American Horse

[Dietmar]

Ciao jinlian,

just before I go to bed now: I have a better resolution picture of the first photo you posted, no problem. But I wonder if the inscription is correct. To me the girl looks more like a daughter of American Horse than a wife. What do you think?

Good night.

Dietmar

[jinlian]

Hi Dietmar (I'm going to bed as well),

I'm inclined to think that the young woman is actually AH's wife, as the customary use at the time was to have husband and wife or a whole family's pictures. For example, Red Cloud, the most photographed Indian of his times, was never portraited with any of his daughters (while there are shots of him together with his wife and his son Jack); Geronimo was photographed with both his daughter and his niece, but not with just his daughter.In other words, it seems to me that the ideal pair for such portraits was husband and wife.

I agree that the woman in the pic looks much more younger than AH, but taking young wives wasn't unusual for Indians. I remember reading somewhere that He Dog took a young wife when he was in his 70s - will check it in the next days.

Thanks and good night,

Jin

[jinlian]

Here's the pic of one of AH's daughters:



And here's a link to an article appeared on the New York Times' March 1st 1880 issue, in which a picture of AH together with his wife and daughter( but not with his daughter alone!) is mentioned :

query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9F03E0DC173FEE3ABC4953DFB566838B699FDE&oref=slogin

[bc]

dietmar said:

But I wonder if the inscription is correct. To me the girl looks more like a daughter of American Horse than a wife. What do you think?

quote]

I wondered the same thing when I first saw the picture of Chuck and Diane. lol flattery gets you everywhere

[Dietmar]

American Horse´s daughter in the Godkin photo looks pretty much like the wife (the inscription says squaw) in the Trager picture. I would say they are the same person.

Trager and Kuhn photos are not known to be very accurate relating to identifications.



Dietmar

[jinlian]

Hi Dietmar,

thanks, I've managed to post a higher resolution copy of the Trager and Kuhn picture. The Smithsonian (Godkin) picture of AH'daughters was taken in the late 70s, while the other one is dated 1883 and it's surely early 80s (from AH's looks). The woman in the Trager and Kuhn picture nevertheless looks almost younger than the other one.

The girl in the Smithsonian picture looks like Maggie Stands Looking, one of the first girls sent to the famous (or infamous) Carlisle Boarding School. Here's a picture of father and daughter together with teachers and other Indian students a Carlisle - the girl it's obviously the Godkin one and doesn't look like the wife(?) portraited in the Trager and Kuhn cabinet card.

[Dietmar]

According to Mike Stevens´ genealogy website American Horse married his wife Sleep after 1862. She still was his wife in 1904 when they were counted for the Pine Ridge Census Records.
After 1882 he married Josie (born 1864).

I don´t know if he had other wifes. The list of his children doesn´t seem complete either on that website, hence Maggie is not listed.

[jinlian]

I don't know, Dietmar, Stevens's genealogy, being based only on census and not on oral family records sometimes isn't complete and the records are not so accurate...For instance, it doesn't list among AH's children neither Robert American Horse (obiously following Eastman, who has Robert as AH's nephew while on Carlisle's records he's definitely his son) nor Maggie Stands Looking, who's mentioned several times as AH's daughter in Pratt's records and other Carlisle related documents.

I'll try to get on the web a picture of the early 1900s portraying the AH horse family in which appear 3 wives, one closely resembling the one in the Trager&Kuhn pic.

Thanks for all the research job you're doing

[ephriam]

Good morning, everyone:

According to American Horse's children as recorded in his army pension file (thanks to Tom Powers who brought this to our attention), he had five wives:

1. Red Spotted Calf, also known as Spotted Elk Woman, who he married in 1868. She died in 1889.

2. Sleep, whom he married in the fall of 1871 at the first Red Cloud Agency.

3. Josie, a sister of Sleep, whom he married about 1886. Following American Horse's death, Josie married Whirlwind Horse.

