Thaóyate Dúta
Little Crow III was a Wahpekute Dakota chief who led a faction of the Dakota in a five-week war against the United States in 1862.
In 1846, after surviving a violent leadership contest with his half-brothers, Taoyateduta became chief of his band and assumed the name Little Crow. He played a pivotal role in signing the 1851 Treaty of Mendota which ceded most of their lands in present-day Minnesota and Iowa to the United States. In 1858, Little Crow led a delegation of Dakota leaders to Washington, D.C., where they were pressured by the U.S. government to give up their remaining holdings north of the upper Minnesota River. Faced with anger and mistrust at home, Little Crow lost an election for tribal spokesman in 1862, after which he tried to change his traditionalist ways.
That summer, severe economic hardship, starvation, and tensions with government Indian agents, fur traders, and a fast-growing population of European and American settlers led to unrest among the Dakota, particularly the younger generation of hunters. On August 17, 1862, four Dakota hunters killed five Anglo-American settlers including two women. Fearing punishment, they pleaded for help from a faction of Dakota chiefs and headmen who wanted an all-out war to drive settlers out of the region. Their chosen leader was Little Crow, who initially tried to dissuade them. He pointed out the futility of fighting against the "white men," but finally agreed to lead them. Little Crow pledged to die with them and triggered the massacre of hundreds of settlers, as well as the capture of nearly 300 "mixed-blood" and white hostages, almost all women.
Little Crow met significant opposition from many Dakota, particularly farmers and Christian converts, who preferred to maintain peace with the United States, objected to the killing of civilians, and wanted to free the captives. In September, Little Crow exchanged a series of messages with Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley offering to negotiate, but Sibley refused to begin talks until the hostages were released. Although the demands of the American Civil War slowed the U.S. military response, the volunteer army under Sibley defeated Little Crow's forces decisively at the Battle of Wood Lake on September 23, 1862.
Following his defeat, Little Crow prevented his followers from attacking other Dakota or killing the hostages, and fled with a group of them to the northern plains. He hoped to gain support from other Native American tribes, as well as the British in Canada. Rebuffed by other tribes and left with a dwindling number of supporters, Little Crow returned to Yellow Medicine with his son Wowinape in late June 1863. Little Crow was shot and killed on July 3, 1863, by two settlers, a father and son. They scalped him and took his body to Hutchinson, Minnesota, where it was displayed and mutilated. The state paid the father $500 for killing Little Crow, and paid the son $75 for his scalp.
Little Crow's remains were later exhumed by Army troops. In 1879, the Minnesota Historical Society put his remains on display at the Minnesota State Capitol, but removed them in 1915 at the request of Little Crow's grandson, Jesse Wakeman. In 1971, the society finally returned Little Crow's remains to the Wakeman family for proper burial at the First Presbyterian Church and Cemetery. Little Crow's burial site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017.
Early life
There were at least three chiefs called Little Crow, including Taoyateduta's grandfather Cetanwakanmani who was called "Petit Corbeau" by the French; his father Wakinyantanka ; and most famously, Taoyateduta himself. The exact origins of the European name "Little Crow" are unclear. Some have suggested that it was a mistranslation of "Sparrowhawk" or "Charging Hawk," while others have explained that the men were known to carry the skin or wings of a crow on their backs or dangling from their belts as a totem.His Dakota name, Thaóyate Dúta, is most often translated as "His Red Nation"; other variations include "His Red People" and "His Scarlet Nation." There is considerable speculation about his year of birth. While his gravestone lists his birth year as 1818, historian Gary Clayton Anderson concludes that it seems most likely that he was born in 1810, based on mission school records and the fact that Taoyateduta served as a warrior in the Dakota Sioux contingent enlisted by the United States in the Black Hawk War of 1832.
He was one of at least ten boys born to Big Thunder Little Crow II and his three wives. Taoyateduta is believed to have been the son of Big Thunder's first wife, Miniokadawin, who was from Wabasha's band. He grew up with a physiological oddity, a double row of teeth.
Early years in Kaposia
Taoyateduta was born at the Wahpekute Dakota village of Kaposia, also known as Little Crow's village. Over the years, Kaposia most likely had many locations on the east side of the Mississippi River, but is thought to have been in the area between Wakan Tipi and the Pigs Eye wetlands, just below present-day Indian Mounds Park, around the time of Taoyateduta's birth.Following the 1837 land cession treaty signed between the Mdewakanton Dakota, Wahpekute Dakota and the United States, the Kaposia band, the only Wahpekute band located in the ceded area, moved across the river from the wetlands to what is now South St. Paul.
