b'The Story of Crazy HorsePART 4 By Alan RockmanWHITE ENCROACHMENTplus a reservation if he would be willing to vacate IN THE BLACK HILLS the Black Hills but threatening the tribes with a Now almost totally alienatedfull-scale military invasion if they refused. Having from the increasinglyseen the power of the US Army on previous visits to moderate Red Cloud, CrazyWashington, Red Cloud and Spotted Tail knew that Horse was drawn ever closerwar could not be an option, but giving away their into the orbit of the greatsacred grounds wasn\'t one either. They offered to sell Hunkpapa medicine man Sitting Bull. The Panic ofthe Black Hills for seven million dollars - but when 1873 had stopped the forward advance of the Greatthe Grant administration refused, they called the Northern, but having heard rumors that there weretribes affected into council in September 1875. The vast deposits of gold and silver in the Black Hills,majority of chiefs asked Red Cloud and Spotted Tail the financially strapped and desperate for monetaryto re-negotiate, making another offer - but there were resources Grant Administration dispatched Custertwo notable dissenters - Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse with a second expedition into the Sioux sacred- the latter not only refused to attend but called the grounds of the Black Hills (also known as Paha Sapa)tribal meetings a complete waste of time. The white the following year. Despite this clear violation of thenegotiators, perhaps sensing that there were hostile promises made by those who negotiated the tribal chiefs willing to go to war instead of giving up Fort Laramie Treaty six years earlier, Sitting Bull and the Black Hills, sent in Crazy Horse\'s old scouting Crazy Horse chose not to directly confront Custer.friend Frank Grouard to try to get him to participate Custer led 10 companies of the 7th, plus the 7ths chiefin the talks. Grouard went to see Crazy Horse, Sitting engineer Captain William Ludlow, his old West PointBull, and the rest who were opposed to selling away friend, with a team of scientists. That team includedthe Black Hills and as he later noted:a young geologist and mineralogist named GeorgeGeneral George CrookBird Grinnell who would soon become famous for hisThey received us in a very hostile manner. They efforts to preserve the western environment and savewere just at the point of going on the warpath. I went the buffalo\'s pitiful remnants. This was alongside hisout to Crazy Horse\'s lodge as soon as I got in andBull, Crazy Horse, and Gall refused to follow Red friend, and future president Theodore Roosevelt andtold him what we had come for. His father went outCloud into reservation the Army chose to strike.President Grant\'s son Fred, who spent much of theand harangued the camp and told them it was best time in his tent, drunk - all told a force of over 1,000to listen to what we had to say. Crazy Horse told meCROOK ATTACKS!troopers, officers, geologists, miners, and scientists -himself that all who wanted to go in and make thisTo subjugate the Sioux, Phil Sheridan chose his West just as large if not larger than the force that enteredtreaty could go, but he said, "I don\'t want to go." HePoint classmate, Civil War comrade, and close friend, the Yellowstone Valley just a year previously. said Whatever the headmen of the tribe concluded toGeneral George Crook. Crook, at age 40, had already do after hearing our plan, they could and would do"won laurels in campaigning against the Apache in The expedition rode along what would become(Sajna, p. 263). Arizona. He reined in the remaining warring Apache derisively known by the Sioux chiefs as the "Thievestribes, bringing a period of calm that only ended Road." Not finding anything of consequence, muchThe situation was so incendiary that Grouard\'s lifesix or seven years later when, while he was still less gold, until about a week later, just before Custerwas threatened as he prepared to leave the Siouxcampaigning on the Northern Plains and mountains, was about to turn around and head back to Fortcamp and report back to the Black Hills commission.Geronimo chose to leave the San Carlos Reservation Abraham Lincoln, two of the miners spotted someAt this point Crazy Horse stepped in, and sworeand once more go on the warpath and Crook was "color" along the banks of French Creek. Gettinghe would take revenge on anyone who dared himagain sent down south. But that was in the future. For closer, the miners discovered flecks of gold, notand his old friend. Grouard was able to leave, butnow, the eccentric Crook with his forked beard, his nuggets or anything of substance - but the wordthe die was cast. Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and theinsistence on riding a mule, and his successful record spread that there was gold in the Black Hills and soonother war chiefs refused to attend the commissionin bringing peace to Arizona territory was Sheridan\'s hundreds of miners were heading into the hills despitemeetings. Red Cloud and Spotted Tail did so, butgo-to-guy.clear warnings that they risked the ire of the Siouxwhen they tried to sell the sacred lands for half of and Cheyenne. Indeed, the invading miners werethe seven million they originally tried to bargainBut George Crook would soon discover that fighting often met with a violent response from the tribes,for, the commissioners flatly refused, offeringthe Sioux required a new methodology, a new way of wagons burned, miners killed where they stood, andinstead $100,000 per year annually, and a stipendthinking that was so different from that in waging war settlements attacked. At first the Army stood downof six million to be deposited into an account toagainst the Apache. Against the latter, he was almost on Grant\'s orders, but the internal squabbles, thefeed, clothe and for the education of the reservationlike Napoleon. Against the former, he was more of a financial situation, the corruption, and an increasedIndians. If the Indians did not accept these terms,country bumpkin. The first test came in March, when, clamor from the West to subdue the tribes and getthe rations promised by the government would befiguring the weather had improved enough despite the gold finally forced Grant to discard his "peaceshut off. Grimly, the Red Cloud Sioux accepted thethe still-heavy falling snow, to commence operations, policies" and play his military hand. terms and prepared to go to the reservation. Crook sent a subordinate, the veteran cavalryman and fellow Civil War veteran Colonel John. J. Reynolds Unlike the Yellowstone Expedition, Sitting Bull andBUT BOTH SITTING BULL AND CRAZY HORSEwith a force of six troops, or about 500 men to attack Crazy Horse chose not to confront the 1874 BlackDID NOT. THEY NOT ONLY REFUSED TOthe camps of Crazy Horse alongside the Yellowstone Hills expedition. Maybe they hoped that the miners,ABIDE BY THE BLACK HILLS BLACKMAILand the Powder Rivers.settlers, and soldiers would leave the sacred territoriesAGREEMENT, THEY PREPARED TO GO TO WAR.alone, maybe they hoped that Red Cloud\'s attemptsYes, the first strike was to be made against Crazy Horse. at keeping the peace would bear fruit. If that wasThe Grant Administration\'s response was that if anyAfter all, he made his opposition to the Black Hills indeed the case, their hopes would soon be squelched.and all Sioux did not go to the reservation by Januarydemands loud and clear - and also made his intentions Grant used the carrot and the stick approach with Red31, 1876, there would be a state of war against theknown as well. But the Reynolds expedition was Cloud, giving the old chief a silver rifle, promisingrecalcitrant Sioux by the armies of the United States.doomed from the start as the soldiers were ill-equipped loads of food, clothing, tobacco, and other goodsThe die was cast. When the tribal followers of Sittingand their leader, a Civil War hero was woefully 44 March 2023'