chief big road

[karl]

is there anyone who knows when the oglala sioux
chief big road died?
the last i find of him,he was a delegation member
in washington 1891 after the wounded knee fight.
greetings from germany.

[Mike Nunnally]

Karl,

Not sure when he died, but he is in the 1877 Dakota Delegation photo taken in Washington on October 30, 1877..he is number 1 in the upper row...this picture is in the Research Review, winter 2004 edition...I'm not sure about other photos...was he at Wounded Knee? Do you know his story?

Scout

[karl]

hello mike.thanks for the information.big road was a northern oglala band chief.
james r. walker called the band "oyurpa"means "pulled down".this man,i think played
an important part in the oglala history.he was a socalled "hostile".we find him fighting against
the us army in the fetterman battle and also in the custer battle.he surrended in may 1877
with crazy horse.after this chiefs death,and after as you rode he was in washington he and
his group(many of the crazy horse followers)fled to canada and came back to south dakota
in 1880 or 1881.when the ghost dance broke out he became ones more a "hostile" leader.
i think he was not at the wounded knee massacre.in january 1891(?) he surrenered to
gen.miles.also in 1891 he along with hump,young man afraid and others went to washington.
there is a photo that shows him in the first row far right.im not sure who had the photo taken,but i will find out.after this journey im unable to find any record of him.
so long.karl

[Don Blake]

Though Big Road went to Canada with other 'northern' Oglalas after Crazy Horse's death, he is named as on of those leaders who were disenchanted with Crazy Horse at the agency.

[kingsleybray]

Hi Karl

According to family descendants Big Road died in 1897. I've no independent check on this date, but we have a statement by Judge Ricker that when he started interviewing people at Pine Ridge - say 1907 - Big Road was already dead. Also in the map of allotments made at Pine Ridge ca. 1905-15 Big Road doesn't appear - though his son Chase Alone does.

I think Big Road was one of the four Deciders (wakicunze) seated by the Northern Oglala council in April 1877. He served as a sergeant in the Oglala scouts recruited at Red Cloud Agency after surrender. After Lt. Clark re-organised the scouts in July he was a sergeant in Co. C. The other Co. C sergeants were Little Hawk, Iron Crow (aka Jumping Shield), Little Big Man, plus First Sergeant Crazy Horse. The corporals were all akicita leaders in the Northern Oglala village. When Big Road reluctantly joined the flight to Canada in January 1878 he turned over his scout uniform and firearms to Clark's successor Lt. Dodd.

I've written about this at greater length in an article published in the Summer 2005 issue of MONTANA Magazine. Hope this is of some help

Best,

Kingsley Bray

[karl]

:)thank you so much,kingsley.
i have just read the montana magazine article online.
great!
when died little hawk and little big man?

[kingsleybray]

Hi Karl

According to probate records shared with me by the Little Hawk family, Little Hawk died in 1895. Born in 1836, he was only four years older than his famous nephew ('son' in the Lakota kinship scheme) Crazy Horse. His wife White Horse Woman was a sister of Iron Hawk (aka Sweat), the herald or crier (eyanpaha) in the Northern Oglala village. Iron Hawk was reportedly a son - possibly adopted - of the Oglala chief Smoke, met by Parkman in 1846.

Little Big Man died in 1887 acording to info' posted on the Oglala genealogy website hosted by Mike Stevens. He was a son of Yellow Thunder, another Oglala leader prominent in the 1840s. According to a statement by Agent J. J. Saville Little Big Man was half-Cheyenne - as was Black Twin.

Best

Kingsley

[crzhrs]

Kingsleybray:

I have never heard of CH being part of any scout organization. It was my understanding that he wanted as anything more to do with fighting. He said he had tied up his horses tail. He was adamant about fighting against the Nez Perze, until he was hounded so much that he finally said, All right I will fight until there is not another Nez Perze left alive, which later was mis-tranlated by Frank Grouard as I will fight until there is not another white man alive. That eventually resulted in the conspiracy to arrest CH and ultimately his death.

Do you have any sources regarding the scouts and CH?

[kingsleybray]

There are plenty of sources which show that Crazy Horse was enlisted as a scout. I have detailed this in my article "We Belong to the North" in the last issue of MONTANA, THE MAGAZINE OF WESTERN HISTORY. The text of the article is also downloadable online. Briefly Crazy Horse was enlisted as a scout in May 1877, a week or two after the surrender at Red Cloud Agency. He was enrolled as a First Sergeant, which placed him on an equal footing with Red Cloud and Spotted Tail - surely a factor in the 'jealousy' which poisoned relations at the two agencies. Army enlistment records show his service, and a number of newspaper accounts noted the enlistment. Oglala eyewitnesses also recounted the enlistment - in his 1931 interview with Eleanor Hinman, Crazy Horse's brother-in-law Red Feather states that he helped "coax" a reluctant Crazy Horse to enlist.

