Play: Indian Wars – Lakota Sioux Indians

American Jewish History

From 2020 – 2024 I taught American Jewish history at a private school in Passaic, NJ. During that time, a lot of materials were created and I share them for you here to use to teach others.

1. Introduction to The Lakota Sioux Indians 

(Today’s North and South Dakota)

White man: It’s 1831 and I’m traveling out west – not many whites have been here before.  Sir, what is your name?

Buffalo Bull Sits Down (BBSD): Buffalo Bull Sits Down of the Lakota Indians.

White man: What are you doing today?

BBSD: Going to attack the Crow Indians.

White man: Are you at war with them?

BBSD: Nah, we just like their hunting grounds better and want them.

White man: Aren’t they Indians too?  Aren’t they your people?

BBSD: We don’t even speak the same language.  Besides, how else are our children supposed to get a good shidduch?

White man: What does war with the Crow Indians have to do with getting a good shidduch?

BBSD: Silly pale-face.  You know how your Jews have to learn very much Torah to get a good shidduch?

White man: The who now?

BBSD: Never mind – with us we have to bop an enemy with a stick and run away.  We call this counting coup.  We do it to them, they do it to us … we have a battle and one side goes home.  The war is then over.

White man: You know if you start a war with white soldiers, they’re not going to back off at the end of a battle?  They’ll keep going until you give up completely and run far away.

BBSD: What kind of nonsense is that?

2. Introducing Sitting Bull

BBSD: Ah, my son, Jumping Badger.  At 14 you have your first coup!  You shall now be known by your warrior name, Sitting Bull.

Sitting Bull (SB): Daddy, Daddy!  Twenty, thirty more coup against the Crows and I only got wounded three times and a bullet in my foot!  Now I am a respected man!

BBSD: You shall lead our people.

SB: It’s 1866, says the white man.  They built Fort Buford on our land.  After 2.5 years of war, better to go deep into buffalo country and fend for oneself.  The whites may get me at last.  I will have good times till then.  

Lakota Indians: The pale-faces say if we stop fighting we can live on reservations and they will feed us.  They are offering the Fort Laramie Treaty in 1868.

SB: You are fools to make yourselves slaves for their handouts. See if I am poor, or my people either.

Narrator: Sitting Bull was referring to the Fort Laramie Treaty in 1868.  90% of the Lakota people signed the treaty forcing them on reservations where they had to live on what the pale-face, I mean, white man, provided them.  That’s the largest shaded area on the map.  Lakota Indians would come and go, often leaving for an autumn buffalo hunt and returning for food rations at the reservation.

SB: Meanwhile, I’m going to start a fight with the Crow Indians again.  Our old ways of life are best.  For my bravery in war, I am now the leader of the entire Sioux nation and the people when I say fight and make peace when I say make peace.

3. Introducing Crazy Horse

Crazy Horse (CH):   You will never see a picture of me because a photograph might steal my soul.  I like to be alone, wear only underpants, and give anything of value to the poor.  They say I am the best warrior.  I don’t care about honor and I let others count coup that be mine.  There is one thing I want in the world is that other man’s wife.  I took her hostage and the man shot me in the face with a Colt revolver.   I recovered because, you know, I’m Crazy Horse.  I do that.

SB: So buddy, Crazy Horse, let’s get together and attack those Crows, yeah?

General Sherman: Not so fast!  You’re getting too strong. We’re giving guns to the Crows.  

SB: Hmph.  Get in our way, will you, pale-face?  It would be a shame if something happened to your precious transcontinental railroad.  Those Pawnee Indians you hired to guard it?  About 100 are dead and about half of those are women and children.

Sherman: While the Americans are aghast, to be fair, we also kill your women and children all the time.  Wait – , I’d never say that!  Stop putting words in my mouth, Mr. Feigin.

CH: Whatever.  Back to the hunt.  We have 1,000 warriors with us to attack Crows and there’s a bunch of white people with their army defending their railroad in Montana.

SB: Let’s get all the chiefs together and discuss a plan tomorrow.

Teenager 1: I’m bored. My parents gave up on a bedtime.  Let’s go count some coup.

Teenager 2: Good idea!

Teenager 3:  It’s not, though peer pressure makes me think it is so I’m coming too.

SB: Modeh ani … it’s the next morning and … what?  Why are all the teenagers lined up over there shooting rifles?

Teenager 1: We woke up a drunk white guy and now we’re all shooting at each other!

Teenager 2:  Come on SB!  Are you going to join in this fight or are you chicken?

SB: I am not afraid.  I’m going to sit down to smoke my pipe.  I’m ignoring the bullets and I’m calmly watching all of you scream your heads off until my pipe is done.

Teenager 1: The white man is finally leaving!  They’re going away!  That’s the end of that!

