Big Foot

File:Big Foot.jpg

Big Foot (Si Tanka)

The corpse of Big Foot at Wounded Knee (1890)

Big Foot (Si Thanka ) (1824? - December 29, 1890), also known as Spotted Elk, was the name of a chief of a sub-group of the Lakota Sioux. He was son of chief Lone Horn, and became a chief upon the death of his father. He was a highly renowned chief, with skills in war and negotiations. He was killed in 1890 in South Dakota, along with almost 300 other members of his tribe, by the U.S. Army in what came to be known as the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Early life

Big Foot - Si Tanka in his native tongue - was born the son of a chief between 1820 and 1825 into the Minneconjou subgroup of the Teton Lakota (Sioux). The Minneconjou ("Planters by the River"), lived in northwestern South Dakota with the Hunkpapa band, which was led by Sitting Bull.

The Sioux were a broad alliance of Native American people, divided into three groups, the Santee, Yankton and Teton. The Teton were further divided into seven subgroups: the Sihasapa; Brulé (Upper and Lower); Hunkpapa; Minneconjou; Oglala; Sans Arcs; and Oohenonpa. For centuries the Sioux lived on the prairies of western Minnesota and the Dakotas. They migrated into and across the Missouri River valley during the 18th Century.

Accounts of Big Foot, also known as Spotted Elk, describe him as a great hunter and skilled horseman. He reportedly possessed a string of fine ponies, most probably obtained from the Crow or other enemies. When Lone Horn, Si Tanka's father, died in 1875, Si Tanka became chief of the Minnenconjou.

Chief Big Foot

Skillful diplomat

As Chief, Big Foot (Si Tanka) was considered a great man of peace and was best known among his people for his political and diplomatic successes. He was skilled at settling quarrels between rival parties and was often in great demand among other Teton bands.

Alliance with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse

During the 1870s, he allied himself with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse (together with Touch the Clouds) against the U.S. Army, but saw no major action during the war in 1876-77. The Minneconjou Lakota suffered during the Sioux War for the Black Hills, after which they surrendered. Following the defeat of the Sioux, Big Foot urged his followers to adapt to the white men’s ways while retaining their Lakota language and cultural traditions. Many Lakota owe their traditions to his influence.

Reservation placement

Following the Sioux Wars, the government placed the Minneconjou on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Being a person accustomed to finding ways of reconciling opposing views, Big Foot sought means to adjust to white ways. He encouraged his people to adapt to life on the reservation by developing sustainable agriculture and building schools for Lakota children. Big Foot was among the first Native Americans to raise corn in accordance with government standards. Big Foot also advocated that his people take a peaceful attitude toward white settlers.

Participation in "the Ghost Dance" movement

The flood of white settlers into the area of the Dakotas overwhelmed the Lakota. The 1870s gold rush in the Dakota Territory's Black Hills brought hordes of prospectors and settlers.

The Sioux, who were traditionally a hunter-gatherer society, were expected to farm their allotted land. However, the semi-arid region of South Dakota did not support agriculture well. The Sioux, deprived of their culture and traditional ways of life, soon also found themselves without food or means of procuring it.

To help support the Sioux during the period of transition, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was delegated the responsibility of supplying them with food. By the end of the 1890 growing season, a time of intense heat and low rainfall, it was clear that the land was unable to produce substantial agricultural yields. Unfortunately, this was also the time when the government decided to cut rations to the tribes in half. With the bison virtually eradicated from the plains a few years earlier, the Sioux began to starve. The Lakota, in a state of great despair, they began to look to a radical solution to their on-going problems.

New religious movement

The radical solution came in the form of "the Ghost Dance", a religious movement that began in 1889 and was readily incorporated into numerous Native American belief systems. At the core of the movement was the visionary Indian leader Jack Wilson, known as Wovoka among the Paiute. Wovoka prophesied an end to white American expansion while preaching messages of clean living, an honest life, and peace between whites and Indians.

