As we learn about the great Native American Chiefs of North America, we can better understand their greatness and sacrifice against many odds. I believe it is noble and correct to give praise to those great chiefs of the past including, Samoset, Squanto, Pontiac, Tecumseh, Canessetego, Red Jacket, Hiawatha, Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Samuel Blue, Yellow Face, Wakara, Sagwich, and many more. Some of these great Lamanites held the Priesthood of God. As they live righteously these brave Lamanites will become great leaders in our midst once again.
From Joseph’s Remnant
“At a May 18, 2011 breakfast, Tod Schulthess, who had served as a Latter-day Saint missionary among the Navajo people in the later part of the 1970s reported to me that a Navajo Medicine man had shared with him a remarkable, though not widely known incident that occurred in the early 1960s. One night all Navajo medicine men had dreamed the same dream. In essence, they were shown that a giant would come among the people. The giant would promise the Navajo people that he would take care of them; that they would never have to work again. That he (the giant) would always be there to see to their needs. The medicine men were given to understand that they should warn the people against following the giant, for he would sicken and die and the Navajo people would then be left in difficult straits that would leave them far worse off than where they had been before.
Considering this dream, I wondered, “What it could mean? “Does the giant represent the love of ease, the love of self-gratification? Are those among the factors that have led to the dysfunctional Navajo family? I thought of Leo Muir’s counsel written in 1928: “The pursuit of easy things makes men weak. Catch that warning, young man, and heed it. Are you trying to avoid the drudgery of work, the weariness of toil, the burdens of responsibility? You may succeed [in avoiding such] but you will be weak. The penalty is certain. Society has fashioned a thousand exemptions from work, but not one immunity from the penalty of indolence and irresponsibility.”
Regarding the dream received simultaneously by the Navajo medicine men, perhaps we should ask, “Is that a forewarning of the impact of big government programs…
In Joseph’s Remnant, I have written about John Bluesalt, a legendary Navajo Medicine man, who became a Latter-day Saint convert. At the point of his conversion and ordination to the Melchizedek Priesthood, he stepped away from functioning as a medicine man and gave blessings and performed service strictly in his capacity as a worthy bearer of the Melchizedek Priesthood. And he had been viewed as a medicine man of special ability.
As mentioned previously, Tod Schulthess served a mission among the Navajo people in the later 1970s. He said one day that he and other missionaries saw their mission president, George P. Lee, come out of his office, looking as white as a ghost. President Lee informed them that he had been visited by Chief Joseph, Sitting Bull and a number of important Native American chiefs, and that he, George Lee, had been given their genealogy. President Lee received permission to leave his mission. He spent three days in the St. George Temple where he worked all day long doing the ordinance work for these Native American leaders. At this point, however, I have not been able to confirm that the temple work was done.
Editor’s note: Allen Christensen has given me permission to share this remembrance about George P. Lee but wants me to emphasize it came from Tod Schulthess as second hand information. Mr. Christensen’s book is full of wonderful stories of many successful Lamanites in our day. It is very sad as to what happened to George P. Lee who was excommunicated from the Church.
[One of] George P. Lee’s [missionaries] are Ollie Whaley, and Ollie’s wife, Aneta Talker Whaley. Both Ollie and Aneta are converts to the Church. Both serve on the committee charged to complete the translation of the Book of Mormon into Navajo. They say it is an interesting challenge to find Navajo sounds that fit spoken English words or vice versa. On April 15, 2018, Ollie Whaley was sustained and set apart as the new president of the Tuba City Arizona Stake. Theirs is a wonderful romance and they have raised a family of devoted Latter-day Saints. The pathway that brought them together is unique. There is power to be found in not overlooking those who have been overlooked. Remember, do not discredit those of humble beginnings, for the greatest mortal life ever lived began in a stable in Bethlehem.
I have not confined my effort solely to the Tribes of the West. There are things written about the Native Americans of the eastern United States. The eastern United States is where the first mission to the Lamanites began in response to a revelation given through the Prophet Joseph Smith. It is now known as Section 32 of the Doctrine and Covenants. I have written some things about that mission in a chapter called “Beginnings.” Also written about are the different attitudes toward Native Americans as voiced by George Washington and by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson favored assimilation. Washington did not. I am partly a product of assimilation. I have a 6th great-grandmother who was a member of the Iroquois Confederacy. It is probable she was a Mohawk. In the early 1700s, her tribe lived along the Mohawk River. Her tribal name was Josnorum Scoenonti—her English name, Running Deer. White men came among them. Her husband, Charles Crosby, was one of them. Three centuries later, she has a large Latter-day Saint posterity.” Joseph’s Remnant: An Introduction Allen C. Christiansen.