4. The Great Sioux War: 1876

Lakota Indians: We’re living here really, really peacefully on the reservation just like you asked.  White people keep coming on to our land looking for gold led by some soldier named Custer.  President Grant, please honor the Fort Laramie treaty and get them off our reservation.

President Grant: We have no more obligation to issue food to you and we cannot stop people from looking for gold.  Give up the land and go to Indian Territory where we’re still giving food to Indians.

Lakota Indians: This is like our Yerushalyim – the Creator himself gave the Sacred Medicine Arrows here.  It is holy.

Grant: Talk to the hand.  It may be your land though we’re not using the army to keep people away.  Your call.

Lakota Indians: We have no fight with you though we stay.

Grant: All Indians not on reservations must report by January 31, 1876.

Lakota Indians: This is the middle of the winter and it’s 60 degrees below zero some nights!  Many of us don’t even believe you’re serious because what you ask is impossible.

Narrator: Throughout the winter the U.S. army attacked peaceful and non-peaceful Indians.  Some generals would attack only as needed and others would set fire to tipis, buffalo meat for the winter, and burn everything to the ground leaving any survivors to die in the cold.  The survivors would trek for days in the cold to reach Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.

Sitting Bull: Our time is better spent hunting buffalo than fighting with soldiers.  Meanwhile, let’s get ready for war.  Gouge out fifty circles of flesh from each of my arms.  Now some sun dances.  Now some vision questions. Ah, I see it all.  [pause] When we fight, the white man is to die.  One catch – we will win only if we do not take any of their stuff.

Grant: My generals are frustrated because Indians do not line up to attack.  They hang with one arm around the neck of a horse and fire arrows and guns from underneath.  They can shoot up to three arrows at a time!  We have no where to aim to hit you.  You are the best cavalry soldiers on earth.  Thankfully we have Crow Indians to fight back against you.

5. Custer’s Last Stand / The Battle of Little BigHorn

[We watched a video for this part …]

6. Lakota Starving: 1876

Lakota: There are not enough buffalo left.  Our way of life is dying and so are we.

Grant: We’ll give you money for food.  You will give up more land.

Lakota: We will sign while covering our eyes.  It’s not like we really understand what we’re signing anyway.  Your words are like a man knocking me in the head with a club.  Whatever the white people ask of us, wherever we go, we always say Yes-Yes-Yes!  Whenever we don’t agree you always reply: You won’t get anything to eat!  You won’t get anything to eat!

Grant: Also, you have to send warriors to fight against your people not on reservations.

Lakota: Done.  We just destroyed Chief Dull Knife’s Indians.  The village was destroyed in 15 minutes of fire.  Sacred shirts, warbonnets, painted hides, holy clothing, war shields – gone.

Dull Knife: This is infuriating.  I could have won the war against the soldiers!  I can’t also win the war against other Indians!  Y’all might as well stay here and kill the rest of us.

General Sheridan: Sir, I respect your bravery and agree to treat you and your tribe fairly.  Make your way to Indian Territory where you will be supported.  Give up war and farm.

Dull Knife: We surrendered.  We’re in Indian Territory.  Other Cheyenne’s are already here.  They say they receive food for 2 days of the week and now there are more mouths to feed.  We have Malaria.  We’re dying.

Sheridan: It’s two years later and I’m coming to Oklahoma to check on the Cheyenne Indians.  …. What?  … what’s this?  – they’re dying.  This isn’t what we promised! 

Dull Knife: There’s nothing to hunt.  The buffalo are all gone.

Sheridan: Almost any race of man will fight rather than starve.  Can’t we give this man enough to eat and give him integrity?

Dull Knife: My friends, I’m leaving.  I don’t want blood spilt here.  If you are going to send your soldiers after me, give distance.  Then we can make the ground bloody in that place.  

Sheridan: Your buffalo lands have been replaced with fenced cattle ranches.  You have attacked cattle ranches to survive.  Some folks didn’t take kindly to you stealing their cows and fights have left 10 white men dead.  We have to stop you now.

Dull Knife: We have made it far enough to be in our own country and will fight no more or harm any white people.  What’s that?  Half of you disagree and want to travel further with Little Wolf?  Okay, we split up.

