1899: Henry Crow Dog II is born

Henry Crow Dog II will become a traditional medicine man of the Lakota. Despite the individual land-ownership-allotment provisions of the 1897 Dawes Act, which often left too little land in Indian hands, he is able to secure land and create Crow Dog’s Paradise, a ceremonial gathering place on the Rosebud Reservation.

The American Indian Movement (AIM), which grew out of the 1960s civil rights era, had its beginnings on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota following a meeting in August 1972 with the Crow Dogs, Henry and his son Leonard. AIM was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1968 by Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt, Eddie Benton-Benai, and George Mitchell. The original goal of AIM was to protect urban Native peoples’ rights. AIM was responsible for a few highly publicized protests, including the occupation by American Indians of Alcatraz Island (1969–71), the occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota (1973), and “Longest Walk” from San Francisco, California, to Washington, D.C., in 1978. Read a powerful memoir about the Crow Dogs, titled Lakota Woman, by Mary Crow Dog, the wife of Leonard Crow Dog, with Richard Erdoes, 1991.

Theme

Land and Water, Medicine Ways, Native Rights

Region

Great Plains