Crow Foot

{{Short description|Son of Sitting Bull}}

{{Other uses}}

File:Crow Foot by DF Barry.jpg

Crow Foot (c. 1876 – December 15, 1890) was the son of Sitting Bull of the Lakota.{{Cite book|last=Coleman|first=William S. E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rfUFZSlW-JAC&q=crow+foot|title=Voices of Wounded Knee|date=2001-01-01|publisher=University of Nebraska Press|isbn=978-0-8032-0568-0|language=en}}

His mother was either Seen by Her Nation or Four Robes. He had sisters named Standing Holy and "Lizzie" Her-Lodge-in-Sight; he also had brothers named Henry, Little Soldier, Red Scout, and William Sitting Bull. He was a twin and was born just before the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876.{{Cite book|last=Utley|first=Robert M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HrxZAwAAQBAJ&q=twins|title=Sitting Bull: The Life and Times of an American Patriot|date=2014-05-13|publisher=Henry Holt and Company|isbn=978-1-4668-7139-7|language=en}} He was named in honor of Crowfoot, the Blackfeet chief in Canada.{{rp|172}}

Crow Foot was recalled in his father's obituary as "'bright as a dollar with eyes that fairly snap like whips'".{{Cite book|last=Yenne|first=Bill|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/294885271|title=Sitting Bull|date=March 2009|publisher=|isbn=978-1-59416-092-9|location=Yardley, Pennsylvania.|pages=|oclc=294885271}}

His father, who believed Indian children needed to learn to read and write, placed Crow Foot and his other children in a Congregational day school.{{Cite book|last=Utley|first=Robert M.|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/27106879|title=The lance and the shield : the life and times of Sitting Bull|date=1993|publisher=Henry Holt|isbn=0-8050-1274-5|edition=1st |location=New York|oclc=27106879}} Crow Foot was reportedly Sitting Bull's favorite son.

Crow Foot was said to be "a solemn youth of seventeen" who "displayed a wisdom remarkable for one so young".{{Cite book|last=Utley|first=Robert M.|title=The Last Days of the Sioux Nation|publisher=Yale University Press|year=1963|location=New Haven|pages=150, 160–161}} According to Robert Higheagle, "Crow Foot was not like the rest of the boys. He did not get out and mingle with the boys and play their games. He grew old too early'".

In 1881 he participated alongside his father in the surrender at Fort Buford, handing his father's Winchester rifle to Major Brotherton.{{rp|320}}

Crow Foot was killed along with his father on December 15, 1890, by a group of Indian agents. One of the police later reported that Crow Foot told his father, "You always called yourself a brave chief. Now you are allowing yourself to be taken by the Ceska maza" (police).{{Cite book|last=Ostler|first=Jeffrey|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/53951752|title=The Plains Sioux and U.S. colonialism from Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee|date=2004|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=0-521-79346-7|location=Cambridge|pages=324–325|oclc=53951752}} The first military and police chronicles of the arrest do not mention Crow Foot saying this.{{rp|272}}

Lone Man found him hiding in a pile of blankets. Crow Foot said, "'My uncles, do not kill me. I do not wish to die'".{{Cite book|last=Greene|first=Jerome A.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_IFeAwAAQBAJ&q=red+tomahawk+crow+foot&pg=PA182|title=American Carnage: Wounded Knee, 1890|date=2014-04-11|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|isbn=978-0-8061-4551-8|language=en}} Some sources say that the policemen killed him at the instruction of dying Bull Head, who said, "Do what you like with him. He is one of them that has caused this trouble". Other sources state that Bull Head said he didn't care what they did.{{rp|275}}

Lone Man "smashed Crow Foot across the forehead with a rifle butt, which sent him reeling across the room and out the door. There Lone Man and two others, tears streaming down their cheeks, pumped bullets into him."