Two Bears??

[Dietmar]

Some years ago we had a discussion about a group photo of men with Buffalo Bill, among them George Sword, Oglala, and John Nelson.

www.american-tribes.com/Lakota/BIO/GeorgeSword.htm



Ephriam identified the Indian sitting left as Two Bears (possibly Hunkpapa or Oglala). Obviously he is not the well known Yanktonai chief nor his son, also known as Two Bears.

I just found a scan, who shows the same man, portraited by photographer William R. Cross:


Two Bears by W.R. Cross

Do we know anything else about this Two Bears, other that he participated in a play with William F. Cody in 1877?

[miller7513]

This photo could not be taken in 1875 and the man standing at right is positively not John Y Nelson b 1826 (49 yrs old) in Charleston, Va. and Buffalo Bill Cody would have been only 29 yrs old born in LeClaire, Iowa Feb. 26 1846
"In 1883, in the area of North Platte, Nebraska, Cody organized "Buffalo Bill's Wild West", a circus-like attraction that toured annually". (sources PBS The West-Wikipedia Encyclopedia-HISTORYnet.com)
LaDEane Miller

[Dietmar]

LaDeane,

I admit I´m not a Buffalo Bill expert, but from what I read Cody did act in theatrical plays from the early 1870ies on. His Wild West Shows started in 1883 though.

www.ulib.niu.edu/badndp/cody_william.html

In the fall of 1876 he was on the stage once more with a new play, "Life on the Border," and had Captain Jack Crawford as one of the attractions. In the meantime, he and Frank North had started a cattle ranch sixty-five miles north of North Platte, Nebraska, and during the summer he spent his time there. Leaving Major North in charge of the ranch, he got some Sioux Indians to accompany him on his theatrical tour, 1877-78, which opened at the Bowery Theatre, New York, September 3, 1877, with a new play, written by Major A. S. Burt, and founded on the Mountain Meadows massacre and life among the Mormons, called "May Cody; or, Lost and Won." The next season he added more Indians to his show, and had with him also C. A. Burgess, a government interpreter, and his brother Ed. A. Burgess, known as the "Boy Chief of the Pawnees." After the close of the 1882-83 season, in association with Dr. William F. Carver†(4) and Major John M. Burke, he organized his Wild West Show, after the plan of one tried by Wild Bill in 1870 which had failed. He opened in Omaha May 17, 1883.

segonku.unl.edu/~jheppler/showindian/analysis/cody-indians/cody-historian/

Although Cody claimed to know much about Plains Indians, he in fact knew very few in the 1870s beyond a few Pawnee scouts attached to his Army command. Up until 1877, the Indians in Cody's shows were played by white extras. That year, Cody hired a translator, John Y. Nelson, a fur trapper that lived near Fort McPherson and was married to a Lakota woman, to accompany him to the Red Cloud Agency. Cody hired his first contingent of Indian performers there, Man Who Carries the Sword and Two Bears, an Oglala and Hunkpapa respectively. Cody's decision to turn to Native Americans as entertainers was not new. In frontier melodramas, Indians performed mock battles for wealthy individuals touring the West nearly ten years before Cody hired Indians for his theater combination. By the late 1870s, enough Indians were involved in entertainment that they could easily move among shows.

If we trust the last quote above, John Nelson, Sword and Two Bears accompanied him and it´s likely that the group photograph was taken on this occasion.

[grahamew]

Wasn't it dring this trip that Sword met up with the 1877 Lakota delegation, which is why he features in two of the four Matthew Brady photos taken at the time?

[miller7513]

Dietmar;I have countless letters, sources, and family stories throughout the years-most of them are in my book “Families of Pine Ridge” (now as of Jun 25 2012 on a CD, revised edition)
His (John Young Nelson) autobiography records a “run out” with Bill Cody in Frontier County in 1875 for his part in the murder of Whistler-it was years later that all was forgotten about this incident-possibly 1883
Regarding John Y Nelson; (biggest story teller west of the Mississippi)
Married a daughter of Lone Horn
Little Thunder's niece, Wachema and 4 nephews captured at Ash Hollow (Blue Water). Wachema later married John Nelson.
Married 3 daughters of Two Buck Elk
Married Jennie Smoke
1883 photo John Y 57 yrs old, wife Jennie Lone Wolf Smoke 38 yrs old, children-John Y b 1868, Tomas b 1870, Julia b 1871, James b 1876, Rose b 1880

LaDeane

[miller7513]

Dietmar-the gentleman standing at top left next to Buffalo Bill is in fact TEXAS JACK not John Y Nelson-I have a photo of him
LaDeane

[gregor]

Sorry LaDeane,
but the man on the right of Two Bears is in fact John Nelson as a younger man.

This man is John Baker „Texas Jack“ Omohundro :



In December 1872 Texas Jack and Cody worked for Ned Buntline's Wild-West-Show "The Scouts of the Prairie". About this time the above photo with Sword must have been shot. But we have John Nelson in it, who worked as interpreter.

And here we have John Nelson in 1883 :



Compare the eyes and the nose of "my Nelson" and the man in the "Sword picture". In my pic he looks of course older because of the longer hair and the full beard.

Toksha

Gregor