7. Dull Knife’s Cheyenne and 8. Little Wolf’s Cheyenne

7. Dull Knife’s Cheyenne Dull Knife: Oops.  We ran into an army fort.  800 miles of travel only to surrender again! Sheridan: We’ll take good care of you for now then you have to go back to Indian territory.  We can’t have Indians going as they please. Dull Knife: You will have to come in here with clubs, knock us on the head, drag us out and take us down there dead. Sheridan: This is out of my control now – no food, water, heat, or leaving your barracks and it’s coming on winter. Dull Knife: If you allow us to remain we will live like white people, work, and wear their clothes.  We will never make trouble.  There are only a few of us left, and we only wanted a little ground, where we could live.”   Narrator: On January 9, 1878, Dull Knife’s band of Cheyenne Indians covered the windows with blankets, put together guns from parts that they had saved as jewelry and toys or had hidden, used the few bullets they had, and broke out knowing they hadn’t much hope of seeing the sun rise again. Dull Knife: It is true that we must die, but we will not die shut up here like dogs; we will die on the prairie; we will die fighting. Narrator: With 6” of snow and near zero degrees temperature, under a full moon the Cheyennes smashed the windows, shot the nearest guards, and moved their starving bodies out.  Some stopped at the river for their first drink in a long time and were gunned down.  The rest dropped dead one after another as they ran. . . .  Dull Knife: . . . after 12 days the last 32 of us dug a pit and prepared to die.  Guns fired back and forth between the soldiers and the last of us.  A little girl raised a gun in a show of surrender and her mother yanked her to the ground, slit her throat, and stabbed herself to death.  Eventually the pit fell silent.  Of the hundreds of Cheyenne Indians only six remained.

8. Little Wolf Cheyenne Little Wolf: We head towards the Powder River and camp for the winter where no one will find us. Lieutenant Clark: Little Wolf, you and many with you served with us as scouts finding other Indians.  We like you.  Surrender please. Little Wolf: All 114 of us will surrender because you are the only one who talked to us before fighting.  I am very glad we did not fight and that none of my people or yours have been killed.  There are only  a few of us left and we only want a little ground where we can live. Clark: You shall have it.  You can remain at Fort Keogh. Little Wolf: I will be your scout again. Narrator: The country was so upset at what happened to Dull Knife’s Indians that Little Wolf got better treatment.

9. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse Separate

Sitting Bull: I am tired of all this.  I’m going far north along the chanku wakan, the sacred road, to Canada.  They say this line is holy.  On one side you are perfectly free and on the other, you are in danger.

Crazy Horse: We are falling apart.  After the Battle of Little Bighorn, we are no longer together.  I’m going off to the wilderness to have a vision quest and speak to the spirits.  I’m fasting, praying, walking through blizzards, and waiting for guidance from above.  [pause for a bit here…]  Nothing.

Lieutenant Clark: Crazy Horse, it’s time to give up.  Your own people are against you.  If you surrender now we will be allowed a last buffalo hunt and visit to the Great Father, the President of the United States.

Crazy Horse: Me and 889 followers are coming in to surrender.  The Indian Wars are over.

Lieutenant Clark: Now sign this document saying that you will become a farmer and 

stay on the reservation.  Also sign here that says you will help us get the last remaining Indians still fighting.

Crazy Horse: What about the buffalo hunt?  Didn’t you say no more war?  I agreed to that and now you want me to make war?  

Lieutenant Clark: Think about it and come back tomorrow.

Crazy Horse: Fine, I will take my warriors north, camp beside the soldiers, and fight with them until there is not an enemy Indian left.

Lieutenant Clark: My translator said you said, ‘We will go north and fight until not a white man is left.’

Narrator: While another translator tries to explain to Clark what Crazy Horse really said, Clark blows up and in two different languages Crazy Horse and Clark have louder and louder words with each other.  Clark telegraphs his superiors to discuss how to get rid of Crazy Horse.

10. The End of Crazy Horse

Narrator: The next day 1,000 Indians from another tribe come to arrest Crazy Horse.

Crazy Horse: I want no trouble.  I came here because it is peace here.

General Sheridan: You were smart to accept the arrest without a fight.  You will be taken to prison in Florida and left to die there.  You will be unharmed.

Narrator: Not understanding, Crazy Horse shook hands and smiled as a cart with a small window and shackles was brought.

Crazy Horse: I won’t go in there!  It is the place where prisoners are kept!

Narrator: Crazy Horse knocked two guards against the wall, pulled out a knife, and slashed the arm of another man who grabbed his wrist.  Another guard thrust his bayonet into Crazy Horse’s back piercing his kidney and lung.  As Crazy Horse screamed, soldiers attacked him again and again.

Crazy Horse: <dying> I don’t know why they stabbed me.  No white man is to blame for this.  I blame the Indians.  All I wanted was to be left alone.

11. The End of Sitting Bull

Sitting Bull: I hoped to stay in Canada for the rest of my life.  Only a year since I arrived, the buffalo herds are gone and my people are heading back into Montana Territory.  I can’t stop them.  I’m homesick.  I’m hungry.  Our clothing is rotting and falling off our frail bodies while local Indian tribes attack us.

United States: Will you agree to live on a reservation and live a life of farming?  We will treat you like the other Indians there.

Sitting Bull: A warrior I have been.  Now it is all over.  A hard time I have.

United States: We’re sending you and your people to prison to die.  We lied.  

Your people had the big area in the Fort Laramie treaty.  Now they’re down to that darkest area on the map.