A Long And Proud Tradition --
THIS DETAIL FROM a pictograph by Cheyenne warrior Little Wolf shows Major Marcus Reno's troopers killing Sioux women and children at the outset of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. It is captioned "Sioux squaws killed." Although it depicts the actual murder of Sioux women and children by the U.S. Army, some of the details shown here may be inaccurate -- Reno's men were still mounted in the early stages of the engagement, and the murder of the Sioux women and children may have been committed by the Army's Indian scouts. Seventh Cavalry scout George Herendeen attributed the murder of the Sioux women to the U.S. Army's Arikara scouts, and Arikara scout Strikes Two may have circumspectly referred to these murders when he said he and several of other Arikara and Sioux scouts had a "little skirmish" at the very beginning of the Reno fight. Arikara scouts Little Sioux, Red Star, and Boy Chief tried to get in on the fun too. Near the beginning of the Reno fight, Little Sioux recalled pursuing a group a Sioux women and children with the intention of murdering them when Little Sioux and the other scouts were distracted by some good looking horses, and decided to chase them instead. Meanwhile, Reno's men continued their charge into edge the huge village, where their surprise Sunday morning attack killed more women and children (including the family of Gall, who said it "made my heart bad"). Reno's troops set fire to the village and shot at One Bull, the man Sitting Bull hurredly dispatched to ask the American attackers for parley, before they were driven back in what turned into a deadly rout for the Americans. All this happened before George Custer's men were actively engaged in the fight. It appears from the eye-witness account of Peter Thompson that at least one of the Seventh Cavalry's Crow scouts was on a private "fuck 'n chuck" operation among the enemy squaws similar to the one the Seventh Cavalry's Arikara scouts had enjoyed a half hour before at the outset of Reno's attack. Thompson described seeing a Crow scout on the banks of the Little Bighorn struggling with a Sioux squaw on a tether minutes before Custer tried to charge across the river and attack the Indian village. The Crow scout Thompson caught in the middle of a war crime could be Curley since he admitted he was at the river when Custer tried to attack the village, but it could also be one of the other three Crow scouts -- Hairy Mocassin, White Man Runs Him or Goes Ahead -- since Goes Ahead also admitted that the three of them went together to the river for a "drink of water" after they left Custer -- exactly the moment Thompson said he saw the Crow Scout with the roped squaw. The Seventh Cavalry's Indian scouts weren't the only ones committing war crimes, though. In fact, it was American soldiers -- not their Indian scouts -- who led the way. The Battle of the Little Bighorn openned when Quartermaster Sgt. Hearst murdered an unarmed Sioux boy named Deeds, who was out looking for a lost horse on the morning of June 25, 1876. Here is Drags The Rope's eye-witness account of the Americans' murder of Deeds, confirmed by the eye-witness account of Daniel Kanipe. And Cheyenne chronicler John Stands In Timber said Custer's scouts told the Indains that Custer said before the battle that he was going to get himself a "Sioux girl." Viewed from the perspective of the 21st century, it is interesting to see that American soldiers have been killing innocent women and children for centuries -- this is not just a feature of America's wars in Iraq and Afghanistan -- a realization that neatly turns contemporary American "Power of Pride" patrotism on its ear. What exactly does America have to be proud of -- then or now? By any objective measure, the shame of America is deep, maybe even as deep Americans' ignorance of their own history. -- Bruce Brown People of the Sacred Mountain, Volume 2, by Father Peter John Powell, Harper & Row, New York, NY 1981 p 968 - 969
© Copyright 1973 - 2008 by Bruce Brown and BF Communications Inc. Astonisher, Astonisher.com, Conversations With Crazy Horse and 100 Voices BF Communications Inc. Website by Running Dog |
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