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The Remains of Little Crow

4/28/2015

7 Comments

 
PictureLittle Crow.
Little Crow (1810-1863) was leader of the Mdewakanton Dakota, a Sioux people with a historic homeland in what is now Minnesota. He is perhaps most famous for his roles in the 1851 agreements (the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux and the Treaty of Mendota) that ceded much of southern Minnesota to settlement by Euroamericans and the Dakota War of 1862. This was a short and brutal conflict that ended with hundreds dead and many Dakota in exile.  For their roles in the conflict, 38 Dakota men were hanged on December 26, 1862.  The execution was the largest mass execution in U.S. History (source).

Little Crow, not among those captured and executed, was killed in a shootout with white settlers (who were apparently out to pick raspberries) in July of 1863 near Hutchinson, Minnesota. The story of Little Crow's remains is interesting to me for two reasons.  First, it contributes to our understanding about what the phrase "double row of teeth" might have meant in the nineteenth century.  Second, and more importantly, it is a vivid example of how Native Americans were regarded in this country in the 1800s and how their physical remains were treated.

The body, clearly that of a Native American, was not immediately identified as that of Little Crow.  That didn't stop the locals from abusing it, however.  I haven't yet tracked down original accounts of the events that followed the shooting of Little Crow, but I found a 1962 article titled "The Shooting of Little Crow: Heroism or Murder?" by Walter N. Trenerry that appeared in Minnesota History: 

"The search party callously removed the dead Indian's scalp and went back to town. Later that day the body was
loaded on a wagon, brought into Hutchinson, and there tossed into the refuse pit of a slaughterhouse, like an animal carcass.
    About a week later some local ghoul pried the corpse's head off with a stick and left this gruesome object "lying on the prairie for some days, the brains oozing out in the broiling sun."
    No one knew at this time who the victim was. He appeared middle-aged; he had curiously deformed forearms; and he had the physiological oddity of a double row of teeth. Although several Hutchinson residents thought that the man looked familiar to them, no one seemed able to identify him positively."


The Wikipedia entry also states that "His body was dragged down the town's Main Street while firecrackers were placed in his ears and nose."  If you have any doubt of the validity of the claim that Native Americans were treated with extreme brutality in this country in the past, I encourage you to go and read some newspapers from the 1800s. The language and what it describes are appalling.

Until I get the original sources cited by Trenerry, I won't be able to see exactly what the 1863 accounts say about a "double row of teeth."  As I have written previously (e.g., here, here, and here), context and exact wording are important.  I found one later newspaper article that suggests to me, however, that the identification of a "double row of teeth" was based on a misinterpretation of the normal arrangement of tooth root sockets (alveoli) in the maxilla.  A story in The New York Times (April 14, 1879) reads as follows:

GHASTLY RELICS.

The St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer-Press prints the following communication:

LANESBORO, Fillmore County, March 28.--The Pioneer-Press of March 20 states that Dr. Twitchell, of Chatfield, has presented the State Historical Society with a part of Little Crow's skeleton.  The skull of that famous chief is now the most prized relic in my collection of Indian curiosities.  It was presented to me by an esteemed friend, the Hon. James Farmer, of Spring Valley.  Mr. Farmer had it secreted in his house for several years, hidden in a nook covered with lath and plaster.  I am now corresponding with Mr. Lamson who shot Little Crow, and hope soon to possess the gun with which he was killed.  The sister of Little Crow's slayer (Mrs. Frank Ide) lives within four miles of Lanesboro.  The skull is fractured in places where the stake was thrust through when the citizens of Hutchinson carried it though the town in triumph.  The alveolar process (which held the teeth) are double, showing that the chief must have had a double row of teeth in the upper jaw.  I have the skulls of "Spotted Horse" and "Two Fathers." Also many relics from the scene of the Sioux-Pawnee massacre on the Republican River in 1872, which I gathered before the Indians were all dead.  D. F. Powell, M. D.

This account suggests to me that Dr. Powell made the same basic anatomical mistake as Bigfoot researcher Daniel Dover: he interpreted the parallel rows of root sockets associated with maxillary molars as evidence that two rows of teeth had been present in life.  Notice how he specifies that a "double row of teeth" was present in the upper jaw, not the lower jaw (the mandibular molars typically only have two roots).  I could be wrong, but I think it's likely that Dr. Powell just didn't know what he was looking at.  He would certainly not be the first physician in the 1800s (or today, for that matter) to demonstrate a less-than-perfect knowledge of human skeletal anatomy.

Apparently Little Crow's remains eventually ended up in the care of
The Minnesota Historical Society.  This website shows a photo of what is apparently Little Crow's scalp in the Smithsonian.  The remains were returned to Little Crow's grandson in 1971 and subsequently buried.

