10 ways to understand History

Native American Warrior

                                  
                                  Image Credit Wikipedia Commons
                                  

 Medicine Crow, whose name is more accurately translated as Sacred Raven, was born somewhere in the Musselshell country in 1848. Medicine Crow lived his first fifteen years like his father. As a boy he would hear children's tales. Then came the reading of warrior's deeds. Crow got trained to run, swim, wrestle, and hunt. He also learned secrets of nature. Crow dreamed of becoming a warrior and then a chief. As a youth of fifteen, Medicine Crow went on his first war party. He earned no honors but gained valuable experience. In the next nineteen years, he led the strong and often dangerous life of a Plains Indian warrior. For twelve of those years he was a war chief noted for his agility in hand-to-hand combat, his courage, and his dependability as a war party commander who usually brought his men back home not only safely but victoriously. Because of his dreams and the fact that his people saw his seemingly impossible visions come true, he was revered as a visionary medicine man. The 1840's were trail time for the Apsaroke tribe. During this time, the 1840's the outbreak of smallpox had reduce the population of the Apsaroke. It had reduced the population from more then 8,000 to less then 1,000. The tribe had to be made strong again for fear that surrounding aggressive tribes succeed in finishing the job the deadly pox had begun. Although boys had to become men quickly, the youth of the Apsaroke tribe accepted the challenge. Many died, but those who survived became great warriors and wise chieftains. In 1811 General William Henry Harrison led an army against Prophet's Town on the Tippecanoe River in Indiana. . Harrison wanted to defeat the Indians before Tecumseh succeeded in uniting the Indians into an unbeatable force. Harrison marched against Prophet's Town while Tecumseh was away trying to get more Indians to join his confederacy. An Indian army of about 450 warriors attacked Harrison's army at 4:30 in the morning of 7 November 1811. Harrison's army had about a thousand troops. The American army defeated the Indians, but suffered heavy losses. Sixty-two men were killed or died later from their wounds. The Indian's losses are impossible to know because they carried off most of their dead and wounded. This battle was known as the battle of Tippecanoe.