Connections: The Spirit of Crazy Horse
SBS TV
Thursday, August 19, 8.30 p.m. (8.00 Adelaide)
Reviewed by Ignatius Kim
To understand a people, one must understand their origins, says a Lakota activist interviewed in this moving documentary.
The Lakota nation (Sioux to the whites) traces its origins to the Black Hills in present-day South Dakota, considered sacred in Lakota legend as "the heart of everything that is".
The Spirit of Crazy Horse chronicles one of the many chapters in the history of native American resistance to oppression and dispossession — the 1973 battle at Wounded Knee led by AIM (American Indian Movement).
Narrated by Milo Yellow Hair, one of the Oglala (one of the seven bands of the Lakota nation) participants, it sets the battle firmly
in historical context, beginning with the first wave of resistance, led by Chief Red Cloud in the 1860s.
This forced the US government to sign the Treaty of Fort Laramie, which ceded the Black Hills and western South Dakota to the Lakota.
However, as buffalo herds (the primary source of food, clothing and shelter) began to diminish, a split occurred within the resistance.
Red Cloud's faction accepted the government's offer of free food and liquor and settled around Fort Laramie. Soon known to their compatriots as "hang-round-the-fort-Indians", they became totally pacified.
The uncompromising Chief Crazy Horse, who had refused to sign the treaty, led a breakaway group (the "hostiles") that continued to roam the shrinking hunting grounds.
Around this time, in 1874, prospectors discovered gold in the Black Hills. When the government tried to persuade Crazy Horse to sell the land, he refused even to negotiate. This led to the 1876 battle at Little Big Horn in which General Custer and his troops were annihilated after attacking Crazy Horse's encampment.
A year later, facing starvation, Crazy Horse succumbed to pacification. Soon after, he was murdered by white colonists and the Indian Police. In 1889 the Black Hills were annexed. In 1890, the regiment that Custer formerly led massacred 200 unarmed Oglalas at Wounded Knee.
The Lakotas' territory subsequently shrank into the Pine Ridge reservation.
The documentary focuses on the origins of AIM in the generation of radicalising native American youth in the late '60s. Key grievances AIM set out to address were the poverty on the reservations and the inequalities between the majority of residents and the privileged
A sustained civil rights campaign culminated in the 1973 battle at Wounded Knee when AIM led an armed reclamation of the sacred massacre site. When the 71-day siege ended, AIM's leadership was arrested and subjected to protracted trials.
Taking advantage of this, the Lakota bureaucrats undertook a wide campaign of harassment and violence against AIM supporters at Pine Ridge. In this, they were aided by the FBI and the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The resulting civil war ended in a day-long shoot-out between FBI agents and three AIM activists, one of whom was Leonard Peltier.
The two FBI agents and one activist were killed. Peltier was convicted of murder and given a life sentence. Later evidence of concealed ballistics reports, perjured testimony and falsified affidavits was not enough to obtain a retrial.
Peltier has since become a symbol of native American resistance, and a campaign for his release continues.
The Spirit of Crazy Horse both attacks the oppression of the Lakota nation and celebrates the long heritage of resistance against it.
Not much is known or heard about the native American struggle, and this documentary is an ideal introduction. In the current climate of anti-Mabo racism I found the parallels with the Aboriginal land rights campaign particularly marked. Interviews with whites living near Pine Ridge expose a fear similar to the one currently being generated against the Mabo ruling, i.e., that "they" are out to take your backyard.
In 1980, the US Supreme Court ruled that the Black Hills had been stolen from the Lakota and ordered $122 million compensation.
But despite the poverty — and as interest accumulates on the payment — the Lakota have rejected it. As Crazy Horse once replied: "One does not sell the land on which the people walk".
The spirit of Chief Crazy Horse lives on.
[For those wanting a closer look at the circumstances surrounding Peltier's conviction, SBS is also screening Warrior: The Life of Leonard Peltier on August 23, 11.05 p.m. (10.35 p.m. Adelaide).]