4. Goes Out Looking whom he married in 1888. They separated in 1889. His son recalled that they lived together for only eight or ten days before they separated.

5. Hard Woman, married in 1889 and separated in 1890.

When American Horse died in 1908, he was still married to Sleep and Josie.

As for "Sioux Jim", the comment that he was a brother of Little Big Man is from William Jordan, son of Charles P. Jordan (clerk at the Red Cloud Agency in 1876-77; later Indian trader on the Rosebud Reservation). William Jordan and George Colholff are the sources for the fact that American Horse lost his scalp shirt over the killing of Sioux Jim. The only other name that I am aware of for Sioux Jim is Fish Guts (probably iyuhota hogan).

As to American Horse's original band ("band of birth"), I am not 100% percent certain. We do know that his family originally came from among the Southern Oglala, the Kiyaksa, but as to which band within the Kiyaksa I do not know. As mentioned above, he became a headman among the Wagluhe (Loafers) during the 1870s. By 1890, he was a headman in the Iyasica, a band associated with the Hokayuta.

ephriam

[jinlian]

Thanks, Ephriam for all the biographical information about American Horse. (My, five wives!) and "Sioux Jim".

I guess we may speculate that if the notes in Ricker's book are accurate, and AH actually married one of the daughters of Red Cloud, that should have been
Red Spotted Calf, since in those years AH was associated with the Ite Sica (in Ricker's interview AH reported many of Red Cloud's war exploits, including an assault to an emigrant wagon train they planned and carried on together). But this is mere speculation.

Incidentally, I've found the AH family picture on the Oglala Lakota College website:


Thanks again and have a nice day everybody!

[Dietmar]

Thank you very much Ephriam,

I still tend to believe the woman in the Trager photo is more likely his daughter than his wife. But if she is, she can only be Hard Woman, I guess. Trager made most of his photographs around 1890, so there is a possibility that she was pictured with him.

[jinlian]

Yes, I've checked Goodyear's book on Red Cloud and it's clearly stated that Trager and Kuhn opened their studio in Chadron in the summer of 1889.
Thanks for pointing this out, Dietmar. .
And yes, if we assume that the woman in the picture is AH's wife, the strongest possibility is that she's the fifth one.

[jinlian]

ephriam said:

When American Horse died in 1908, he was still married to Sleep and Josie.

Now, after checking "Plains Indian History and Culture" (which quotes the Report and Historical Collections of the South Dakota State Historical Society, I'm more and more confused about Sleep and Josie being both married to AH at the time of his death, since it reports that:

"When the missionaries told Sioux Chief American Horse that
Christians had but one wife, he replied: "I took my wives according to the custom of my people. They have been with me in my joy and in my sorrow; they are the mothers of my children. They are now old and I cannot throw any of them away but if the time ever comes when I have but one wife, I will join your church". That time did come. American Horse joined the Episcopal church and was buried in its mission cemetery"

Did he in fact convert to Christianity, after all?

[ladonna]

A good Lakota man always had many wives.
A Lakota woman always married at 14 to 15
years old.
If a man was known as a warrior he had many wives.
We know that the govenment demanded the men to give up their wives so many just did not report them on the census.

[jinlian]

ladonna said:

If a man was known as a warrior he had many wives.
We know that the govenment demanded the men to give up their wives so many just did not report them on the census.

Yes, having more than one wife was indeed a sort of status symbol.
Regarding the government pressure on Natives to persuade them to adopt monogamous households, the attempt of applying the Edmunds Act (originally devised for Utah and Mormons) in Indian Reservations, in 1895 led to to the arrest of many people on charge of bigamy both in Pine Ridge and Rosebud. American Horse was one of the most prominent victims of this measure and his arrest made quite a sensation (even the New York Times published reports as "American Horse is arrested" and "The over-married red men")

It was probably hard to accept a "progressive" "friendly Indian" (as AH was considered) living in poligamy.