I recommend a blog I have written about 85 NATIVE AMERICAN CHIEFS-BAPTIZED AT THE ST GEORGE TEMPLE Here’s Another blog about a Native American Founding Father named CANASATEGO FORGOTTEN FOUNDING FATHER
Wilford Woodruff
“I would say to the Lamanites, if I could speak to them understandingly, that you are also a branch of the house of Israel, and chiefly of the house of Joseph, and your forefathers have fallen through the same examples of unbelief and sins, as have the Jews, and you, as their posterity, have wandered in sin and darkness for many generations; and you, like the Jews, have been driven and trampled under the foot of the Gentiles, and put to death through your wars with each other, and with the white man, until you are almost destroyed. But there is still a redemption and salvation for a remnant of you in the latter days. It is time for you to cease shedding each other’s blood or making war upon your fellow-man. Cease to destroy one another, learn to cultivate the earth, and raise your food therefrom; call upon the Great Spirit to protect you and deliver you from bondage and darkness, and the Great Spirit will hear you and deliver you, and a remnant of you will again become a delightsome people as your forefathers were when they kept the commandments of God.” Wilford Woodruff History of His Life and Labors AS RECORDED IN HIS DAILY JOURNALS PREPARED FOR PUBLICATION BY MATTHIAS F. COWLEY Salt Lake City, Utah 1909
Bruce R. McConkie
Who, then, are the Jews, and what part shall they yet play in the gathering of Israel and the return of their King? There is a maze of fuzzy thinking and shoddy scholarship, both in the world and in the Church, that seeks to identify the Jews, both ancient and modern, and to expound upon what they have believed and do believe. It is not strange that the divines of the day-not knowing that the kingdom is to be restored to Israel at that glorious day; not having the Book of Mormon and latter-day revelation to guide them-it is not strange that they come up with false and twisted views about the mission and destiny of the Jews. It is a little sad that church members sometimes partake of these false views and of this secular spirit so as to misread the signs of the times.
Crazy Horse
Crazy Horse (in Standard Orthography of the Lakota: Tȟašúŋke Witkó[2] IPA: /tχaˈʃʊ̃kɛ witˈkɔ/, lit. ”His-Horse-Is-Crazy”); (c. 1840 – September 5, 1877)[3] was a Lakota war leader of the Oglala band in the 19th century. He took up arms against the United States federal government to fight against encroachment by white American settlers on Native American territory and to preserve the traditional way of life of the Lakota people. His participation in several famous battles of the Black Hills War on the northern Great Plains, among them the Fetterman Fight in 1866 in which he acted as a decoy and the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 in which he led a war party to victory, earned him great respect from both his enemies and his own people.
In September 1877, four months after surrendering to U.S. troops under General George Crook, Crazy Horse was fatally wounded by a bayonet-wielding military guard while allegedly[4][5] resisting imprisonment at Camp Robinson in present-day Nebraska. He ranks among the most notable and iconic of Native American warriors and was honored by the U.S. Postal Service in 1982 with a 13¢ Great Americans series postage stamp.
Our contributor found a photograph along with a note in the Lakota language dated 1904. The note claims, “This is a photograph of Crazy Horse.” Does our contributor have the Holy Grail of the Wild West: a photo of the Lakota warrior who defeated General Custer? Host Elyse Luray puts this photo in context with other works by the same photographer at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC. https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/video/1185284483/
HISTORY DETECTIVES Crazy Horse Photo
Clip: Season 7 Episode 5 | 16m 59s
Crazy Horse was an Oglala Sioux Indian chief who fought against being relocated to an Indian reservation. He took part in the Battle of Little Big Horn.
Who Was Crazy Horse?
Crazy Horse was an Oglala Sioux Indian chief who fought against removal to a reservation in the Black Hills. In 1876, he joined with Cheyenne forces in a surprise attack against Gen. George Crook; then united with Chief Sitting Bull for the Battle of the Little Bighorn. In 1877, Crazy Horse surrendered and was killed in a scuffle with soldiers.
Early Years
An uncompromising and fearless Lakota leader who was committed to protecting his people’s way of life, Crazy Horse was born with the Native American name Tashunka Witco around 1840 near what is present-day Rapid Springs, South Dakota.
The details of how he came to acquire the name Crazy Horse are up for debate. One account says that his father, also named Crazy Horse, passed the name on to him after his son had demonstrated his skills as a warrior.
Even as a young boy, Crazy Horse stood out. He was fair-skinned and had brown, curly hair, giving him an appearance that was noticeably different from other boys his age. These physical differences may have laid the groundwork for a personality that even among his own people made him a loner and a bit distant.
Crazy Horse’s birth had come during a great time for the Lakota people. A division of the Sioux, the Lakota represented the largest band of the tribe. Their domain included a giant swath of land that ran from the Missouri River to the Big Horn Mountains in the west. Their contact with whites was minimal, and by the 1840s the Lakota were at the peak of their power.
Changes for the Lakota
In the 1850s, however, life for the Lakota began to change considerably. As white settlers began pushing west in search of gold and a new life out on the frontier, competition for resources between these new immigrants and the Lakota created tension. Military forts were established in parts of the Great Plains, bringing in even more white settlers and introducing diseases that took their toll on the native Indian populations.
