Lakota prisoners of Fort Sheridan with Cody

[Dietmar]

After the Ghost Dance had been brutally surpressed in the winter of 1890 and the movement had practically ended with the Wounded Knee Massacre, Lakota Ghost Dance leaders Kicking Bear and Short Bull with a group of other Lakotas designated as “hostiles” were sent to imprisonment at Fort Sheridan, Illinois, in January 1891. Almost all of these prisoners were picked in March 1891 by “Buffalo Bill” Cody to tour Europe as part of his Wild West Show.

Most of the Lakotas of Fort Sheridan were photographed together by an unidentified photographer.





Note that Brave (standing far left) is sometimes identified as Revenge. However, other sources indicate that Brave and Revenge were two separate persons and that the man here shown is Brave.


Chicago photographer George E. Spencer also took individual portraits of the Lakota prisoners. I hope we can gather here all that are available.

[Dietmar]

Wounded with Many Arrows, Brule Lakota
(He was apparently not photographed with the above group, unless under another name, but was listed as one of the prisoners.)



Brave



One Bull or Lone Bull, Brule Lakota



High Eagle, Brule Lakota



Bring the White aka Own the White Horse, Oglala Lakota



Know His Voice and his wife Medicine Horse, Oglala Lakota

[grahamew]

I wonder if this card indicates that Spencer didn't take photos of all of the prisoners - though there are more than one each of Short Bull and Kicking Bear:

[Dietmar]

The Fort Sheridan prisoners went with Cody´s Show to Europe in 1891 when they also visited several German cities. In Heidelberg they visited a castle. The Denver Public Library has a group photograph taken while they were at the "Heidelberger Schloss":

digital.denverlibrary.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p15330coll22/id/79221/rec/1


Heidelberger Schloss (Castle of Heidelberg)



Group in front of German castle


Some of the Lakotas are easy to discern, others I´m not sure of:



No Neck, Yankton Charlie, Black Heart and Long Wolf were part of Cody´s regular Show Indian troup. Kicking Bear, Short Bull and Lone Bull (One Bull) were prisoners hired by "Buffalo Bill".
Standing far left could possibly be Horn Eagle, then 2nd from left Scatter. Lying in front of No Neck and Kicking Bear is one of the younger men, perhaps Come and Grunt.
Standing third from right could be High Eagle.

[grahamew]

Great photo, Dietmar. Hadn't seen this one before.

[grahamew]

Horn Eagle then Kills Close to the Lodge, maybe? The tall guy next to the white man in the bowler reminds me of Joe Black Fox. Would he have been with the Wild West at this point?

[tomfc]

Hi Grahame,

No, Black Fox was not on this tour.

[tomfc]

I have now read this thread with very considerable interest and thank everyone for their wonderful contributions.

A few observations, if I may:

A lot of misinformation has been published on the subject of the Fort Sheridan prisoners and there is confusion over how many there were. The precise figures are as follows - they were 27 in total. Of those, 23 accepted Buffalo Bill's offer to take them on a tour of Europe as an alternative to continued incarceration and four, being ill, declined. Those four were returned to Pine Ridge. Of the 23, 17 were still with the show when it reached Glasgow, Scotland, in the autumn of 1891, for the winter season there.

In the above group of 19, Take the Shield Away is the Odd Man Out as he is the only one in the group who did NOT sail to Europe on the SS Switzerland - he is the only representative here of the four who turned Buffalo Bill down.

According to Don Russell, there were 19 Fort Sheridan prisoners. Like a lot of what Russell wrote, this is plain wrong. He probably reached that figure by assuming that this was the full group, which it definitely isn't.

That Revenge and Brave were the same man, this is a new one to me. They are listed separately on different passenger lists. Both are listed as "Orgallas" (sic) on the Switzerland list.

The detainees were a mixed bunch - there were women, old men and very young men. Apart from Kicking Bear and Short Bull, only Revenge and Scatter had much of a pedigree as "hostiles" during the Ghost Dance trouble. I think they were more like hostages than POWs. The Indians may have had some say in who was chosen.

All the Indians for whom Dietmar produces individual portraits made it as far as Glasgow. In fact, all of them, and Kicking Bear and Short Bull, were among a party of 24 who insisted on going home early, much to the annoyance of the Wild West management and of the Federal authorities. They sailed from the Mavisbank Quay, Glasgow, on 4th March 1892, and on arrival in NYC, the thirteen hostages were re-arrested.

The other eleven had enlisted voluntarily and from Chicago were escorted back to Pine Ridge. Twelve of the hostages were taken back to Fort Sheridan. Medicine Horse was one of a kind - she had been a hostage but was allowed to go straight home to Pine Ridge. Presumably, as a woman, she was not perceived to present much of a threat.

Bring the White must have been a very radicalised young man, because he was held at Fort Sheridan for longer than any of the others, apart from Kicking Bear and Short Bull. All the others were allowed to leave quite quickly.

One last thing for now - the photo at Heidelberg Castle - according to some sources, it was taken in 1890, not 1891, because that is the misinformation which had been supplied by Nate Salbury. However, the presence of the various Indians, correctly identified by Dietmar, means that it HAD to be 1891 and could not have been any other time. In From Praire to Palace, John M. Burke gives the years as 1891, so this is further confirmation that it was indeed 1891.

[tomfc]

PS - the ship on which the 24 Indians sailed out of Glasgow for New York, via Londonderry, on 4th March 1892, was the SS Corean.

[tomfc]

Sorry, another careless statement I've had cause to regret:

<< The detainees were a mixed bunch - there were women, old men and very young men. Apart from Kicking Bear and Short Bull, only Revenge and Scatter had much of a pedigree as "hostiles" during the Ghost Dance trouble. I think they were more like hostages than POWs. The Indians may have had some say in who was chosen. >>

Of course, I momentarily forgot about One Bull / Lone Bull, who was another of the prominent "hostiles" holed up with Kicking Bear and Short Bull on the Stronghold, in the weeks prior to Wounded Knee.

