The Chiefs

American Horse §  Chief Joseph §  Big Bear §  Black Elk §  Joseph Brant  §  Choncape §  Chief Fools Crow §  Chief Dan George §  Geronimo §  Chief Washakie §  Chief Tecumseh §  Chief Wolf Robe §  Quanah Parker §  He-Dog §  Keokuk §  Low Dog §  Pontiac §  Red Cloud §  Chief Sitting Bull § 



American Horse

 One of the wittiest and shrewdest of the Sioux chiefs was American Horse, who succeeded to the name and position of an uncle, killed in the battle of Slim Buttes in 1876. The younger American Horse was born a little before the encroachments of the whites upon the Sioux country became serious and their methods aggressive, and his early manhood brought him into that most trying and critical period of our history. He had been tutored by his uncle, since his own father was killed in battle while he was still very young. The American Horse band was closely attached to a trading post, and its members in consequence were inclined to be friendly with the whites, a policy closely adhered to by their leader.


Chief Joseph

 Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce (1840?-1904) was known to his people as "Thunder Traveling to the Loftier Mountain Heights." He led his people in an attempt to resist the takeover of their lands in the Oregon Territory by white settlers. In 1877, the Nez Perce were ordered to move to a reservation in Idaho. Chief Joseph agreed at first. But after members of his tribe killed a group of settlers, he tried to flee to Canada with his followers, traveling over 1500 miles through Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana. Along the way they fought several battles with the pursuing U.S. Army. Chief Joseph spoke these words when they finally surrendered on October 5, 1877.Chief Joseph, was kept captive, never being allowed to return to his Nez Pearce Homeland even though General Miles promised he could live in Idaho. Chief Joseph is buried on the Colville Reservation in Washington.

Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before, I have it in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our Chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead, Ta Hool Hool Shute is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets; the little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are - perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my Chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.


Big Bear

 Once the European settlers came to Western Canada, the way of life for the aboriginals was threatened and Big Bear, a Cree Chief, fought, through protests of peace to make things better for his people. He was branded a troublemaker. This is his story and the story of his people, an account of one man's losing battle against authority. Big Bear had fought the authorities by word, his people fought with bullets and both lost. By 1887, Big Bear's people were scattered throughout the country, most of his family was in Montana, he died alone in January of 1888.

Black Elk 1863-1950

 "I cured with the power that came through me. Of course, it was not I who cured, it was the power from the Outer World, the visions and the ceremonies had only made me like a hole through which the power could come to the two-leggeds." "If I thought that I was doing it myself, the hole would close up and no power could come through. Then everything I could do would be foolish."

Joseph Brant

 The Mohawk Indian chief Joseph Brant served as a spokesman for his people, a Christian missionary of the Anglican church, and a British military officer during the U.S. War of Independence. He is remembered for his efforts in unifying upper New York Indian tribes and leading them in terrorizing raids against patriot communities in support of Great Britian's efforts to repress the rebellion. He is also credited for the establishment of the Indian reservation on the Grand River in Canada where the neighboring town of Brantford, Ontario, bears his name.

Choncape

Chief Fools Crow

 Tunkasila, le miyelo. Wotehikeca, le ca mauwelo. Tunkasila, le miyelo. Wotehikca, le ca mauwelo. Tunkasila, le miyelo. Wotehikeca, lena cicu welo. Tunkasila, le miyelo. Wotehikeca, lena cicu welo.

Chief Dan George 1899 - 1981

 "We have taken so much from your culture, I wish you had taken something from ours... For there were some beautiful and good things within it. Perhaps now that the time has come, We are fearful that what you take will be lost.... I shall grab the instruments of the white man's success: His education, his skills, and society. If you talk to the animals they will talk with you and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them you will not know them, and what you do not know you will fear. What one fears one destroys."

Chief Washakie

 "The white man, who possesses this whole vast country from sea to sea, who roams over it at pleasure and lives where he likes, cannot know the cramp we feel in this little spot, with the underlying remembrance of the fact, which you know as well as we, that every foot of what you proudly call America not very long ago belonged to the red man. The Great Spirit gave it to us. There was room for all His many tribes, and all were happy in their freedom." "I say again, the government does not keep its word!"

Geronimo

 "Geronimo is said to have had magical powers. He could see into the future, walk without creating footprints and even hold off the dawn to protect his own. This Apache Indian warrior and his band of 37 followers defied federal authority for more than 25 years. "GERONIMO AND THE APACHE RESISTANCE" weaves dramatic scenery, memoirs, letters, photographs and other original documents into a portrayal of the life of the people of the southwest in the 19th century."

Chief Tecumseh

 "No tribe has the right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers.... Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth? Didn't the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children? The way, the only way to stop this evil is for the red man to unite in claiming a common and equal right in the land, as it was first, and should be now, for it was never divided." We gave them forest-clad mountains and valleys full of game, and in return what did they give our warriors and our women? Rum, trinkets, and a grave. Brothers -- My people wish for peace; the red men all wish for peace; but where the white people are, there is no peace for them, except it be on the bosom of our mother. Where today are the Pequot? Where today are the Narrangansett, the Mohican, the Pakanoket, and many other once powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and the oppression of the White Man, as snow befor a summer sun."