As a young man, Taoyateduta left Kaposia for the west. At the time, he was unpopular with his father's band due to his arrogant behavior, especially toward his half-brothers. He was said to have been forced out because some men had threatened to kill him for having had affairs with their wives. For over a decade, Taoyateduta visited Kaposia very rarely and only for a short time.
Lac qui Parle years
Once Taoyateduta was married, he was said to have abandoned his "bad habits." He lived for a time on the Des Moines and Cannon Rivers with the Wahpekute, where he took two wives – daughters of a Wahpekute chief, most likely Tasagye – and had at least three children. By 1838, he had left the Wahpekute and parted ways with his first two wives. He moved further west and settled in Lac qui Parle where he married the four daughters of Inyangmani, a Wahpeton chief, with whom he would have at least twenty more children. Taoyateduta would later be remembered by physician Dr. Asa W. Daniels as a devoted father who was especially proud of his eldest son and "had a natural love for children."Lac qui Parle was also home to a large Dakota community, including many of Taoyateduta's relatives such as Mary Tokanne Renville and her brother Left Hand. There, Taoyateduta learned to read and write in the Dakota language, as well as some English and arithmetic. He studied with Gideon Hollister Pond in 1837, and attended classes at the Presbyterian mission school through 1844–45. In addition, he attended church at the Lac qui Parle Mission and showed an interest in learning about Christianity, although he did not give up his native religion or customs. Two of Taoyateduta's wives converted to Christianity, though they later left the church, and missionary Stephen Return Riggs wrote at the time that he thought Taoyateduta himself could be saved.
During this time, Taoyateduta also engaged in the liquor trade, transporting alcohol to the west to trade for fur or horses. It was a lucrative source of income for many fur traders including Joseph Renville and Joseph R. Brown. Taoyateduta was a shrewd entrepreneur who was good with numbers; he was fond of gambling and apparently had a system for winning poker, "a skill for which he had few equals, white or Indian." Dr. Daniels described Taoyateduta's memory as "remarkably retentive" and argued that in later years, it enabled him "to state accurately promises made years before to these Indians and by government officials and to give the exact amount of money owing them, to the dollar and cent."
In 1841, Taoyateduta went on a hunting trip with Henry Hastings Sibley, the regional manager of the American Fur Company, "mixed-blood" fur trader Alexander Faribault, and many others. Sibley and his friends were mounted on horses and pursued a large herd of more than a thousand elk at a steady pace for five days; Taoyateduta kept up on foot the entire way, conversing with them as they covered 25 miles each day, and impressed everyone with his stamina. Historian Anderson writes, "The incident also showed that Taoyateduta was a man who, when he chose to participate in an event, was willing to exert whatever effort was required to impress others."
During his Lac qui Parle years, Taoyateduta's reputation suffered from his association with friends and hunting partners such as Jack Frazer, a "mixed-blood" hunter who had grown up with the Dakota and also became a close friend of Henry Sibley. Among Dakota elders, Frazer was known as a "rather disreputable fellow...sacrilegious, constantly poking fun at Dakota customs, and even mimicking Dakota spirits," and was notorious for his cavalier attitude toward authority. Other complaints against Taoyateduta were that he was "lazy," preferring to deal in furs rather than hunt himself because it was more profitable, and that he did not join war parties against the Ojibwe, except on one occasion. However, Taoyateduta had also gained many admirers in Lac qui Parle "because of his smooth speech, agreeable manners, and rare good judgment."
Fight for chieftainship
Death of Big Thunder
Back in Kaposia, Taoyateduta's father, Big Thunder, was mortally wounded in October 1845 after accidentally discharging a gun. The old chief, together with one of his wives and two or three grandsons, had set out with an ox-drawn cart to gather some newly ripened corn in his field on the hill behind Kaposia village. As the cart went up the hill, the loaded gun started to slide toward the back of the cart, which was open. Big Thunder caught the gun by the muzzle and was drawing it toward him when it went off. He was taken back to Kaposia to see the medicine man. Surgeon George F. Turner also came from Fort Snelling to examine him, but there was nothing either the medicine man or the surgeon could do to save him. Big Thunder died three days later.Before he died, Wakinyantanka named one of Taoyateduta's younger half-brothers as his successor, saying that he was not pleased with Taoyateduta, even though he was next in line to be named chief. He also gave his medals – including a presidential medal that had been given to his own father, Cetanwakanmani, after he visited Washington, D.C. in 1824 – to the younger brother as a symbol that he was now the chosen leader of the band.