Walter Shirlaw's sketch entitled "The Challenge" is shown above. This sketch, as well as the other sketches accompanying the article were published in The Century Magazine, Volume XLVII, No. 6 (November 1893)
Walter Shirlaw's sketch entitled "Nearing the End" is pictured above, depicting Head Chief's rush downhill into a hail of gunfire.
Shirlaw's sketch entitled "Sweeping the Plain Like a Whirlwind."
A column on local history, researched and written by Shane Dunning. Shane may be reached at [email protected].
An underappreciated aspect of western history has been the contribution of artists. Cassilly Adams' "Custer's Last Fight", reprinted by the Anheuser Busch company and distributed to saloons and bars all over the country, represents one of the most iconic and recognized images of that historic fight. Artists have also impacted our understanding of "ordinary" western life by depicting those who lived it. Charles M Russell, Frederick Remington and Bill Gollings are revered in our area and around the world for their works. However, these artists were rarely an actual eyewitness to history. An extraordinary and relatively unrecognized exception was Walter Shirlaw's involvement in the Suicide-By-Soldier deaths of Head Chief and Young Mule at Lame Deer on September 13, 1890.
Walter Shirlaw was born in Scotland in 1838. His family emigrated to America when he was three. He earned enough money during his younger years to pay for an art education in Europe. He developed his style and quickly became highly regarded, especially with his painting "The Tuning of the Bell." Perhaps his most important work "Sheep Shearing on the Bavarian Highlands" was completed in 1876. Shirlaw retuned to America to continue his career and was made a member of the National Academy in 1887.
During the Census of 1890, the American government sent out special agents to enumerate the number and conditions of Native Americans then under Federal Jurisdiction. Among these agents were several artists, including Julian Scott, Peter Moran and Walter Shirlaw. They were charged with providing enumerative figures and "illustrative material" for assigned tribes that eventually were presented in the report Indians Taxed and Not Taxed for the Eleventh Census of the United States. Shirlaw was dispatched to report on the Crow and Northern Cheyenne Tribes of Montana. In addition to his report, he contributed two full-color paintings, "The Race" (Crow) and "Omaha Dance" (Cheyenne) to that historic document.
This was the reason a world-renowned artist was in Lame Deer, Montana, that September 13th, when Head Chief and Young Mule made their way down Squaw Hill. For those unfamiliar with that story, in 1890 the Northern Cheyenne were suffering mightily from starvation due to inadequate rations that were the responsibility of the Federal Government. Because of these deprivations and a lack of game, some Cheyenne would go off their reservation and kill the cattle of the ranchers who lived nearby. This caused considerable tension among the Northern Cheyenne, the Federal Government, and the local White population. In the fall of 1890, a teenager named Hugh Boyle was killed when he came upon a cow being butchered by Indians. The body was hidden. A search was organized by the ranchers after Boyle went missing, and the body was soon discovered in a ravine on a tall hill.
Eventually, the Cheyenne chief American Horse discovered that his daughter's boyfriend, Head Chief, had done the deed. Head Chief was a known hothead who had been too young to fight during the Indian wars and felt acutely a need to prove his warrior prowess. He was around twenty-five years old and had a teenaged devotee named Young Mule, who idolized him and followed him everywhere. Both had apparently been involved in Boyle's killing. Head Chief admitted to the killing but refused to be turned over to the Whites and be "hung like a dog." American Horse told the Indian Agent, J.C. Cooper, that Head Chief would meet his soldiers on ration day.
This solution was deemed acceptable by the Indian agent. On ration day, a detachment of US Army Cavalry under the command of Lt. S.C. Robertson deployed along a ridge under a large, commanding hill. Shirlaw observed what happened next in the company of the Indian Agent Cooper, a doctor and Lt. Robertson. He reported his observations in the magazine The Century in November 1893. Along with his article, "Artist's Adventures: The Rush To Death," Shirlaw included three sketches of the incident. The artist had also provided another sketch to accompany an article detailing this event written by his fellow eyewitness Lt. Robertson in Harpers' Weekly (October 18, 1890).
Shirlaw's short article describes how the local geography created an ominous location for the assembly of the tribe to witness the events that followed.
In an instant the young bucks who had fringed the outer space of the agency mounted their ponies, and from camp to camp conveyed the word of challenge. Then in haste they sought the rounded edges of the hills bordering the western bank of the Lame Deer, seeking reserved seats in the natural amphitheater. Following them went the squaws old and young, with their papooses and their household effects.
The military and Indian police took their initial positions, and around 2:00 pm, two Cheyenne braves on horseback appeared on a rocky point. Head Chief wore full regalia including war-paint and a large feather headdress.
They moved with great rapidity from point to point, shouting their battle-cry and firing, while showers of bullets plowed the ground about them. For one full hour this natural fortress was held by them, when, taken in the rear by a troop of cavalry, they were compelled to seek shelter on the plains or wooded hills beyond. Head Chief, still mounted, acted the hero, knowing that in the legends of the witnessing tribe his name would be celebrated as one who died a true brave. Unseen, he crossed the plain, taking flight for the opposite hills, where without warning he met a detachment of troops. The challenge was "to kill and be killed." So it was. Head Chief bit the dust ten feet from the point of encounter. Four bullets had done their work, and the Indian was laid low.
Young Mule was unmounted (his pony had been shot under him) and sought shelter in a dry run. He kept firing at the troops until his ammunition ran out and was shot dead, probably by the Indian Police.
The tragedy over, the multitude, eight hundred strong, came down the hills pell-mell, with colors and dust flying, the young bucks leading the van, sweeping the plain like a whirlwind; the squaws coming on with shrill shouts, chanting their dirges, which mingled with the howling of the dogs, - a scene never to be forgotten.
There are several, more detailed eye-witness accounts of Head Chief's and Young Mule's end, both from White and Indian perspectives, and some details of Shirlaw's article should certainly be scrutinized. John Stands-in-Timber eloquently paints the story from the Cheyenne side, as does Patty Hardground's and Fannie Standing Elk's documented eye-witness accounts. Lt. Robertson told his version to both Harpers Weekly and the St. Paul Pioneer Press in better detail.
Both Shirlaw's article and his US census reports reflected the prevailing paternalistic attitudes of many white men towards Native Americans at the time. Perhaps the most important contribution that Walter Shirlaw brings to this key moment in Western History, however, are his sketches, the rarest combination when the artist met the moment.
Reader Comments(0)