Little Crow

Common card · No. 419819

Little Crow III (Dakota: Thaóyate Dúta; c. 1810 – July 3, 1863) was a Wahpekute Dakota chief who led a faction of the Dakota in a five-week war against the United States in 1862. In 1846, after surviving a violent leadership contest with his half-brothers, Taoyateduta became chief of his band and assumed the name Little Crow. He played a pivotal role in signing the 1851 Treaty of Mendota which ceded most of their lands in present-day Minnesota and Iowa to the United States. In 1858, Little Crow led a delegation of Dakota leaders to Washington, D.C., where they were pressured by the U.S. government to give up their remaining holdings north of the upper Minnesota River. Faced with anger and mistrust at home, Little Crow lost an election for tribal spokesman in 1862, after which he tried to change his traditionalist ways. That summer, severe economic hardship, starvation, and tensions with government Indian agents, fur traders, and a fast-growing population of European and American settlers...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Henry H. Cross, Public domain