Another thing worth knowing: the bodies of the Sioux executed after the war in 1862 were used for medical study. 
William Worrall Mayo, father of the brothers who  founded the Mayo Clinic, received the remains of Mahpiya Okinajin (aka He Who Stands in Clouds aka Cut Nose) and reportedly kept them in a rendering kettle in his home and used them to teach his sons anatomy.  The remains were returned to the Sioux in the 1990s.  A piece of skin from Cut Nose, found curated at the Grand Rapids Museum, was also returned for reburial.


7 Comments
Bob swenson
8/6/2016 06:09:58 am

Just an awful thing that happened to thesepoeple they had a interesting history its just to bad it had to end up like this.

Reply
Normandie Kent
2/6/2017 12:48:40 am

This story really pisses me off, the tot disregard for the lives of these people and their remains turns my stomach! It's no wonder why Native Americans have no patience for Euro-Americans curiosity and need to know, about their ancestral remains. And they have every right. Now it seems the new trend in America is trying to rewrite Native Americans out of their own history and cultural patrimony. Not only that, but to also disassociate them from their own ancestors, like they tried with Kennewick Man and Spirit Cave Man. I'm sure they are utterly sick of people picking apart their history and ancestry.

Reply
Sheryl Thornberg
6/27/2017 10:58:30 am

We have all been taught history as a portrayal of the abuse of the Native American people at the hands of the white man. I have just finished reading the first person account of the Spirit Lake Massacre by Abbie Gardner (History of the Spirit Lake Massacre, 1885). Miss Gardner was one of the few people who survived the massacre by Inkpaduta's tribe of Sioux, an unprovoked and particularly vicious attack on not only her family but several neighboring settlers as well. The barbarous way in which the settlers were killed (children's heads bashed out against a tree, bodies mutilated, and her subsequent captivity and torture speaks volumes about how badly white people were treated at the hands of Native Americans as well. Our history has been sanitized and white-washed with a politically correct picture of "innocent, overrun Indians" but it is important to realize that some Indians were vicious, brutal killers and every feather in their cap stood for the death of a white person. It was a badge of honor and they wore it proudly. So lest we think the poor "red man" was the only one being brutally treated in history, read Abbie Gardner's harrowing tale to get quite another and equally disturbing factual account of the way Native Americans mistreated and abused innocent settlers. It is good to acknowledge the mistakes and failures of our white forebears, but we also cannot ignore history as it really happened. There was treachery and brutality on both sides.

Reply
Urban Lakota link
3/22/2019 02:29:50 am

Couple things about this whole "both sides" crap.

1. White settlers and the U.S. Army redefined War for Lakota/Dakota people. It was more honorable for a warrior to touch his opponent in battle and leave him alive. Euroamericans honored body count. If we didn't change our way, we would have been slaughtered.

2. The U.S. Army was known to attack villages that had most of their men away of hunting trips. Want to blame us for our brutality but it started with you.

3. None of this territory belonged to these settlers. Who gave you permission? France? Who gave them the right? It was stolen because we weren't white. Manifest Destiny.

Those settlers should have never been there in the first place. You don't get mad at a wolf for defending it's territory. We didn't want to kill anyone, and white Americans will always have the blood of children on their hands. Your prosperity and "freedom" came on the backs of slaves and the graves of natives.

Reply
Kevin
10/30/2017 11:11:00 am

If you are interested in son more in-depth info about the conflict. I found a book tucked away at my Cabin near where little crow was killed. Named Condenced History of meeker county. Written in 1939 by a family member of the Lamsons. Some pretty interesting information in it

Reply
Jennefer Burk link
3/17/2022 12:27:57 pm

Oh please! There were atrocities on both sides and both sides had their own reasons. Some legitimate and some out or anger and hate. It has been this way since the beginning of life. And there will be less, and then more, of it throughout time. Blaming one more side than the other is ludicrous. Mankind takes turn in beating each other up and has since the beginning and will until the end. My suggestion is thst each human being live the best life he or she can and learn how to avoid conflict and to duck at a moments notice.

Reply
Isaac Kicking Bear
9/5/2022 02:58:32 pm

Jennefer Burk's comments, although I do not believe were made with malice in mind, are not quite correct. I do object to the notion that "that atrocities were made by both sides... where both sides had their reasons" is abjectly wrong. The Dakotas and the other indigenous peoples in the area had the only and truly justified reasons to revolt against the invaders that had abused, defrauded and disrespected them as fellow human beings for so long and the very act of desecration of the remains of Little Crow and his fellow patriots documents that fact. Owning up to all the wrongs is the only right path to reconciliation. Most of today's inhabitants of the Americas in general and Minnesota in particular are descendants of invaders that live in and on another people's land. Lets not forget that. We cannot undo past wrongs and much less revise history, but what we can do is learning from it. Sadly, learning from history does not seem to be particularly popular with contemporary society and thus we are on a path of repeating past mistakes yet again and again.

Reply



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