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'WE BELONG TO THE NORTH': THE FLIGHTS OF THE NORTHERN INDIANS FROM THE WHITE RIVER AGENCIES, 1877-1878

Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Summer 2005 by Bray, Kingsley M

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Traveling with the Red Cloud column's Northern village was the immediate family of Crazy Horse. They carried with them the body of their son, taken down from the burial scaffold erected on the bluff above Camp Sheridan. Crazy Horse's sixty-six-year-old father, the holy man Worm, was married to two kinswomen of Spotted Tail and so surrendered at the Brulé agency. Worm's small following, the Kapozha tiyospaye, comprised a half-dozen lodges of Oglala men with Brulé wives. His own dpi counted seven people: besides Worm and his wives, Iron between Horns and Kills Enemy, there were Worm's widowed sister Big Woman and Black Shawl, the widow of his famous son, plus two unnamed boys. As the Northern village followed down the White River in the wake of the Red Cloud column, this group traveled at the very rear of the procession, a buckskin horse hauling on a travois the bundle that contained the body of Crazy Horse.23

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Northern warriors taunted the Oglalas with the body of the war chief. "They brought with them the remains of Crazy Horse," concluded Agent Irwin, "in order to madden our Indians." "Even as a dead chief [Crazy Horse] exercises an influence for evil," observed lieutenant Clark. Worm himself was uncomfortable with intransigents like Low Dog making political capital out of his son's remains. To judge by his subsequent actions, Worm favored settling with the Brulés but had seemingly been "soldiered" by Northern akicita-compelled under martial law to accompany the march.24

Despite real differences in attitude among the Northern Indians, a consensus emerged that a shift to the Oglalas offered real advantages. Staying with Spotted Tail, the Northern Indians would be confined to a southerly route that would inhibit flight or communication with Cheyenne River. The Oglala line of march offered the possibility of reinforcements and a northerly route close to trails through the badlands, an obvious avenue for flight. Agent Irwin nervously reported on November 5 that more Northern Indians were departing the Spotted Tail column (then laid over at the head of Wounded Knee Creek) "and striking across the country by hundreds to meet us below." Some 50 more lodges departed the Spotted Tail column through the first week of November, bringing the total additions to the Red Cloud column to 250 lodges. Approximately 150 lodges eventually chose to remain with the Brulés, split between a rump "Northern Camp" and rank-and-filers content to be absorbed into the tiyospaye of Brulé kinsfolk.25

Now numbering some 850 lodges, the Red Cloud column entered a difficult stretch of the White River Valley, where pasturage and terrain forced the huge procession to ford the river up to four times a day, over treacherous quicksand and in the face of running ice. A hard snow on November 4 compounded the misery. Captain Lawson viewed the trail ahead with unease. He wished the escort to scout the valley, while Agent Irwin, with an eye on the dwindling beef herd, needed the route ahead confirmed so that fresh cattle could be driven up from the Missouri. Nevertheless, uncertainty over the Northern Indians' intentions forced both Irwin and lieutenant Clark to urge Lawson to "remain as long as possible with the Indians."26

'WE BELONG TO THE NORTH': THE FLIGHTS OF THE NORTHERN INDIANS FROM THE WHITE RIVER AGENCIES, 1877-1878

Montana: The Magazine of Western History, Summer 2005 by Bray, Kingsley M

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