Crazy Horse (Lakota: Tȟašúŋke Witkó [tˣaˈʃʊ̃kɛ wɪtˈkɔ], lit. 'His-Horse-Is-Crazy'; c. 1840 – September 5, 1877) was a Lakota war leader of the Oglala band and one of the most renowned Native American figures of the nineteenth century. Known for his commitment to defending Lakota lands and lifeways, he emerged as a central figure in the northern Great Plains during a period of intense conflict with the United States. Crazy Horse resisted U.S. expansion into the Powder River Country, rejecting treaty settlements and reservation life, and became widely respected for both his tactical skill and his personal humility, which included a lifelong avoidance of being photographed.
He played leading roles in several major engagements, including the 1866 Fetterman Fight, in which a combined Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho force annihilated a U.S. Army detachment, and the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn, where he helped lead the combined Native forces that defeated the 7th Cavalry under George Armstrong Custer. His reputation as a warrior and strategist earned him admiration among his own people and grudging respect from his adversaries.
After months of pursuit during the Great Sioux War of 1876–1877, Crazy Horse surrendered to U.S. forces in May 1877, seeking to secure the survival of his band amid famine and military pressure. Tensions with military authorities and rival Lakota leaders soon followed. In September 1877, after being brought to Camp Robinson in northwestern Nebraska, he was fatally wounded by a bayonet in the course of an alleged struggle with a guard while being confined to the post guardhouse. His death quickly became the subject of conflicting accounts, but he has since endured as a symbol of Lakota resistance and cultural integrity.
Conflicting reports exist about Crazy Horse's birth year, but modern biographer Kingsley Bray (among others) claims he was born in 1840. However, according to Šúŋka Bloká (He Dog), he and Crazy Horse "were both born in the same year at the same season of the year," which census records and other interviews place in 1842. Ptehé Wóptuȟ'a (Encouraging Bear), an Oglala medicine man and spiritual adviser to Crazy Horse, reported that Crazy Horse was born "in the year in which the band to which he belonged, the Oglala, stole One Hundred Horses, and in the fall of the year," a reference to the annual Lakota calendar or winter count. Oral history accounts from relatives on the Cheyenne River Reservation place his birth in the spring of 1840. In keeping with oral claims, the late native Lakota speaking author, actor, and educator Joseph Marshall likewise affirmed Crazy Horse's birth year as 1840.
Among the Lakota, black hair was a near-universal attribute—thick, lustrous, and persistent well into adulthood, particularly for males, yet Crazy Horse proved an exception. His hair was notably lighter than the Lakota norm from early childhood, which earned him the nickname Žiží (Light Hair). Bray similarly notes the distinctive hair, adding that as Crazy Horse matured, his lighter complexion and wavy brown-tinged hair earned him the family nickname Pehin Yuhaha (Curly Hair).
Crazy Horse was born to parents from two different bands of the Lakota division of the Sioux, his father an Oglala and his mother a Miniconjou. His father, born in 1810, was also named Tȟašúŋke Witkó (Crazy Horse). Originally, Crazy Horse was named Čháŋ Óhaŋ (Among the Trees) at birth, meaning he was one with nature. His mother was Rattling Blanket Woman, whom historian George Hyde asserts was Miniconjou and the sister of Spotted Tail, who became a Brulé head chief. She may have also been a member of the Lone Horn family, another prominent tribe amid the Miniconjou. She was said to be beautiful and a fast runner.
One account said that after the son had reached maturity and shown his strength, his father gave him his name and took a new one, Waglúla (Worm). Another version of how the younger Crazy Horse acquired his name stems from his haŋbléčheya ceremony, during which he was told to kill a red-tailed hawk and then at a gathering of holy men, a ceremony was performed conferring the name. Crazy Horse's cousin (son of Hewáŋžiča, Lone Horn) was Maȟpíya Ičáȟtagya (Touch the Clouds); the two were close friends. He saved Crazy Horse's life at least once.
In 1844, an Oglala raiding party attempted to steal some horses from the Crow but were discovered; among the raiding party was Rattling Blanket Woman's brother, He Crow, who was killed along with thirty-eight other Oglala tribesmen. Grief stricken by the loss of her beloved brother, Rattling Blanket Woman—who was supposedly carrying Worm's third child, according to one of her descendants—went into despair, found a "sturdy cottonwood" tree and hanged herself, which traumatized young Crazy Horse and the family kept secret. Worm went into mourning for four years. Rattling Blanket Woman's sister, Good Looking Woman, left her husband, offered herself as Worm's replacement wife, and stayed on to raise Crazy Horse. Other versions of the legend posit that Good Looking Woman was likewise grief-stricken by the deaths of those she knew.
White expansion and the impact of the Grattan Massacre
During the first decade of Crazy Horse's life and into his early pre-teen years, white settler expansion proved detrimental to the Lakota people. Then in 1854, a dispute over a cow belonging to a Mormon emigrant party encamped near Fort Laramie precipitated a confrontation that would prove formative for the young Crazy Horse. Lieutenant John Lawrence Grattan, dispatched to arrest the Miniconjou man responsible, arrived at the Brulé camp with twenty-nine soldiers and an interpreter; when negotiations collapsed, Grattan ordered his men to fire. Conquering Bear, the Lakota head chief, fell wounded, and the Lakota—vastly outnumbering the soldiers—killed Grattan and all but one of his men in what became known as the Grattan massacre. The mortally wounded Conquering Bear was carried east by the Brulé, dying of his wounds several days later along the Niobrara River. The effect of Conquering Bear's death on the teenage Crazy Horse is a matter of contested tradition rather than documented history. That he subsequently experienced a vision afterward is better attested than the precise circumstances surrounding it.
According to the most widely repeated account, which derives principally from the white trader and interpreter William Garnett—who claimed to have heard it from Crazy Horse himself in 1868—Crazy Horse fasted for two days on the open plains, keeping himself awake by placing sharp stones beneath his body; when no vision came, he descended toward his horse hobbled near a lake, and the vision overtook him there, possibly because he fainted. In the vision, a man rode out of the lake on horseback, changing colors as he approached and floating above the ground. He wore plain leggings and a simple shirt, his face unpainted, a single eagle feather in his long brown hair, and a small brown stone tied behind one ear. The man told Crazy Horse never to wear a war bonnet, never to tie up his horse's tail, and to rub dust over his hair and body before battle; he would never be killed by a bullet or an enemy, and should never take anything for himself. Arrows and bullets disappeared around the man as he rode; he was seized repeatedly by those behind him, but broke free each time. A storm arose—lightning appeared on his cheeks, hailstones on his body—and as a hawk screamed overhead, the vision faded.
Garnett's account, recorded decades after Crazy Horse's death, warrants measured scrutiny. Chips (Wóptura), Crazy Horse's longtime friend and spiritual mentor—the medicine man who interpreted the war leader's vision and provided the talismans he carried into battle—stated flatly: "There is no truth in the story of the horseman coming out of the pond and telling Crazy Horse what to do." Black Elk, a cousin of Crazy Horse, offered a different rendering, learned secondhand from his father, explaining that Crazy Horse: