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Chief Little
Warriors Citation
LITTLE was a band leader who became a fervent advocate of the Ghost Dance in the months before the Wounded Knee massacre of
1890. On November 12, 1890, Lieutenant Thunder Bear of the Pine Ridge Indian Police tried to arrest Little on a warrant for
cattle theft. Instead of complying, Little waved a butcher knife in Thunder Bear's face as more than two hundred of his supporters
gathered and shouted death threats to whites at Pine Ridge.
AMERICAN HORSE tried to calm the crowd but had scant success. During the confrontation, Jack Red Cloud, son of Chief Red
Cloud, pulled a gun on American Horse and called him a traitor to his people. Following this incident, an army buildup began
at Pine Ridge and resulted in the Wounded Knee massacre of Big Foot and his people a month and a half later. Daniel F. Royer,
the Indian agent whose warrant had provoked the incident, retreated twenty-eight miles to Rushville, Nebraska, and sent a
telegram requesting more troops because, he said, "Indians are dancing in the snow and they are wild and crazy." From: historical
accounts & records
LINK TO BRAVEHORSE WARRIORS VOLUME TWO
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