His name was Tȟašúŋke Witkó. It translates loosely as “His Horse Is Enchanted” — the whites called him Crazy Horse. He was Oglala Lakota, born around 1840 near Bear Butte in the Black Hills. He had light hair and light skin, unusual among his people. He spoke little. He gave away everything he owned. He never allowed anyone to photograph him. [1]
As a young man he had a vision: a rider on horseback moving through a storm, untouched by arrows or bullets, with a lightning bolt on his face and hailstones on his body. He painted himself that way before every fight. He was never wounded in battle. [1]
He was the tactical mind at the Little Bighorn. On June 25, 1876, while Sitting Bull held the spiritual center, Crazy Horse led the flanking attack that encircled and destroyed Custer’s command. Eyewitnesses said he rode back and forth in front of his warriors shouting “Hokahey! It is a good day to die!” — though scholars debate the exact words. What is not debated is the result: the most complete defeat of the U.S. Army by Native forces in the history of the Indian Wars. [1][2]
After the battle, the Army flooded the territory with reinforcements. The bands scattered. Crazy Horse held out through the winter of 1876–77, but starvation ground his people down. On May 6, 1877, he led roughly 900 Oglala into Fort Robinson, Nebraska, and surrendered. [1]
He was not surrendering himself. He was surrendering so his people could eat.
On September 5, 1877 — four months after he came in — he was arrested on false rumors that he planned to escape. As soldiers seized his arms, a guard drove a bayonet into his side. He died that night. He was approximately thirty-seven years old. [1]
His parents took his body. They never told anyone — white or Native — where they buried him. To this day, the location of his grave is unknown. The largest mountain sculpture in the world is being carved in his likeness in the Black Hills, but his people did not ask for it, and many oppose it. His body belongs to them, not to history. [1]
A stone marker at Fort Robinson reads: “On this spot, Crazy Horse, Ogallala chief, was killed. Sept. 5, 1877.”
Bibliography
[1] Wikipedia. “Crazy Horse.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crazy_Horse [2] Wikipedia. “Battle of the Little Bighorn.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Little_Bighorn