The practice swept throughout much of the American West, quickly reaching areas of California and Oklahoma. As it spread from its original source, Native American tribes synthesized selective aspects of the ritual with their own beliefs, creating changes in both the society that integrated it and the ritual itself. Big Foot and the Lakota were among the most enthusiastic believers in the Ghost Dance ceremony when it arrived among them in the spring of 1890.

The Dance took on a more militant character among the Sioux who were suffering under the disastrous US government policy that had sub-divided their original reservation land and forced them to turn to agriculture. By performing the Ghost Dance, the Lakota believed they could take on a "Ghost Shirt" capable of repelling the white man's bullets.

Although government-imposed reservation rules outlawed the practice of the religion, the movement swept like a wild fire through their camps, causing local Indian agents to react with alarm. Some agents successfully suppressed the dancers; others called for federal troops to restore order. Seeing it as a threat and seeking to suppress it, U.S. Government Indian agents initiated actions that tragically culminated with the death of Sitting Bull.

The invitation of Chief Red Cloud

After Sitting Bull was killed on the Standing Rock reservation in 1890, his followers fled to seek refuge with his half-brother, Chief Big Foot. In December 1890, fearing arrest and government reprisals against his band, Big Foot headed south to the Pine Ridge Reservation at the invitation of Chief Red Cloud. Red Cloud hoped that his fellow chief could help make peace. Hoping to find safety there, having no intention of fighting, and flying a white flag, Big Foot contracted pneumonia on the journey to Pine Ridge.

Death at Wounded Knee

Peaceful surrender

On December 29, the 7th Cavalry intercepted them. Ill with pneumonia, Big Foot surrendered peacefully. The cavalry took him and his band into custody and escorted them to a site near Wounded Knee Creek, where they were to set up camp. The campsite was already established with a store and several log houses.

Wounded Knee massacre

The night before the ‘Wounded Knee Massacre', Colonel James Forsyth had arrived at Wounded Knee Creek, and had ordered his men to place four Hotchkiss cannons in position around the area in which the Indians had been forced to camp. Morning arrived, and on 29 December 1890, what has become known as the ‘Wounded Knee Massacre’ took place. Soldiers, under the command of Colonel Forsyth, entered the camp and demand that the Native Americans gave up their weaponry. In the confrontation that ensued, a firearm was discharged, believed to be by a deaf Indian named Black Coyote. A large gun fight ensued and the end result was the massacre of at least 150 Indian men, women and children, Big Foot being among one of the killed.

See also

• Lone Horn
• Ghost Dance
• Sitting Bull
• Crazy Horse
• Touch the Clouds
• Red Cloud
• Wounded Knee Massacre

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

Online sources

• Last of the Independents. Wounded Knee Retrieved May 13, 2008.
• Oregon Coast Magazine Online. Native Americans Big Foot 1820?-1890. Retrieved May 13, 2008.
• PBS.org. New Perspectives on the West. Big Foot, (??-1890) Retrieved May 13, 2008.
• US Army Center of Military History. Named Campaigns - Indian Wars Retrieved May 13, 2008.

Print sources

• Beasley, Conger. 1995. We are a people in this world: the Lakota Sioux and the massacre at Wounded Knee. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press. ISBN 9781557283863
• Markowitz, Harvey, and Carole A. Barrett. 2005. American Indian biographies. Magill's choice. Pasadena, Calif: Salem Press. ISBN 9781587652332
• Reilly, Patrick Harriman. 2006. The 1890 Lakota Ghost Dance: feared by the U.S. government, revered by the Lakota Nation. Thesis (B.A.) Magna Cum Laude—Butler University, 2006.
• Wild Bill. 1977. Big Foot, the fighting Sioux. Old Cap. Collier library, no. 395. New York: Munro's Pub. House.

External links

All links Retrieved April 30, 2008.

• Chief Big Foot.
• Wounded Knee.

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