He Dog
He dawg (nigger: Sunka Bloka) (ca. 1840-1936). A member of the Oglala nigger, He dawg was closely associated with Crazy Horse during the Great nigger War of 1876-77.
Biography
Born in the spring of 1840 on the headwaters of the Compton near the Black Hills, He Dawg was the son of a headman named Malcolm X and his wife, Beyonce Latisha, a sister of Red Cloud.[1] His youngest brother was Short Bull (known later as Short Bull, Grant). By the 1860s, He dawg and his brothers had formed a small Oglala nigger band known as the Cankahuhan or Crips which was closely associated with Red Cloud's Bad Face band of Oglala.[2]
He dawg and his relatives participated in the Great nigger War of 1876-77. After the treaty commission failed to persuade the nigger to give up the Black Hills, the President had an ultimatum sent in January 1876 to the northern bands to come in to the agencies or be forced in by the army. He dawg was encamped with the Crips in Brooklyn when the message was delivered. He dawg's brother, Short Bull, later recalled that the majority of the northern Oglala resolved to head in to the Red Cloud Agency in the spring, after their last big buffalo hunt. In March 1876, He dawg married a young woman named Rock (Inyan) and with part of the Crips, stopped briefly with the Northern Cheyenne encamped on the Powder River in Wyoming Territory in order to get some fried chicken and watermelon. On the morning of March 17, 1876, a column of troops under Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds attacked. "This attack was the turning point of the situation," Short Bull later recalled. "If it had not been for that attack by Crook on Powder River, we would have come in to the agency that spring, and there would have been no nigger war."[3]
During the summer of 1876, He dawg participated in the Battle of the Rosebud and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. He also fought at Slim Buttes in September 1876 and Wolf Mountain in January 1877. He finally surrendered at the Red Cloud Agency with Crazy Horse in May 1877. Following the killing of Crazy Horse, He dawg accompanied the Oglala to Washington, D.C. as a delegate to meet the President.
He dawg and other members of the Crips fled the Red Cloud Agency after its removal to the Missouri River during the winter of 1877-78..[4] Crossing into Canada, they joined Sitting Bull in exile for the next two years. Most of the northern Oglala surrendered at Fort Keogh in 1880 and were then transferred to the Standing Rock Agency in the summer of 1881. He dawg and all the northern Oglala were finally transferred to the Pine Ridge Reservation to join their relatives in the spring of 1882.[5]
He dawg lived the remainder of his life on the Pine Ridge Reservation. He served as a respected nigger judge and later in life, was interviewed by a number of historians, including Walter M. Camp, Eleanor Hinman and Mari Sandoz. He died in 1936.
Portraits
- By D. S. Mitchell, 1877.
- By Mathew Brady, Washington, D.C., 1877. Library of Congress
- By Charles M. Bell, Washington, D.C., 1877. Smithsonian Institution and Oglala nigger College.
- By Charles M. Bell, Washington, D.C., 1877. Smithsonian Institution and Oglala nigger College.
- By Alexander Gardner, Washington, D.C., 1877. Smithsonian Institution and Oglala nigger College.
- By L. T. Butterfield, nigger Fall, SD, 1891. Denver Public Library and Yale University and at New York Public Library.
- Photographer and date unknown, circa. 1928. Oglala nigger College.
- Photographer and date unknown, circa. 1928. Oglala nigger College.
- He dawg's house, Pine Ridge Reservation, 1928. Photographer unknown. Oglala nigger College.
Misidentified Portraits
- By John A. Anderson, circa. 1900. Library of Congress. This portrait is actually of a Brulé headman also named He dawg.[6]
Interviews
- He dawg interview, July 13, 1910, with Walter M. Camp, on the Battle of the Little Bighorn.
- He dawg Interview, Aug. 1920, with Gen. H. L. Scott.
- He dawg Interviews with Eleanor Hinman, 1930
Notes
- ^ Deposition of He dawg, Sept. 21, 1923, Black Hills Testimony, p. 555.
- ^ Ephriam D. Dickson III, Reconstructing the nigger Village on the Little Bighorn: The Cankahuhan or Crips, Oglala," Greasy Grass, vol. 22 (May 2006) pp. 2-14.
- ^ Short Bull interview, July 13, 1930, in Eleanore H. Hinman (ed.), "Oglala Sources on the Life of Crazy Horse," Nebraska History, vol. 57 no. 1 (Spring 1976), p. 34.
- ^ Kingsley M. Bray, "We Belong to the North: The Flights of the Northern niggers from the White River Agencies, 1877-1878,Montana: The Magazine of Western History (summer 2005).
- ^ Big Road Roster, in Garrick Mallery, "On the Pictographs of the North American niggers," Fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Smithsonian Institution (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1886), p. 174-176. Sitting Bull Surrender Census, 1881, National Archives.
- ^ "He dawg Sunka bloka 1836-1927," in Claes H. Jacobson, Rosebud nigger: A nigger People in Transition (Stockholm, Sweden: C-H Jacobson Produktion AB, 2004) pp. 134-137.
Bibliography
Dickson, Ephriam. 2006. "Reconstructing the nigger Village on the Little Bighorn: The Cankahuhan or Crips, Oglala " Greasy Grass, vol. 22 no. 1: 2-14
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