The Complete List of Old West Native Americans

List of Old West Indians

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Little Crow (1815-1863) - Chief of the Mdewakanton Sioux, Little Crow was born as Taoyateduta, meaning "His Red Nation." However, he became known as Little Crow because his father's name Cetanwakuwa or "Charging Hawk" which was mistranslated to visiting whites. He became the principal figure in the Great Sioux Uprising in August, 1862. The event occurred when the Sioux, confined to the Minnesota reservations ad cut off from their traditional hunting grounds, did not receive the promised provisions from the federal government. When the Civil War began, the government got farther and farther behind in promised supplies and annuity payments, so much so that the Sioux were starving, and desperate, they broke into a government warehouse, taking enough pork and flour to feed their families. This led to a number of skirmishes in the following weeks that claimed hundreds of lives. It was during this time when Little Crow was foraging for berries near Hutchinson, Minnesota, that a farmer shot him. The seriously wounded Little Crow fled but died soon thereafter.

Chief Little Crow in 1862, courtesy

Minnesota Historical Society

Hundreds of U.S. troops were sent in to quell the uprising, which resulted in the largest mass execution in U.S. history, when 38 Dakota men were hanged in Mankato, Minnestota. The uprising, led by Little Crow, was the first major armed engagement between the U.S. and Dakota. More ...

Little Raven, aka: Hósa, "Young Crow" (18??-1889) was an Arapaho chief and the first signer, for the Southern Arapaho, of the treaty of Fort Wise, Colorado February, 1861. At a later period he took part with the allied Arapaho and Cheyenne in the war along the Kansas border, but joined in the treaty of Medicine Lodge, Kansas, in 1867, by which these tribes agreed to go on a reservation. After agreeing to the treaty, his efforts were consistently directed toward keeping his people at peace with the government and leading them to civilization. Through his influence the body of the Arapaho remained at peace with the whites when their allies, the Cheyenne and Kiowa, went on the warpath in 1874-75. Little Raven died at Cantonment, Oklahoma in the winter of 1889, after having maintained for 20 years a reputation as the leader of the progressive element. He was succeeded by Nawat, "Left-hand."

Little Wolf (1818-1904) - Born in present day Montana, Little Wolf was one of the principal chiefs of the Northern Cheyenne during the Plains Indian Wars. Little Wolf had already gained a reputation as a notable warrior by the 1830's, but generally counseled peace with the white settlers. However, in 1865, he took part in an attack on U.S. Army troops to avenge the unprovoked murder of Black Kettle's band of Cheyennes at the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864. Later, he fought in Red Cloud's War from 1866 to 1868 and signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie at its conclusion.

With Dull Knife, Little Wolf led the Cheyennes from exile in Indian Territory back to their homeland in present-day eastern Montana during the late 1870s. He did not; however, take part in the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. Following the Dull Knife's defeat in November 1876, Little Wolf was forced onto a reservation in Oklahoma's Indian Territory. Around 1878, he and Dull Knife led almost 300 Cheyenne from their reservation near Fort El Reno, Oklahoma, through Kansas, Nebraska, headed towards their ancestral home in Montana territory. Along the way, they were relentlessly pursued by the U.S. Cavalry, but eluded them by splitting up their bands. Eventually, they were forced to surrender near Fort Robinson. In his later years, he lived on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, where he died in 1904. More ...

Lone Wolf (1820?-1879) - Known as Gul-Pah-Go to his tribe, he was born about 1820. When he grew up he became a primary chief of the Kiowa tribe and was involved in the negotiations of the Arkansas Treaty in 1865 and the Medicine Lodge Treaty in 1867, which required for the Kiowas to be placed on a reservation. However, when the tribe delayed in moving to the reservation, Satanta and Kiowa primary chief, Lone Wolf, were seized by General George A. Custer and held as a hostages until the migration took place. By the 1870s, numerous Kiowa leaders were unhappy with the reservation system and began to make attacks upon wagon trains in Texas.

Though Lone Wolf counseled peace, he was not always able to control the actions of other Kiowa leaders and was present when Satanta, Setangya and Big Tree were arrested at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. However, by the next year, Lone Wolf, too, was participating in the raids and on April 30, 1872, he engaged in the attack on a government wagon train on the San Antonio-El Paso Road, in which seventeen Mexican teamsters were killed. He and his warriors then fought off a patrol of the Ninth United States Cavalry from Fort Concho.

In the fall of 1872 Lone Wolf traveled to Washington D.C. for a peace conference and used his influence to secure the parole of Satanta and Big Tree. However, when his son, Tau-ankia and cousin, Guitan, were killed by cavalry troops in December, 1873, his hatred of the white man was fueled and he was among the participants in the attack on Adobe Walls on June 27, 1874. He also participated in the Lost Valley Fight the following month. In late August, he and his warriors

raided the agency at Anadarko, Oklahoma and fled to the Texas Panhandle, where they made an unsuccessful attack on a wagon train the following month. He and his braves then retreated into Palo Duro Canyon and in retaliation, Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie and his troops destroyed Lone Wolf’s village.

