained seated on the ground, but when Frank called his name, Tsunka Witco, he looked up and gave me a hearty grasp of the hand. He looks quite young, not over thirty years old, is lithe and sinewy and has a wound in his face.19

Spare as Bourke’s account is, it still conveys two things about the chief: the brooding power and authority of his person, and his willingness to lean forward, reach out, speak a greeting, and shake a white man’s hand. Bourke did not come away fearing that war would soon be renewed.

A few days after Bourke’s only meeting with the chief, Billy Garnett invited Crazy Horse, Little Big Man, and several others to join him for dinner in the small, three-room house where Garnett was living with his second wife, Emma Mills. By custom the Sioux in their lodges sat on the ground and ate with their fingers, sometimes aided by a knife, but in Garnett’s house Crazy Horse and the others sat in chairs at table before a setting of plate, mug, knife, and fork. The agency chiefs often ate with military officers and other whites. A journalist passing through at this time noted that Spotted Tail “understands perfectly the use of the four-pronged fork and napkin.” Crazy Horse told Garnett that he, too, “would begin to learn the use of the fork at the table.” He did not say he wanted to do it. “He said he had got to do it,” Garnett recalled.

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