Little Crow

A key figure in the first years of Minnesota’s statehood, Little Crow (or Taoyateduta) is best known for his role in the Dakota Uprising of 1862, but he was notable in several other ways as well. Little Crow was a strong leader of his people but also met with strong opposition and disapproval for many of his actions. He acted as both diplomat in Washington and leader of the uprising against the state. As a leader, he valued the indigenous cultures that were subverted by the expanding United States but also recognized the necessity of adapting to the expanding state. By no means does Little Crow embody every relationship that took place around him, but his many and varied relationships with his own people and with white settlers and soldiers reflect much of the social and political climate of the time.

Rise to power

Taoyateduta rose to a powerful position within his village early in adulthood and continued to exert great influence over his people throughout much of his life. In some ways, his position was a result of his demonstrated capacity for leadership, and in other ways, he was assisted in his political influence through his membership in an influential family. In his biography of Little Crow, Anderson points out the most important organizational principles and power structures that shaped Little Crow’s interactions with fellow members of his community. These include: the structure of the village council, kinship networks, practices of gift giving and sharing within the community, and the medicine society.

As Anderson points out, by Taoyateduta’s time, the village council had become an important arena for the governance of Dakota villages and the practice of elders convening in a tribal council to discuss issues had faded out. In the village council, elders commanded the highest consideration and younger men most often deferred to them. Even so, almost anyone was allowed to speak in the village council, providing the individual held high enough social status to feel the right to do so. The position of speaker was given to those who had earned social consideration for their skill in focusing discussion and helping the group come to a consensus, which was the primary goal of the council. Unlike the speaker, a chief was generally a position inherited from one’s father upon his death, and had no special position within the council, but exerted power in other areas of daily life.

Little Crow was considered for the position of speaker, showing that “he was highly intelligent, charismatic, and dignified, a skilled orator” and respected within his community. Despite the respect that Little Crow commanded, Traveling Hail was chosen for the position instead. Big Eagle, the third candidate for the position suggests that Little Crow’s defeat came as a result of the his perceived responsibility for the sale of a large tract of reservation land. This decision caused Taoyateduta much dissatisfaction and may have encouraged him to take up the reigns of leadership in the Dakota War in an effort to regain lost prestige.

As noted above, the position of chief was generally an inherited one, and since Little Crow was the oldest of his half brothers, he was in line for the position. Nevertheless, Little Crow was, at first, denied the position of chief in favor of one of his half brothers. He had often been away from the village in his youth and was away at the time of his father’s death, and as Anderson notes, “had a bad reputation to overcome.” Therefore, Big Thunder, Little Crow’s father, chose a younger son for the position. Taoyateduta arrived at Kaposia, his home village, with a number of followers, and was shot after challenging the new chief and his allies. He was seriously injured, but survived the wound. Due to his demonstrated courage and the belief that his survival was a sign of favor from the Great Spirit, Little Crow was accepted by the elders of the village and became chief. The half-brothers who had opposed Taoyateduta were killed under the sanction of the village elders and Little Crow began the process of securing his influence by reinforcing and expanding the kinship networks left to him by his father.

Much of the political power that Little Crow possessed came from the extensive kinship ties that he maintained with the Mdewakantons as well as with other Dakotas and white settlers. Kinship ties established roles for each member of a community by stressing the importance of working together in the hunt and the obligations of an individual to show kindness, generosity and loyalty to close relatives. Those ties further defined roles according to gender, age, and closeness of relatedness. “Virtually every member of the band was a relative in some degree of the Little Crow family” , and “if he were to meet someone… who wasn’t somehow related, he could still make him a part of the family by claiming him as a brother or a cousin,” giving Taoyateduta extensive connections within his community.

Taoyateduta’s kinship ties within the Dakota extended far beyond his own band, giving him allies and influence on an inter-tribal level. These ties were created and maintained in large part through his marriage to women of other tribes. Little Crow’s first two marriages were to daughters of a Wahpekute chief, but the marriages were short lived, likely due to Little Crow’s realization that the Wahpekute were losing influence among the Dakota tribes. Later, he married a daughter of Inyangmani, a leader among the Wahpeton. Eventually, Taoyateduta would marry four of Inyangmani’s daughters, thereby consolidating his ties to the chief and the sons of the chief.

Also among his kinship ties and important to his influence in the white community as well as the Dakota community were Little Crow’s ties to mixed-blood and white traders and officials. It was common for white traders and Indian agents to marry Dakota women, especially the daughters of chiefs, to solidify trading relationships and gain the allegiance of the communities in which they worked, so many Dakota families had members of mixed blood and Little Crow’s family was no different. His kinship network included the mixed-blood families of the Renvilles and Campbells, both important players in the conflict that Taoyateduta was to lead. Also, as noted above, it was possible to draw people into the kinship network by calling someone “brother” or “father.” Thus, Little Crow’s network was extended to include many important traders and officials throughout Dakota territory. It is possible that Little Crow’s partial loss of influence to leaders of the peace party was in part due to his ineffective efforts to gain the support of many of his mixed-blood relatives in that camp.