Despondent and famished, Lone Wolf finally surrendered his band to the military authorities at Fort Sill, Oklahoma in February, 1875 and was sent to prison at Fort Marion, Florida, where he contracted malaria. He was later released and returned to Fort Sill, where he died in the summer of 1879. He was buried on the north slope of Mount Scott, the highest point in the Wichita Mountains, in the northern part of what is now Comanche County, Oklahoma.

George Lowrey - A cousin of Sequoya and second chief of the Eastern Cherokee under John Ross, commonly known as Mayor Lowrey. His native name was Agin'agi`ll, "Rising-fawn." He joined Ross in steadily opposing all attempts to force his people to move from their eastern lands, and later, after this had been accomplished, he was chief of council of the Eastern Cherokee at the meeting held in 1839 to fuse the eastern and western divisions into the present Cherokee Nation.

Mangas Coloradas, aka: Dasoda-hae (Red Sleeves) (1793?-1863) - Born in New Mexico , Mangas Coloradas was a superb Apache warrior who eventually became the chief and war leader of the Eastern Chiricahua Apache. In the 1820's and 1830's, the Apaches' chief enemy were the Mexicans, who had gained their independence from Spain in 1821. As War Leader, Mangas Coloradas led a number of attacks on Mexican settlements in Sonora and Chihuahua. When the United States defeated Mexico, to acquire the lands of New Mexico and Arizona, Mangas Coloradas signed a peace treaty, respecting them as conquerors of the hated Mexican enemies. However, the peace was tenuous and conflict began as numerous white settlers encroached upon Apache lands and Mangas was personally attacked by a group of miners who tied him to a tree and severely beat him near Pinos Altos, New Mexico in 1851. Continued violations of the treaty soon led to Apache reprisals. In 1861, his son-in-law, Cochise, was falsely accused of kidnapping a young white boy and arrested along with several other Apaches. Cochise was able to escape, but the event led to all out war against the white settlers. Mangas Coloradas soon joined with Cochise, as well as Geronimo in staving off the white settlers.

In January, 1863, General Joseph Rodman West, under orders from General Carleton, was able to capture Mangas Coloradas by meeting with him under a flag of truce. Though allegedly a peaceful conference, the U.S. Army took Mangas Coloradas prisoner and later executed him on January 18, 1863. This, of course, very much angered Cochise and Chief Victorio, who retaliated even more against white encroachment, a state which continued for the next nine years.

Naiche (1857?-1921) - Born into the Chokonen band of Chiricahuas around 1857, Naiche was the second son of Cochise and Dos-teh-seh, Cochise's first and principal wife. His name means "the Mischief Maker" or "Meddlesome One," a description he would earn in his own right as he led numerous raids against white setters. When Cochise died, Naiche's older brother, Taza, assumed the role of chief, but died of pneumonia during a visit to Washington, D.C., as a delegate. In 1876 Naiche was made the last chief of the free Chiricahuas.

Initially he was peaceful and cooperative with the white settlers, leading the Chiricahuas into surrender to General Oliver O. Howard in 1876 and leading his band to the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona. However, in the summer of 1881 news came of the first Ghost Dance, where the spirits of his father, Cochise, and other chiefs were said would return.

Naiche, Chiricahua Apache Chief, 1898

This image available for photographic prints and downloads HERE!

That same summer, at the Battle of Cibecue, Arizona, a number of soldiers and an Apache medicine man were murdered. Troops then came pouring in and Naiche and his followers fled the reservation. They soon joined with Geronimo in the Sierra Madre south of Rio Grande, attacking both American and Mexican communities. Though Naiche was the hereditary chief of the Chiricahua Apaches, Geronimo was viewed as the greater leader and Naiche followed his during these campaigns. The Army relentlessly tracked the rebellious Chiricahua Apaches until Naiche surrendered on May 25,1883, to General George Crook. In January, 1884, Geronimo also surrendered. For a time, both settled at the San Carlos Reservation, but in 1885, the two leaders left with over one hundred men in a last attempt to avoid American control. By September 1886, Apache scouts and detachments of the U.S. Army were able to force their surrender in the inhospitable terrain of Sonora, Mexico. Afterwards, Naiche and Geronimo and their men were incarcerated first at Fort Marion, Florida, and then at Mount Vernon Barracks in Alberta.

Although Naiche and his men wanted return home to Arizona, angry white settlers there prevented it. After Kiowa and Comanche leaders invited the Chiricahua Apaches to share their reservation, Naiche and 295 other Apaches relocated to Fort Sill, Oklahoma , on October 4, 1895. Naiche remained in Oklahoma until 1913, before eventually returning to the Southwest, where he lived in peace for eight years. He died of influenza at Mescalero, New Mexico, in 1921.

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