In the group photo, Call Her Name, more usually encountered as Calls the Name, married Black Heart in Manchester, England, in August 1891. She was the sister of Chief No Neck, another of the Indians on the tour. Neither Black Heart nor No Neck had belonged to the "hostiles". She was also the maternal aunt of John Shangrau, a mixed=blood Lakota interpreter on that tour. I understand that Calls the Name and John's mother were daughters of the "Loafer" chief, Smoke. To avoid misunderstandings, of the Indians mentioned, neither John's mother nor Smoke were featured on the tour.

Another fact concerning Calls the Name and her husband, Black Heart. In the early part of the 1891-92 season, they toured as performers with Buffalo Bill but from August onwards, they were seconded to Miss Viola Clemmons's White Lily Company, which toured the theatres of England and Wales. The other Indians with the White Lily were separate arrivals, brought over specially for the purpose.

Both Calls the Name and Lone Bull owned items which were donated / sold to Glasgow Museums by George C. Crager.

[kingsleybray]

thankyou, tomfc, for this great new information on the Lakota performers in Buffalo Bill's 1891-92 European tour. Fantastic information, I'm sure many are grateful.

Interested in what you have on One Bull/Lone Bull as a prominent Ghost Dancer in the Stronghold in late 1890.

There was a John Lone Bull (sometimes rendered Long Bull) who gave a long interview to anthropologist Donald Collier in 1939 -- about Oglala political organization mainly; some details on his early life, but nothing about the Ghost Dance era. Trying to work out if he's the same feller as the Cody 1891 Lone Bull.

[tomfc]

Hi Kingsley, thank you for your kind remarks!

One Bull / Lone Bull was certainly with Kicking Bear and Short Bull on the Stronghold. One of the Short Bull manuscripts which were rediscovered by Dr Sam Maddra and reproduced in her book 'Hostiles' makes a passing reference to him riding a gray horse which was stolen around this time. I have no reason to believe that he was ever one of the leaders.

He was certainly one of the Fort Sheridan 'hostiles'. The SS Switzerland passenger list included him with the members of the 'Brullis' tribe. The fact that he was a Brulé tends to suggest that he was a member of the disaffected band of Brulés who formed the nucleus of the Fort Sheridan
hold-outs.

He participated in the 1891-92 tour until the show closed in Glasgow on Saturday, 27th February 1892. As I mentioned, he was one of the party of 24 who sailed home to the States on board the SS Corean from Glasgow a few days later on 4th March.

On the 1891 tour, Lone Bull rode in as (fictitiously) the chief of the Cheyennes.

He was also recognised as one of the five 'chiefs' of the company. The others were Kicking Bear, Short Bull, No Neck and also Yankton Charlie aka Plenty Wolves, until he left in the summer of 1891. Whenever an Indian was sent home in ill-health, an affidavit was signed by all interested parties, including the 'chiefs'.

A Glasgow restauranteur named John Campbell Galloway gave a dinner for the Indian men at 115, West Nile Street on the night of 4th December 1891. Lone Bull was one of the four chiefs who sat at the top table and gave speeches in honour of their host. The other three were Kicking Bear, Short Bull and No Neck.

He was also present in Buffalo Bill's company in Chicago in 1893. I don't know what became of him after that, I hadn't heard of John Lone / Long Bull, I'm sorry! Your best bet, in the absence of any specific mention of the ghost dance, would be to get hold of a photo of Donald Collier's informant, Lone Bull had a very distinctive face.

The artefact in the collections of Glasgow Museums which is associated with the name of Lone Bull in the Accessions Register is a canvas shield
depicting (in colour) two Indians hunting a bear.

Above all, DON'T ever make the mistake I made - in my first book, The Diamond's Ace, I conflated One / Lone Bull with Sitting Bull's nephew of a similar name!

I hope that this helps!

[kingsleybray]

Interesting that Lone Bull was recognized as one of the five 'chiefs' of the 1891-92 Cody tour. In the Fort Sheridan group image he is distinguished by holding a long-stemmed pipe with pipe bag, suitable regalia for one recognized as a 'chief' of a given social unit.

[Dietmar]

I have compiled some likenesses of Lone Bull (One Bull):



Lone Bull in England (taken from a group photo)



Lone Bull in Belgium (taken from a group photograph)



Lone Bull in Germany (taken from the Heidelberg group photo above)



Lone Bull, standing at left, with other Show Indians





Note that Lone Bull is among the other prominent 'chiefs' in the drawing, which illustrates the dinner mentioned by Tom.

[kingsleybray]

Mmmmm ----- John Lone Bull was an Oglala. The Lone Bull here depicted is id'd as a Brule. These id's can be dodgy, but have to be taken seriously to begin with.

There was an Oglala called Lone Bull who was listed among the "prime leaders" of the Oglala Ghost Dancers by Pine Ridge Agent Royer in November, 1890, men whom Royer recommended be arrested and confined off reservation.

Check Joe Starita, THE DULL KNIFES OF PINE RIDGE: A LAKOTA ODYSSEY (New York, 1995), pages 227-229,for an interesting sidelight on Lone Bull's experience after the Cody tour. Maybe tomfc can help with the background to this story?

What the Starita story does say is that Lone Bull only returned to Pine Ridge in 1898 after being kidnapped and exhibited "back East" as a kind of freak show. It then goes on to say he was allotted near Allen, SD, on the Pine Ridge Reservation. This does tighten the id with John Lone Bull, the informant of Donald Collier in 1939.

A puzzling one .......