You're right about Crazy Horse's resistance to fighting after the surrender. He and the other enlisted scouts, drawn from both non-treaty and agency-resident bands, defined their service as maintaining order at the agencies and serving as peace envoys to those bands (Lame Deer) still out in the hunting grounds. When the army asked the scouts to serve against the Nez Perces (last week of August 1877), both Crazy Horse and Touch the Clouds (First Sergeant Co. E) expressed their reluctance to "put blood on their faces" again. The tensions and misunderstandings arising from this situation tragically concluded in the arrest and death of Crazy Horse a week later.

Kingsley Bray

[Ephriam Dickson]

As Kingsley noted, Crazy Horse did in fact enlist in the Indian scouts. Together with 25 other recently surrendered northern Oglala, he was sworn in as a scout on May 12, 1877 for a 3 month term. See his enlistment paper attached below (from the National Archives).

Crazy Horse re-enlisted on July 1, 1877 and was made First Sergeant of Company C Indian Scouts. Sergeants included Big Road, Little Hawk, Jumping Shield and Little Big Man. Corporals were Iron Hawk, He Dog, Four Crows and No Water.

Crazy Horse's second enlistment record shows that he was discharged to date from August 31, 1877, the date of his council with Touch the Clouds and Lieut. W. P. Clark during which the supposed mistranslation took place. The discharge however was actually processed on September 5, while Crazy Horse was enroute to Camp Robinson from Camp Sheridan with Lieut. Jesse M. Lee. In a telegram to General Crook, Lieut Clark wrote (Sept. 5): "If you approve, will complete arrangements for payment of scouts, discharging Crazy Horse to date August thirty-first, and let the chiefs who are to take charge of this band designate men to replace those whose arms have been taken away. These chiefs are doing even better than I anticipated." Lieut. John G. Bourke, Crook's aide-de-camp, responded to Clark's telegram later that day: "General Crook says to keep up pursuit of those Indians until the last one is captured [referring to members of Crazy Horse's band who had fled when the army moved to arrest the Oglala leader.] He approves your suggestions about Crazy Horse's discharge and the enlistment of other scouts."

Ephriam

[shatonska]

kingsleybray said:

There are plenty of sources which show that Crazy Horse was enlisted as a scout. I have detailed this in my article "We Belong to the North" in the last issue of MONTANA, THE MAGAZINE OF WESTERN HISTORY. The text of the article is also downloadable online. Briefly Crazy Horse was enlisted as a scout in May 1877, a week or two after the surrender at Red Cloud Agency. He was enrolled as a First Sergeant, which placed him on an equal footing with Red Cloud and Spotted Tail - surely a factor in the 'jealousy' which poisoned relations at the two agencies. Army enlistment records show his service, and a number of newspaper accounts noted the enlistment. Oglala eyewitnesses also recounted the enlistment - in his 1931 interview with Eleanor Hinman, Crazy Horse's brother-in-law Red Feather states that he helped "coax" a reluctant Crazy Horse to enlist.

You're right about Crazy Horse's resistance to fighting after the surrender. He and the other enlisted scouts, drawn from both non-treaty and agency-resident bands, defined their service as maintaining order at the agencies and serving as peace envoys to those bands (Lame Deer) still out in the hunting grounds. When the army asked the scouts to serve against the Nez Perces (last week of August 1877), both Crazy Horse and Touch the Clouds (First Sergeant Co. E) expressed their reluctance to "put blood on their faces" again. The tensions and misunderstandings arising from this situation tragically concluded in the arrest and death of Crazy Horse a week later.

Kingsley Bray

i'm reading your very good and interesting article

[Jorge Machado]

Dear Mr. Kringsley,

Congratulations for your article in "Montana: The Magazine of Western History".

Here in Brazil, there are several people, specially those studying shamanism, interested in the Lakota/Dakota/Nakota history. I will recommend the reading of your text.

Best regards,

Jorge Machado

machado(at)sociologia.de

[Dietmar]

I also want to thank Kingsley Bray for his article in Montana, but even so for all other articles regarding sioux history (Spotted Tail, etc.) - can´t wait to read your Crazy Horse book!!!

For my own pleasure (and I hope for everyone else here, too ) I just looked around a bit and found some Big Road photos:

1. from the 1877 group photo in Washington



2. by Trager around 1890



3. in Carlisle 1880`s (with oglala chiefs Grass and Little Wound)



4. from the group photo 1891 in Washington



Hope you like it

Dietmar

[karl]

dietmar:
great!where do you found the 2nd and 3rd picture?are they published in books??
grüße aus leipzig.
karl

[Dietmar]

karl, the second and fourth photo is from "Eyewitness at Wounded Knee" by Richard Jensen, Eli Paul & John Carter (University of Nebraska Press). It contains a mass of interesting photographs about the Ghostdance period 1890.

You can find the third photo here:
www.siris.si.edu/
The photographer was John N. Choate, who made the pictures at Carlisle Indian school, Pennsylvania.

Viele Grüße aus dem Münsterland
Dietmar