In August 1854, everything boiled over in what became known as the Grattan Massacre. It started when a group of white men, led by Lieutenant John Grattan, entered a Sioux camp to take prisoner the men who had killed a migrant’s cow. After Chief Conquering Bear refused to give in to their demands, violence erupted. After one of the white soldiers shot and killed the chief, the camp’s warriors fought back and killed Grattan and his 30 men.
The Grattan Massacre is widely considered the conflict that kicked off the First Sioux War between the United States and the Lakota. For the still young Crazy Horse, it also helped establish what would be a lifetime of distrust for whites.
The Fetterman Massacre, Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868
As conflicts escalated between the Lakota and the United States, Crazy Horse was at the center of many key battles.
In one important victory for his people, Crazy Horse led an attack on Captain William J. Fetterman and his brigade of 80 men. The Fetterman Massacre, as it came to be known, proved to be a huge embarrassment for the U.S. military.
Even after the signing of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, which guaranteed the Lakota important land, including the coveted Black Hills territory, Crazy Horse continued his fight.
Beyond his seemingly mystical ability to avoid injury or death on the battlefield, Crazy Horse also showed himself to be uncompromising with his white foes. He refused to be photographed and never committed his signature to any document. The aim of his fight was to retake the Lakota life he’d known as a child when his people had full run of the Great Plains.
The Battle of the Little Bighorn
Following the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, and the U.S. government’s backing of white explorers in the territory, the War Department ordered all Lakota onto reservations.
Crazy Horse and Chief Sitting Bull refused. On June 17, 1876, Crazy Horse led a force of 1,200 Oglala and Cheyenne warriors against General George Crook and his brigade, successfully turning back the soldiers as they attempted to advance toward Sitting Bull’s encampment on the Little Bighorn River.
A week later Crazy Horse teamed up with Sitting Bull to decimate Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and his esteemed Seventh Cavalry in the Battle of the Little Bighorn, perhaps the greatest victory ever by Native Americans over U.S. troops.
The Death of Crazy Horse
Following the defeat of Custer, the U.S. Army struck back hard against the Lakota, pursuing a scorched-earth policy whose aim was to extract total surrender. While Sitting Bull led his followers into Canada to escape the wrath of the Army, Crazy Horse continued to fight.
But as the winter of 1877 set in and food supplies began to shorten, Crazy Horse’s followers started to abandon him. On May 6, 1877, he rode to Fort Robinson in Nebraska and surrendered. Instructed to remain on the reservation, he defied orders that summer to put his sick wife in the care of his parents.
After his arrest, Crazy Horse was returned to Fort Robinson, where, in a struggle with the officers, he was bayoneted in the kidneys. He passed away with his father at his side on September 5, 1877.
Years after his death, Crazy Horse is still revered for being a visionary leader who fought hard to preserve his people’s traditions and way of life.
Crazy Horse Monument
The Crazy Horse Memorial is located in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Started in 1948, the monumental sculpture is an ongoing project, carved from Thunderhead Mountain, and located about 17 miles from Mount Rushmore. It is set to be part of a museum and cultural center honoring Native Americans.
Darren Parry Chairman Shoshone Nation
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Darren Parry is the former chairman of the Northwest Band of the Shoshone Nation. He is the driving force behind the proposed Northwest Band of the Shoshone Nation Boa Ogoi Cultural Interpretive Center. Parry served on the boards of the American West Heritage Center (Logan, UT) and the Utah State Museum Board. He has also served on the Advisory Board of the Huntsman Cancer Center (SLC, UT). An educator by training, in secondary education with an emphasis in history, Darren graduated from Weber State University (Ogden, UT). During the last year (2019-2020) he ran for election, unsuccessfully, to the U.S. House to represent Utah’s 1st Congressional District. In 2017 he was a receipent of the Esto Pepetua Award from the Idaho State Historical Society, for one who has preserved and promoted the history of Idaho.
1400 Natives Baptized
“Many after hearing the prophetic message of Wodziwob had their own dreams, visions, and supernatural experiences telling them to join the Mormon religion. At least five different Indians claimed supernatural visitations telling them to join the Mormons. The experience of one Indian in Skull Valley in the summer of 1872 was typical. He claimed that while he was sitting in his lodge, three strangers who looked like Indians visited him and said the Mormons’ God was the true God and the father of the Indians. Find the Mormons and have them baptize you, these strangers said, for “the time was at hand for the Indians to gather, and stop their Indian life, and learn to cultivate the earth and build houses, and live in them.” Then the stranger showed him a vision of all the “northern country and Bear River and Malad” where many Indians were growing many fine crops with a few whites showing the Indians how (Hill 1877, 11). Several hundred Indians accepted these messages as divine and subsequently joined the Mormon faith. Apostle Orson Pratt believed the holy messengers were the Three Nephites mentioned in the Book of Mormon. “We have heard of some fourteen hundred Indians who have been baptized, ask them why they have come so many hundred miles to find Elders of the Church and they will reply — ‘Such a person came to us, he spoke in our language, instructed us and told us what to do, and we have come in order to comply with his requirements’ ” (JD 17:299-300)
