Post by Dietmar on Jul 20, 2007 5:57:25 GMT -6
An article about the most important Sihasapa chief of the 1870-90s:
Grass, John (1837/1844-10 May 1918), leader of the Sihasapa (Blackfoot) Sioux, was born at a camp along the Grand River in present-day South Dakota. His father and grandfather were important Sihasapa leaders; no information has been found on his mother. The Sihasapa were probably the last of the Teton Sioux to migrate from the woodlands into the Dakotas and were closely connected to the Hunkpapa and Sans Arc bands. Catholic mission records state that Grass, or Charging Bear, as he was known as a young adult, was baptized when he was three by the peripatetic Jesuit Father Pierre-Jean De Smet. Grass fought in battles against tribal enemies in the 1850s and 1860s. He married Cecelia Walking Shield in a traditional ceremony in 1867; they renewed their marriage in a Catholic ceremony in 1894. The Grasses had four children.
Grass appears regularly in the reports of the Standing Rock Indian Agency in North Dakota, to which the Sihasapa were assigned along with bands of Hunkpapa and Upper Yanktonais Sioux, as well as in the records of the commissions who worked to obtain land cessions from the Sioux in the 1880s. Grass counseled peace in the 1870s and gained influence after 1876 as he accepted government policies encouraging farming and education. Recognition of his willingness to cooperate marked him as "progressive," and he was named chief justice of the Court of Indian Offenses for the Standing Rock Agency, a position he held until his death. By the early 1880s Grass's influence increased as the Hunkpapa bloutanka (war leader) Gall came also to accept assimilationist policies. Gall and Grass became close friends and worked to protect the lands and interests of their people. Grass's willingness to cooperate with the government led Agent James McLaughlin to name him head chief of Standing Rock but also placed him and Gall at odds with other leaders, such as Sitting Bull, who remained more suspicious of government intentions.
Grass resisted government efforts to take more Sioux land in the 1880s. He claimed that the 1882 Edmunds Commission had lied to the Sioux about government intentions, and he led a united Standing Rock resistance to the 1888 Pratt Commission efforts to break up the Great Sioux Reservation, an effort that was assisted by McLaughlin. Initially, Grass opposed attempts by the Crook Commission (George Crook, Charles Foster, and William Warner) to receive Sioux approval for the sale of Sioux lands in 1889. Grass noted that the government had failed in the past to fulfill its promises regarding payments for land and the creation of reservation schools, and he felt that the offered payment of $1.25 per acre was too low. But he eventually succumbed, along with many others, to severe pressure and to arguments that if the tendered agreement for the cession of lands were not accepted, the government might simply take the land without compensation, an argument made privately to Grass and other Standing Rock leaders by McLaughlin. Government failure to live up to its treaty and statutory obligations after the Sioux approved the 1889 agreement led to the Ghost Dance Crisis, based on a spiritual movement whose practitioners believed that they, through the Ghost Dance, could make the whites vanish and could be rejoined with the spirits of their dead. Attempts by the army to suppress this movement led to the killing of Sitting Bull and the Wounded Knee massacre. Throughout this chaotic time, Grass counseled peace and worked to calm the situation. Subsequently in 1904 Grass led a Sioux delegation to Washington, D.C., to assert Sioux claims and grievances. Despite the government's inept handling of the Ghost Dance and the uneven implementation of Indian policy, Grass remained committed to peace and accommodation. As with many Indian leaders of that time, he saw no real alternative. He died at his home near Fort Yates on the Standing Rock Agency.
Bibliography
The record of Grass's life is scattered through government records and recollection of individuals who knew him. Indian Agent James McLaughlin has high praise for Grass in My Friend the Indian (1910). Two recent biographies of Sitting Bull discuss Grass's role in the 1880s: Gary Anderson, Sitting Bull and the Paradox of Lakota Nationhood (1996), and Robert Utley, The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull (1993). Brief mention of Grass's role during the Ghost Dance crisis can be found in James Mooney, The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890 (1896; repr. 1991); Utley, The Last Days of the Sioux Nation (1963); W. Fletcher Johnson, The Red Record of the Sioux Life of Sitting Bull and History of the Indian War of 1890-'91 (1891); and Mildred Felder, Sioux Indian Leaders (1975). A brief obituary appears in the Catholic Bureau of Missions, Indian Sentinel, Apr. 1919, Washington, D.C.
