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Crazy Horse

© Elizabeth Gibson

Crazy Horse was born near Rapid Creek, Dakota Territory in 1842. His real name is Tashunke Witko. It is not known exactly when he got this name. Some claim it is his birth name, while others say it was bestowed later when he became a great war chief. He was never a tribal chief or head chief, but was a battle leader and hero for the younger men. He was referred to as a potanka, meaning a war chief. He was revered and respected among young Sioux braves. Women danced in his honor. He was role model for the young. Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were among the few who never signed any kind of a treaty to give up their land.

He was a member of the Kiyuksa band of the Oglala Sioux. His mother was Cheyenne, which is why he had such a good relationship with the Cheyenne people. The Sioux and Cheyenne often fought on the same side of many battles against the Crow, Shoshone, Blackfeet, and Pawnee. Crazy Horse distinguished himself in these battles. As a young boy he was known as Curly. He was 13 when he participated in a raid on an Omaha village. After that he was called His Horse Looking. Two years later he was grievously injured in another raid.

When he was 26, he stole a woman named Black Buffalo Woman from her husband No Water. No Water shot him in the face, leaving Crazy Horse scarred for life. After the shooting, he married a woman named Black Shawl, who later remarried after Crazy Horse’s death. A few years later he took a second wife, a half-breed woman named Nellie Larrabee.

Then came a new enemy, the white man. All the bands of Sioux knew they needed to ally themselves against him. They unified under Red Cloud and Spotted Tail in the south and Sitting Bull and others in the north. One fight took place at Julesburg, Colorado, in which nearly 1,000 Sioux attacked the fort there. After the white men were on the verge of starvation, the Indians set fire to the fort and the buildings. One of the few fights in which the Sioux under Red Cloud and Crazy Horse were defeated was a fight in 1867 near Fort Kearney, in which the white men had superior weapons and a good defense.

The first major skirmish with the white man came in 1868, after several forts and roads had been built in their country, which became known as the Sioux War of 1868. After this war, the military abandoned the forts and closed the roads. But under Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse participated in many small skirmishes and distinguished himself. He wore his trademark war bonnet with buffalo horns and eagle feathers and his face paint of lightning flashes and hail stones. In 1866, he led a victorious charge over the white soldiers at Fort Fetterman. In 1868, he led a small attack on Horseshoe Station in southeastern Wyoming.

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