Closely related to the importance of kinship and the maintenance of the ties that it provided members of the Dakota community, was the practice of sharing and gift giving. Social status was largely gained through generosity with food, gifts and oneself, which “would eventually flow back to him” in the form of other gifts and social capital. Successful hunters gained status by giving feasts and successful politicians were those who gave of “their time, energy, and prized possessions in order to secure a reputation as a generous person.” Little Crow made good use of gift giving practices to gain prestige. His generosity is exemplified by an episode in which he presented a headdress of seventeen eagle feathers to a group of dancers in front of his tent. This gift was given in full view of a white man who was there to take the chief’s portrait. In that way, knowledge of Little Crow’s generosity was sure to be spread throughout the community, and gain him the most possible status for having given such a gift.

A fourth source of influence for Little Crow came through his initiation into the medicine society in his village. This society was not open to all members of the tribe, and though it was not important in all of the Dakota tribes, the medicine society “possessed extreme power in Mdewakanton villages." Probably due to the secrecy that the society maintained, Taoyeteduta’s membership in this society is rarely mentioned in the accounts that exist of his life and acts, but it undoubtedly gave him access to the influential leaders and power structures that governed his people.

Prior to 1862, Little Crow’s relationships with whites were very civil if not friendly. Among these interactions were trading relationships, dealings with Indian agents, partnerships with missionaries and simple friendships. Anderson notes that “like his grandfather and his father, he was interested in adapting white ways and values if they suited his needs," and his associations with whites often served this end, as did those of many Dakotas. This caused a strained relationship with leaders who opposed such an action, such as Wabasha, Wacouta and Big Eagle, which would later develop into intense factionalism within the Dakota community.

With the successes of the beginning of the war, the Dakota peace party remained relatively small, made up primarily of mixed-bloods and leaders who opposed the war from the beginning. The majority of young men continued to follow Little Crow and other leaders of the rebellion. With the failed attempts to take Fort Ridgley and New Ulm, however, the peace party began to grow in numbers and in strength as opponents to the war became more vocal and some of Little Crow’s followers became disenchanted with his leadership. The peace party peaked in its power at about the time of the Battle of Wood Lake when two separate camps were formed. Thus, the groups that whites referred to as “friendlies” and “hostiles” with which the whites dealt very differently during the trial regarding war crimes following the conflict. Such factionalism was detrimental to Little Crow and the war effort because it drew resources away from the war and forced Little Crow to divert some attention and manpower to the issue.

Opposition to the “hostiles” was not limited to Mdewakanton tribe members, however. Jacob Nix, the appointed Commandant at New Ulm, refers to the development of animosity between Little Crow and the Winnebago chief Little Priest. He does not cite any causes for this animosity but it is clear that he learns of it from Little Priest as the Winnebago is being transported to Crow Creek where his people were relocated. Thus, it is probable that Little Priest’s displeasure with Taoyateduta was a reflection of the blame that the Winnebagos placed on the Dakota for their own problems with the whites. Little Priest would not have been alone in this sentiment; many of those who did not take part in the rebellion were bitterly opposed to Little Crow’s actions. This is illustrated by Wanata and Little Paul’s threats to forcefully prevent the Mdewakantons from entering their territory. Following his flight from Minnesota, Little Crow attempted to gain alliances with western tribes but this too was unsuccessful.

White conceptions of Taoyateduta changed, perhaps even more dramatically than those of his own people, following the outbreak of the Dakota War. He had previously been a great ally to the whites among the Dakota nation but became, in their eyes, the leader of a horde that declared war on all whites and carried out mass murders of innocent civilians. This feeling was particularly strong among the white and mixed-blood soldiers whose duty it was to put down the rebellion. Nix characterized Little Crow as a villain and killer, and described his followers and fellow leaders in the rebellion as “red scoundrels”, “red beasts”, “savages’, and an array of other disparaging terms. and Wakefield complains of personal threats on her life by Little Crow and claims that “if Little Crow had been victorious, all [the captives] would have been killed." In the context of interethnic relations, it is relatively unimportant whether these events actually took place or were inventions meant to villainize Little Crow, because in either case, they reveal the dramatic shift in the portrayal of Little Crow and the Dakota nation as a whole by standing in stark contrast to the glowing descriptions of Taoyateduta made by whites before the war began.

Outside of the context of war, many Dakota attempted to resist the influx of white culture into their own, while others like Paul Mazakutemani worked to fully adopt white ways, Little Crow maintained a careful balance between his traditional culture and that of the arriving whites. He believed that there were certain elements of white culture that would benefit him and his people and elements of the Dakota culture that should not be given up so fast. This balance serves as a good model for many of Taoyateduta’s actions and relationships with the whites: he opposed war but he led it; he recognized the advantages of adapting to the white presence in his home land but resisted fully adopting white ways; and he ordered the killing of many whites but also protected a few under his own roof.

Death

Taoyateduta was shot and killed while picking berries near Hutchinson, Minnesota, after returning to Minnesota following unsuccessful attempts to gain support in the west or in Canada. He was scalped and dismembered, his scalp being put on display in a museum and the rest of his body becoming trophies for collectors. In his death, Little Crow reflected his people’s relationship with the whites once again; he became a romanticized relic of the past to be shown off in museums and collected as an oddity.

Notes

Keenan, Jerry. 2003. The Great Sioux Uprising: Rebellion on the Plains, August – September 1862. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.

Tolzmann, Don Heinrich, ed. 2002. German pioneer accounts of the great Sioux Uprising of 1862. Milford, Ohio: Little Miami Pub. Co.