Chief Wolf Robe

 Wolf Robe, a chief of the southern Cheyenne Indian tribe, appears in a photograph taken in 1909. During the late 1870s, Wolf Robe's tribe was forced to leave the open plains and relocate on a reservation in Oklahoma.

Quanah Parker 1854-1911

 "The Tonkawa killed him - it make my heart hot. I want my people follow after white way. Some white people do that, too."

He-Dog

 I was present at the killing of Crazy Horse. I can tell you just what happened, who was present, and the condition of the weather. In the year we fought with the white people (1876) the band I led had joined the Crazy Horse band during the fighting. In the winter after the fighting, Spotted Tail went North and persuaded Crazy Horse to come down to the agency the following spring. When we started in, I thought we were coming down to visit, and to see whether we could receive an annuity, not to surrender. I thought we would be allowed to go back home afterwards. But when we got near Ft. Robinson, I found we were coming to surrender.

Keokuk (1788-1848)

 Maka' sito'maniyan uki'ye,
Oya'te uki'ye,
oya'te uki'ye,
Wan'bali oya'te wan hoshi'hi-ye lo,
Ate heye lo, ate heye lo,
Maka o'wancha'ya uki'ye,
Pte kin ukiye, pte kin ukiye,
Kanghi oya'te wan hoshi'hi-ye lo,
A'te he'ye lo, a'te he'ye lo
Translation
The whole world is coming,
A nation is coming, a nation is coming,
The Eagle has brought the message to the tribe.
The father says so, the father says so.
Over the whole earth they are coming.
The buffalo are coming, the buffalo are coming,
The Crow has brought the message to the tribe,
The father says so, the father says so.

Low Dog

 I have seen that in any great undertaking it is not enough for a man to depend simply upon himself

Pontiac (1720?-1769)

 Pontiac distinguished himself in the French service at an early age and is said to have led the warriors of his own tribe against the British army officer Edward Braddock in 1755. Pontiac organized a confederacy that embraced virtually all the tribes from the head of Lake Superior almost to the Gulf of Mexico. According to the arrangement the warriors of each tribe, on a concerted day, early in May 1763, were to attack the garrison in their immediate neighborhood. Pontiac himself was to lead the assault at Detroit. In the great wilderness extending from the Pennsylvania frontier to Lake Superior were 14 British posts, of which the most important were Fort Pitt, Detroit, and Mackinaw. The Native Americans captured all but four of the posts, Niagara, Pitt, Ligonier, and Detroit. Mackinaw was taken by a stratagem, and the entire garrison was killed. A plot for the capture of Detroit seems to have been betrayed to the commanding officer by a Native American woman, and failed, but Pontiac at once began a siege that lasted for five months. Reinforcements finally succeeded in entering Detroit; Pontiac's men began to desert him, and the news of the signing of a peace treaty between France and Great Britain removed all hopes of French aid. Pontiac thereupon raised the siege and on August 17, 1765, entered into a formal peace treaty, which he confirmed at Oswego in 1766. Three years later he was murdered by a member of the Illinois tribe.

Red Cloud

 "When we first made treaties with the Government, this was our position: Our old life and our old customs were about to end; the game upon which we lived was disappearing; the whites were closing around us, and nothing remained for us but to adopt their ways and have the same rights with them if we wished to save ourselves." Red Cloud was born about 1819 near the forks of the Platte River. He was one of a family of nine children whose father, an able and respected warrior, reared his son under the old Spartan regime. The young Red Cloud is said to have been a fine horseman, able to swim across the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers, of high bearing and unquestionable courage, yet invariably gentle and courteous in everyday life. This last trait, together with a singularly musical and agreeable voice, has always been characteristic of the man.

Chief Sitting Bull (1831-1890)

 Born on Grand River, S.Dak., from his early adulthood Sitting Bull fought hostile tribes and white intruders on Sioux lands. He excelled in the virtues most admired by the Sioux: bravery, fortitude, generosity, and wisdom. With chiefs Crazy Horse and Gall, he stood fast against surrendering land or mining rights in the Black Hills after gold was discovered there in the mid-1870s. Lakota Medicine Man and Chief was considered the last Sioux to surrender to the U.S. Government. Gall, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull successfully attacked Custer at the Little Bighorn (1876), after which Sitting Bull and other Sioux fled to Canada. The attack was clearly in violation of their treaty. Precisely as Sitting Bull had seen in his vision, every white soldier was killed that day at Big Horn along with a few Native Americans. Following the success of the battle, Sitting Bull and his followers headed for Canada. Sitting Bull, or Tatanka Iyotake, was a great leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota group who helped defeat Gen. George Custer at the Little Bighorn.


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