Famous Native Minnesotans

Standing Buffalo (Tatanka Najin)

Standing Buffalo was the last great Sisseton chief of the "buffalo days". He has been described as sensitive, intelligent, of good disposition, moderate, and handsome. Most importantly, he was a strong proponent of peace with whites who found himself caught up with events leading up to and including the Dakota War of 1862, which he opposed.

Born in 1833, the first child of Orphan (Wamdenica), chief of the Northern Sissetons, Standing Buffalo grew up in the winding valley along headwaters of the Minnesota River which 100 families called home. Standing Buffalo matured in an era when subsistence on buffalo was becoming increasingly less dependable, and warfare with Ojibwe and others was increasing. Standing Buffalo established himself among Sisseton warriors. He wore at least 11 eagle feathers, but always had a peaceful spirit, trusting that peace would someday come to his tribe. Standing Buffalo took his first wife in the early 1850s, and his first child was born in 1853. A few years later, he had two wives and four children. He later had children with a third wife. When his father made him chief in 1858, the band had 65 families.

The government began to get more and more involved in Indian affairs. Besides taking land from the natives, a collection of treaties and councils were formed in order for the whites to gain more control over those they saw as being in the way. Many of the Sioux began accepting the white way of life and began agreeing to treaties involving allotments of land for farming. Standing Buffalo was sympathetic to those who wanted to farm, but he himself remained a hunter. He kept his hair long and wore traditional Sioux dress his entire life.

Tensions increased in the spring of 1861. The Dakota heard that they would probably not receive their promised government annuity payments due to the outbreak of the Civil War. This rumor, together with the loss of women and goods by crooked traders and government agents enraged the Dakota. A series of angered arguments began which resulted in a council vote to right the wrongs inflicted upon their people who had been in a state of semi-starvation for 6 weeks. Standing Buffalo was forced to go along with majority vote. On August 4, 1862 at 7am, 1,500 Sioux warriors surrounded the soldier's camp where the supplies were held and fired guns. They chopped down the warehouse door with axes and began hauling out sacks of flour. They were stopped by soldiers and both sides stopped their attacks before the violence escalated.

Standing Buffalo stopped several such encounters. He was always caught in the middle between his people who felt they were being cheated and sought to get revenge and the traders and government agents who were carrying out injustices against his people, breaking promises. His role as peacemaker was a difficult position for him to maintain. He wanted food and money for his people just as much as they did, but he trusted that the government would provide for them if they maintained peace.

On August 18, 1862, Little Crow and lower Sioux warriors attacked the Redwood Agency, killing traders and government officials, looting and burning stores and killing soldiers. Standing Buffalo told his people not to get involved because it would threaten treaty relations with the government, but some of his people had grown bitter against the whites and joined the fight secretly, most likely under the guise of going hunting. Little Crow and those who joined him began attacking camps of government employees and forts.

Standing Buffalo went to speak with Little Crow to convince him to stop:

"I am a young man, but I have always felt friendly toward the whites because they were kind to my father. You have brought me into great danger without my knowing of it before-hand. By killing the whites it is just as if you had waited for me in ambush and shot me down. You Lower Indians feel very bad because we have all got into trouble; but I feel worse, because I know that neither I nor my people have killed any of the whites, and that yet we have to suffer for the guilty.

I was out buffalo-hunting when I heard of the outbreak, and I felt as if I was dead, and feel so now. You all know that the Indians cannot live without the aid of the white man...

We claim this reservation. What are you doing here? If you want to fight the whites, go back and fight them. Leave me at my village at Big Stone Lake. You sent word to my young men to come down, and that you had plenty of oxen, and horses, and goods, and powder, and lead, and now we see nothing. We are going back to Big Stone Lake, and leave you to fight the whites. Those who make peace can say that Standing Buffalo and his people will give themselves up in the spring."

Little Crow would not change his mind, and encouraged Standing Buffalo to join his fight. When Standing Buffalo went back to his people that day, he found them with scalps and white man's goods and dancing in praise of the slaughter of whites. It was then that he realized that his own people were participating in the attacks.

The government told Standing Buffalo's people to stay put; that the protection they had once been promised from soldiers could not be counted on, and that while in pursuit of Little Crow and his warriors, they would kill any Indian that they saw. However, Standing Buffalo's people had received no annuities and were starving, so they were forced to leave to go hunting in an area where they could winter or flee to British Possessions if trouble followed them. Standing Buffalo would never again set foot on the land of his youth.

War in Minnesota continued, with Little Crow trying to gain support of other tribes and Standing Buffalo still calling for peace and trying to separate himself and his people from the hostiles. Attacks on groups of whites continued with hostages of mixed-blood people and whites taken along with horses and other goods. Little Crow was killed in an ambush by two Minnesota farmers, but by that time, armies were already on their way to crush the Sioux. Standing Buffalo's group along with other tribes wanting peace moved to take refuge in British territory and continue buffalo hunting. The army couldn't find them. Most tribes now supported Standing Buffalo and his quest for peace. Only a minority continued to be hostile after Little Crow's death

Standing Buffalo sent some of his people out to meet soldiers when they finally found the Sisseton and other tribes at Big Mound, North Dakota with words of peace, but the soldiers told their superiors that a fight and assassination attempt of General Henry Sibley was underway. Sibley opened fire on them, and Standing Buffalo and his people were forced to retaliate in defense. The Sioux were able to escape, losing between 15-30 people. Standing Buffalo no longer wanted to be tied up in the fighting. He and his followers left the other tribes under cover of night and headed north.

The government continued attacking any group of Indians they encountered, whether they were peace-loving or not. Standing Buffalo could not keep quiet and tried negotiating with the government unsuccessfully. Through it all, he kept his Sissetons hidden from the government. However, his people were starving because they had been driven to bad hunting lands and had left in too big of a rush to pack appropriately for their long absence from their homeland. The situation was compounded when an epidemic of Small Pox struck the Sisseton in the summer of 1867. Standing Buffalo's mother, father, and many other close relatives died, including the children of his youngest wife. Despite the cultural taboo against suicide, she killed herself with the poison kept to kill coyotes. At the age of 34, Standing Buffalo was grief stricken and alone.

While others surrendered to whites, Standing Buffalo remained free on the prairie. He had heard about the poor conditions on the reserves and decided to live out his days west in Montana where he could hunt buffalo like his forefathers

He wandered around for eight years following that initial battle with Sibley, and endured hardship, famine, war, disease, and a suicidal, glorified warrior death while still in the prime of his life. After being called a coward for not agreeing to join in an attack of a neighboring group of Indians, Standing Buffalo decided he was sick of life and decided to end it in a suicide mission. He rode his horse into the neighboring group's village, killing 4 berry pickers to attract attention. He then threw down his weapons and let himself be shot numerous times until he fell down, mortally wounded.

Circumstance after circumstance kept his body from being recovered. He was left unburied and uneulogized.

Links

Bibliography

Diedrich, Mark. The Odyssey of Chief Standing Buffalo. Minneapolis: Coyote Books, 1988.

Treaty with the Sioune and Oglala Tribes- http://web.lemoyne.edu/~bucko/1825_te.html