Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse was an Oglala Lakota war leader who fought at the Little Bighorn and never signed a treaty or sat for a photograph. Born around 1840 near Bear Butte, he was a quiet, light-haired child called Curly, and took his father's name after distinguishing himself in battle. As a boy he witnessed the Grattan affair in 1854, in which a young officer's demand over a killed cow ended with a Lakota chief and thirty soldiers dead. He later undertook a vision quest against custom and received the visions that governed his conduct in war: he painted a lightning mark on his face and hail spots on his body, wore a small stone, and believed he would not be hurt if he took no plunder for himself. He fought throughout Red Cloud's War, and at the Fetterman fight in December 1866 he acted as one of the decoys who drew eighty soldiers into an ambush in which all died. After gold was found in the Black Hills and the army moved to force the Lakota onto reservations, he led the attack on General Crook at the Rosebud on 17 June 1876, checking a column that would otherwise have joined Custer. Eight days later, at the Little Bighorn, he led one of the charges that destroyed the Seventh Cavalry's five companies. The army pursued relentlessly through the winter, and he surrendered at Fort Robinson in May 1877 with about nine hundred followers, starving. He was arrested that September on rumours he intended to flee, and was bayoneted by a soldier while being taken to the guardhouse. He died the same night, aged about thirty-seven.
- Lived: 1840 CE – 1877 CE
- Nationality: American
- Roles: war_chief, warrior