Douglas D. Martin
(From American National Biography, published by Oxford University Press, Inc., copyright 2000 American Council of Learned Societies)
Grass, John (1837/1844-10 May 1918), leader of the Sihasapa (Blackfoot) Sioux, was born at a camp along the Grand River in present-day South Dakota. His father and grandfather were important Sihasapa leaders; no information has been found on his mother. The Sihasapa were probably the last of the Teton Sioux to migrate from the woodlands into the Dakotas and were closely connected to the Hunkpapa and Sans Arc bands. Catholic mission records state that Grass, or Charging Bear, as he was known as a young adult, was baptized when he was three by the peripatetic Jesuit Father Pierre-Jean De Smet. Grass fought in battles against tribal enemies in the 1850s and 1860s. He married Cecelia Walking Shield in a traditional ceremony in 1867; they renewed their marriage in a Catholic ceremony in 1894. The Grasses had four children.
Grass appears regularly in the reports of the Standing Rock Indian Agency in North Dakota, to which the Sihasapa were assigned along with bands of Hunkpapa and Upper Yanktonais Sioux, as well as in the records of the commissions who worked to obtain land cessions from the Sioux in the 1880s. Grass counseled peace in the 1870s and gained influence after 1876 as he accepted government policies encouraging farming and education. Recognition of his willingness to cooperate marked him as "progressive," and he was named chief justice of the Court of Indian Offenses for the Standing Rock Agency, a position he held until his death. By the early 1880s Grass's influence increased as the Hunkpapa bloutanka (war leader) Gall came also to accept assimilationist policies. Gall and Grass became close friends and worked to protect the lands and interests of their people. Grass's willingness to cooperate with the government led Agent James McLaughlin to name him head chief of Standing Rock but also placed him and Gall at odds with other leaders, such as Sitting Bull, who remained more suspicious of government intentions.
Grass resisted government efforts to take more Sioux land in the 1880s. He claimed that the 1882 Edmunds Commission had lied to the Sioux about government intentions, and he led a united Standing Rock resistance to the 1888 Pratt Commission efforts to break up the Great Sioux Reservation, an effort that was assisted by McLaughlin. Initially, Grass opposed attempts by the Crook Commission (George Crook, Charles Foster, and William Warner) to receive Sioux approval for the sale of Sioux lands in 1889. Grass noted that the government had failed in the past to fulfill its promises regarding payments for land and the creation of reservation schools, and he felt that the offered payment of $1.25 per acre was too low. But he eventually succumbed, along with many others, to severe pressure and to arguments that if the tendered agreement for the cession of lands were not accepted, the government might simply take the land without compensation, an argument made privately to Grass and other Standing Rock leaders by McLaughlin. Government failure to live up to its treaty and statutory obligations after the Sioux approved the 1889 agreement led to the Ghost Dance Crisis, based on a spiritual movement whose practitioners believed that they, through the Ghost Dance, could make the whites vanish and could be rejoined with the spirits of their dead. Attempts by the army to suppress this movement led to the killing of Sitting Bull and the Wounded Knee massacre. Throughout this chaotic time, Grass counseled peace and worked to calm the situation. Subsequently in 1904 Grass led a Sioux delegation to Washington, D.C., to assert Sioux claims and grievances. Despite the government's inept handling of the Ghost Dance and the uneven implementation of Indian policy, Grass remained committed to peace and accommodation. As with many Indian leaders of that time, he saw no real alternative. He died at his home near Fort Yates on the Standing Rock Agency.
Bibliography
The record of Grass's life is scattered through government records and recollection of individuals who knew him. Indian Agent James McLaughlin has high praise for Grass in My Friend the Indian (1910). Two recent biographies of Sitting Bull discuss Grass's role in the 1880s: Gary Anderson, Sitting Bull and the Paradox of Lakota Nationhood (1996), and Robert Utley, The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull (1993). Brief mention of Grass's role during the Ghost Dance crisis can be found in James Mooney, The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890 (1896; repr. 1991); Utley, The Last Days of the Sioux Nation (1963); W. Fletcher Johnson, The Red Record of the Sioux Life of Sitting Bull and History of the Indian War of 1890-'91 (1891); and Mildred Felder, Sioux Indian Leaders (1975). A brief obituary appears in the Catholic Bureau of Missions, Indian Sentinel, Apr. 1919, Washington, D.C.
Douglas D. Martin
(From American National Biography, published by Oxford University Press, Inc., copyright 2000 American Council of Learned Societies)
