tomfc
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Post by tomfc on Mar 2, 2018 9:54:43 GMT -5
Can anyone help me with something I've been wondering about for a while?
Was Kicking Bear's name entered on the Crazy Horse Surrender Ledger? If not, when and where did he surrender in 1877? According to Robert Utley, in Last Days of the Sioux Nation, he surrendered to General Nelson Miles but unfortunately he does not elaborate on this.
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Post by grahamew on Mar 2, 2018 10:41:24 GMT -5
I've seen the reference to him surrendering to Miles in another Utley work. According to Kingsley's book on Crazy Horse, he was still in the Oglala village and was appointed a policeman, early (March?) 1877. He's not in the CH Surrender ledger. Presumably surrendered with Miniconjou kin.
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tomfc
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Post by tomfc on Mar 2, 2018 12:05:47 GMT -5
Thanks Graham, I was looking at the Crazy Horse Surrender Ledger earlier but the full version doesn't appear to be available on the Internet.
When you say 'policeman', I take it you mean an akicita as opposed to a metal breast?
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Post by grahamew on Mar 2, 2018 12:38:25 GMT -5
Yes.
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Post by kingsleybray on Mar 4, 2018 11:54:33 GMT -5
Kicking Bear does not feature under that name in any of the 1877 censuses at Red Cloud or Spotted Tail agencies. However the Joseph Eagle Hawk account of Crazy Horse asserts that Kicking Bear was one of the akicita in the Crazy Horse village as it moved into the agency in spring 1877. And the Billy Garnett interview with Judge Ricker states that Kicking Bear fled with Crazy Horse toward Spotted Tail Agency on Sept. 4th, when troops from Camp Robinson came to arrest him.
I wonder if Kicking Bear was actually at Spotted Tail Agency in 1877? Or, alternatively, did he maybe not surrender at all but joined the Lame Deer village holdouts? Garnett places him with Crazy Horse just the once on the a.m. of Sept. 4th (as above) --- at the same timeslot part of the Lame Deer camp with Low Dog and Shedding Bear was surrendering at Spotted Tail. Was there some sort of connection?
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Post by grahamew on Mar 5, 2018 2:11:40 GMT -5
Hmmm. Kicking Bear's brother, Black Fox, isn't in the ledger either, yet he was prominent in events leading up to CH's death, wasn't he? I wonder if he was with Kicking Bear
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Post by kingsleybray on Mar 5, 2018 3:46:43 GMT -5
A man named Black Yellow Fox is listed as one of 23 family heads, mostly Miniconjou & Sans Arc, who were officially transferred from Spotted Tail Agency to Red Cloud Agency at the beginning of July 1877. They joined Crazy Horse's village. This was immediately after the big Sun Dance btw the two agencies (about where the Chadron airstrip is today). I think this may be Black Fox, Kicking Bear's brother. He was then a prominent warrior/leader in the Crazy Horse village.
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Post by grahamew on Mar 5, 2018 6:00:34 GMT -5
Ah. Kicking Bear took part in that Sun Dance too, didn't he?
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Post by kingsleybray on Mar 5, 2018 8:29:21 GMT -5
grahame, there were three Sun Dances held on White river in summer 1877. The first, in late June, was hosted at Crazy Horse's village near (few miles north of) Red Cloud Agency. The second, held at the Miniconjou-Sans Arc village near Spotted Tail Agency, was beginning July, and it must be the one where Kicking Bear and others danced as per the Kadlecek traditions. The third ceremony was all (or at any rate most) Indians from both agencies, and was held a mile or two west of modern Chadron. It was after the third ceremony that the 23 lodges were transferred to Red Cloud Agency.
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Post by gregor on Mar 5, 2018 10:05:09 GMT -5
Unfortunately, to Whites Kicking Bear was not known until the advent of Ghost Dance in 1889/1890. I assume that he was among the Mnikowozu Lakota who surrendered to General Miles in May 1877 and were settled on the Cheyenne River Reservation. Leaders were, as far as I remember, Lame Deer from the Wakpokinyan band and Hump from the Shunka yute sni band. The census reports for Cheyenne River - available to me - are all starting in 1886, so are not very helpful.
