Little Crow

Era: 19^th Century

Importance: Chief and warmonger

Module: American West

Little Crow

Little Crow was the Chief of the Santee Sioux tribe of Minnesota. He and his warriors went to war in 1861 and 1862.

The causes of the war were straightforward negligence and ill-treatment of the Santee Sioux. More than twelve thousand Indians lived in appalling conditions on the Minnesota reservation, living off the Government handouts of food and money under the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty.

In 1861 Cutworm (a nasty bacterial creature) destroyed the crops of the Indians. When they money did not arrive from the US Government the Indian Agent who was the middle man told the Santee Sioux to ‘eat grass or their own dung.’

Little Crow’s warriors murdered over 700 Minnesota settlers. They were pursued and defeated by the Army and thirty-eight warriors were hung. Little Crow was shot when he was eventually tracked down to a farmer’s field where he was picking raspberries.