Kill Eagle, Waŋblí Kte (ca. 1827–1885) was a prominent leader of the

Sihasapa The Sihásapa or Blackfoot Sioux are a division of the Lakota people, Titonwan, or Teton. ''Sihásapa'' is the Lakota word for "Blackfoot", whereas '' Siksiká'' has the same meaning in the Blackfoot language. As a result, the Sihásapa have ...

(Blackfeet) band of Lakota people during the late nineteenth century.

Early years

Born about 1827, Kill Eagle was the son of a

Brulé The Brulé are one of the seven branches or bands (sometimes called "sub-tribes") of the Teton (Titonwan) Lakota American Indian people. They are known as Sičhą́ǧu Oyáte (in Lakȟóta) —Sicangu Oyate—, ''Sicangu Lakota, o''r "Burnt ...

father and a Sihasapa mother. His father may have been the first leader of a small Sihasapa band known as the Wazhazha (not to be confused with a Brule/

Oglala The Oglala (pronounced , meaning "to scatter one's own" in Lakota language) are one of the seven subtribes of the Lakota people who, along with the Dakota, make up the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Seven Council Fires). A majority of the Oglala live o ...

band by the same name). Kill Eagle gained prominence through one of the "soldiers societies" (''akicita''). In 1864, he helped return the white captive,

Fanny Kelly Fanny Kelly (1845–1904) was a North American pioneer woman captured by the Sioux and freed five months later. She later wrote a book about her experiences called ''Narrative of My Captivity among the Sioux Indians'' in 1871. Early life Fanny Wig ...

.''New York Herald'', 24 Sept., 6 Oct. 1876. By 1866, Kill Eagle had assumed his father's role as leader of the Wazhazha band (Sihasapa). He signed the Treaty of 1868 at

Fort Rice Fort Rice ( Lakota: ''Psíŋ Otȟúŋwahe''; "Wild Rice Village") was a frontier military fort in the 19th century named for American Civil War General James Clay Rice in what was then Dakota Territory and what is now North Dakota. The 50th Wiscons ...

, agreeing to settle his band on the

Great Sioux Reservation The Great Sioux Reservation initially set aside land west of the Missouri River in South Dakota and Nebraska for the use of the Lakota Sioux, who had dominated this territory. The reservation was established in the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 ...

. By the early 1870s, his band was the second largest among the Sihasapa and had settled on the Missouri River near the Standing Rock Agency in present northern

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota and Dakota Sioux Native American tribes, who comprise a large porti ...

. They experimented with farming and received rations from the Office of Indian Affairs through the Indian agent at Standing Rock.

Great Sioux War, 1876-77

In the spring of 1876, an embargo on the sale of ammunition to the Lakota was put in place as part of the escalation of the government's conflict with the Lakota over the

Black Hills The Black Hills ( lkt, Ȟe Sápa; chy, Moʼȯhta-voʼhonáaeva; hid, awaxaawi shiibisha) is an isolated mountain range rising from the Great Plains of North America in western South Dakota and extending into Wyoming, United States. Black ...

. While this policy was intended to limit access to ammunition for the non-treaty ("hostile") bands such as that of Sitting Bull, it also impacted friendly bands on the reservation such as that of Kill Eagle. Concerned that rations were not sufficient to feed his people, Kill Eagle illegally departed Standing Rock in May 1876 with approximately 26 lodges, heading out on a buffalo hunt. The remainder of Kill Eagle's band remained at Standing Rock under the leadership of Red Hawk. The lodges with Kill Eagle successfully killed buffalo but then inadvertently ended up in the main Indian non-treaty Indian village that had gathered for the annual sundance. They soon found themselves caught up in the

Great Sioux War The Great Sioux War of 1876, also known as the Black Hills War, was a series of battles and negotiations that occurred in 1876 and 1877 in an alliance of Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne against the United States. The cause of the war was the ...

. Kill Eagle was abused when he refused to join in the fight against the army at the

Battle of the Rosebud The Battle of the Rosebud (also known as the Battle of Rosebud Creek) took place on June 17, 1876, in the Montana Territory between the United States Army and its Crow and Shoshoni allies against a force consisting mostly of Lakota Sioux and Nor ...

and he also appears to have stayed out of the fighting at the

Battle of the Little Bighorn The Battle of the Little Bighorn, known to the Lakota and other Plains Indians as the Battle of the Greasy Grass, and also commonly referred to as Custer's Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota Sioux, Nor ...

. Kill Eagle and his lodges managed to slip away from the main village and surrendered at the Standing Rock Agency on September 15, 1876. He was interviewed by army officers about the Little Bighorn and his comments were widely reported in the press, one of the first native perspectives of Custer's defeat. He also gave information for one of the earliest maps of the battleground. Kill Eagle and his followers were treated as prisoners of war for nearly a year, with another prominent Sihasapa named Goose serving as band leader.

Standing Rock Reservation

Kill Eagle was again recognized as band leader for the Wazhazha in 1877 and he remained at Standing Rock for the remainder of his life. In the Sitting Bull Surrender Census, taken in September 1881, Kill Eagle is shown as leader of a small band of 25 families, totaling 123 people. Kill Eagle's own family included his wife, First Born, and three daughters named Medicine Woman, Foolish Woman and Pretty Face. He had four horses, five cows, two dogs and twelve chickens. The census also noted that Kill Eagle had cultivated two acres for the past two years and had cut twelve tons of hay and produced 37 1/2 bushels of corn.Dickson, ''Sitting Bull Surrender Census'', 193 Kill Eagle disappeared from the census and rations records in 1885, suggesting that he died sometime during that year.

Notes

Bibliography

*Dickson, Ephriam D. III
"Prisoners in the Indian Camp: Kill Eagle's Band at the Little Bighorn,"
''Greasy Grass'' 27 (May 2011): 3-11. Presents a new map of the famous battle and a short biography of the noted Sihasapa leader Kill Eagle. *Dickson, Ephriam D. III
''The Sitting Bull Surrender Census: The Lakotas at Standing Rock Agency, 1881''
(Pierre: South Dakota State Historical Society Press, 2010). *Donahue, Michael N. ''Drawing Battle Lines: The Map Testimony of Custer's Last Fight''. El Segundo, CA: Upton and Sons, Publishers, 2009. *Graham, W. A. ''The Custer Myth''. New York: Bonanza Books, 1953. *"Kill Eagle's Story of His Stay with the Hostiles," ''New York Herald'', 24 Sept., 6 Oct. 1876. {{DEFAULTSORT:Eagle, Kill Native American leaders Lakota leaders Native American people of the Indian Wars People of the Great Sioux War of 1876 People from South Dakota 1820s births 1885 deaths Sihasapa 19th-century Native Americans