The information about Hump (Etokeah) from this period is also partly contradictory. Some sources say he surrendered about the same time like Crazy Horse , then it is said he went to Canada to Sitting Bull (when?). Again other sources say Hump helped General Miles as a scout against the Nez Perces (in 1877). After Ephriam's Sitting Bull Surrender Census, Hump capitulated in 1881 (a second time?).
According to “General Miles Indian Campaigns” by G. W. Baird, (Major, US Army and a friend [?] of Miles.) in The Century Magazine (1891), Lame Deer's / Hump's group surrendered in a time frame from March to May 1877.
Baird wrote “The scattered fragments of Lame Deer's band were so hotly pursued by different detachments of the command that they were forced to seek rest and sue for peace at the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies”. And he goes on “In the summer and autumn of 1880 large and important surrenders to General Miles were made, the Indians breaking off from Sitting Bull's camp and coming under their own chiefs to Fort Keogh. In this way Spotted Eagle and Broad Trail or Big Road, Rain-in-the-Face, Kicking Bear, Short Bull, etc., and their followers came in and many others..”.
Here we have Kicking Bear again. But was he known from surrendering to Miles in 1880 or then (in 1891) by his Ghost Dance fame. Question over questions. Any thought?
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Post by grahamew on Mar 5, 2018 10:41:48 GMT -5
I'm away from my books right now, Kingsley, but was the Spotted Tail agency dance the one where Kicking Bear and his brothers (Black Fox and Flying Hawk?) allegedly danced to honour Crazy Horse?
I wonder if it was just a case of Kicking Bear giving testimony after his 1891 surrender in which he recalled surrendering to Miles (or Miles' troops) in 1877 rather than Miles having any idea who he was at that time.
The 1880 date you reference Gregor... The other men you mention were in Canada. Do we assume Kicking Bear was in Canada? Maybe he had surrendered at some point in 77 (to Miles or whoever) and then gone north. Black Fox went to Canada but didn't return until 1881 when he was killed (by Crows?).
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Karla
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Post by Karla on Mar 5, 2018 13:07:48 GMT -5
On this website (American-Tribes) there is a post - Ephriam Dickson: The Sitting Bull Surrender Census (in the Author's Corner), that notes that Kicking Bear appears under Circle Bear's band with a mixture of Sans Arc and Minneconjou.
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Post by gregor on Mar 6, 2018 4:09:51 GMT -5
The Oglala Chiefs Flying Hawk (Kicking Bears brother) and Big Road surrended in May 1877 with Crazy Horse or about the same time. After Crazy Hores’s death Big Road went to Washington and soon after – in December 1877 or January 1878 he and his group (many of the Crazy Horse followers) fled to Canada and came back to South Dakota in 1880 or 1881.
So I do not think it is impossible that Flying Hawk's brother Kicking Bear went to Canada with his family. This is of course speculation. It is a pity that the young Kicking Bear was not as well known at the time as other well-known leaders.
There is a Big Road roster (I think on muslin) of Oglala men who fled to Canada with Sitting Bull. Among these name glyphs are some people who could represent Kicking Bear. I will try to find the roster in a high solution and will post it here.
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Post by grahamew on Mar 6, 2018 6:08:34 GMT -5
I wonder if Kingsley's right and he stayed out with Lame Deer - and maybe beyond that - before surrendering, then he went off to Canada before surrendering again with Circle Bear.
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Post by gregor on Mar 6, 2018 15:36:52 GMT -5
Yes, we find a Kicking Bear in Ephriam Dicksons "Sitting Bull Surrender Census" under Circle Bear's band. He is listed as family 305, with his wife Red Headed Woodpecker (23 years) an his Son To-Fight-With (1 year). The list is from Sept. 15, 1881. But in the McLaughlin Annuity List of December 1881 and in the Transfer Lists of Spring 1882 there is no Kicking Bear. Maybe he left Standing Rock between Sept and December 1881. As Appendix C we find the Big Road roster I mentioned before in Ephriam's book. Unfortunately a Kicking Bear is not listed. This is the roster:
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