Spotted Tail (Siŋté Glešká pronounced gleh-shka; birth name T'at'aŋka Napsíca "Jumping Buffalo" ; born c. 1823 – died August 5, 1881) was a Sichangu Lakota tribal chief. Famed as a great warrior since his youth, warring on Ute, Pawnee and Absaroke (“Crow”), and having taken a leading part in the Grattan Massacre, he led his warriors in the Colorado and Platte River uprising (Spotted Tail's War) after the massacre performed by John M. Chivington's Colorado Volunteers of the peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho camping on Sand Creek (November 29, 1864), but declined to participate in Red Cloud's War.
After his almost two years time as a prisoner in Fort Leavenworth's following Grattan affair, Spotted Tail was able to speak well English language, and to deal with the "Wasichu" (white men) without an interpreter, whom he didn't trust. He had become convinced of the futility of making war to oppose the white incursions into his homeland; he became a statesman, speaking for peace and defending the rights of his tribe by using his knowledge of “wasichu” language and system to increase his political capability to hinder their tricks and deceptions.
He made several trips to Washington, D.C. in the 1870s to represent his people, and was noted for his interest in bringing education to the Sioux. General Anson Mills, who knew Spotted Tail well, called him "a fine-looking man, with engaging manners, perfectly loyal to the government, a lover of peace, knowing no good could come to his people from war," a man who had both a high respect for and confidence in U.S. Army officers as well as a good sense of humor. He was shot in the back and killed by Crow Dog, a Sichangu Lakota subchief, in 1881 for reasons which have been disputed.
Early years
Spotted Tail was born about 1823 in the White River country west of the Missouri River in present-day South Dakota. He was given the birth name of Jumping Buffalo. Two of his sisters, Iron Between Horns and Kills Enemy, were married to the elder Crazy Horse (later known as "Worm"), in what was traditional Sioux practice for elite men. Spotted Tail may have been the maternal uncle of the famous warrior Crazy Horse, which meant he was a relative of the notable Touch the Clouds as well. The young man took his warrior name, Spotted Tail, after receiving a gift of a raccoon tail from a white trapper; he sometimes wore a raccoon tail in his war bonnet. During the previous 40 years, the Lakota or Teton Sioux had moved from present-day Minnesota and eastern South Dakota to areas west of the Missouri. They had differentiated into several sub-tribes or bands, including the Saône (including the Sihasapa, his father's sub-tribe, the Minneconjou, the Itazipcho, the Hunkpapa, the Oohenonpa), Sichangu ("Brulé") and Oglala. During this time the people adopted the use of horses and expanded their range in hunting the buffalo across their wide grazing patterns.
Marriage and family
Spotted Tail married and had children. He gained his first wife in 1842, after a deadly fight against chief Mahto Wakuwa ("Running Bear"), and, being the killed chief a famous warrior, young (not even twenty years old) Spotted Tail's reputation probably grew greatly increased. Eugene Fitch Ware, a Fort Laramie army officer, wrote that Spotted Tail's daughter, Ah-ho-appa (Wheat Flour) named also Hinzinwin (Fallen Leaf) or even Monica, "... was one of those individuals found in all lands, at all places, and among all people; she was misplaced." He suggested that she adopted some European-American practices, and that she was thought to be secretly in love with one of the officers at the fort. When she was dying in 1866, Fallen Leaf made her father promise that she would be buried on a hillside overlooking Fort Laramie. The entire garrison at the post helped Spotted Tail to honor her request by arranging for a ceremonial funeral, including a Christian service and Sioux ceremony. Many years later, Spotted Tail had her remains transported to the Rosebud Indian Agency in South Dakota and re-interred.