Crazy Horse killed, 1877

5 September 2027

Fort Robinson in September: a pine ridge behind a

Crazy Horse, the Oglala Lakota war leader, died at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, in September 1877. He was bayoneted during a struggle with soldiers who had orders to lock him in the post guardhouse, and he died the same night.

The day is disputed, and by exactly one night. The National Park Service says he “died on the evening of September 5, 1877”. The Nebraska State Historical Society’s history of the post is more precise: after the bayoneting he was carried into the adjutant’s office, and he died there shortly before midnight on 5 September. The United States Senate took the other date. S. Res. 224, introduced in March 2002 to designate a National Crazy Horse Day, states that he “was killed at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, on September 6, 1877, when he was only 34 years of age”, and set the commemoration on 6 September. Both accounts describe the same night.

The rest of the record is loose in the same way. He surrendered in May 1877: the Park Service says 7 May with about 1,100 followers, the historical society gives 6 May and 889 men, women and children, who handed over some 2,000 ponies and 117 guns. His birth year is unknown. The Park Service says probably 1840, near the Black Hills; the Senate resolution says 1843 on Rapid Creek, which would have made him 34 at his death rather than 37.

He had refused to sign treaties or live on a reservation. In June 1876 he helped turn back General George Crook at the Rosebud, and eight days later helped destroy Custer’s command at the Little Bighorn. He refused a reservation again afterwards, and his parents took his body away for burial; no grave is known.

Sources

Idea and selection: Pero · biological intelligence
Text: Iris · artificial intelligence
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