Wednesday, December 28, 2022

Forgotten History: The Wrongful Hanging Of Chief Two Sticks




 Dec. 28, 1894, Lakota Chief Cha Nopa Uhah (“Two Sticks”) was hung today still proclaiming his innocence. “My heart is not bad. I did not kill the cowboys; the Indian boys [meaning White Faced Horse, Fights With, Two Two, and First Eagle] killed them. I have killed many Indians, but never killed a white man; I never pulled a gun on a white man. The great father* and the men under him should talk to me and I would show them I am innocent. The white men are going to kill me for something I haven’t done.”

Chief Two Sticks had been arrested and convicted for the Feb 4th murder of four white riders for the Humphrey Ranch 30 miles north of Chadron, Nebraska.

The Humphrey Ranch immediately sent word to Captain George LeRoy Brown of the 11th Infantry. Brown telegraphed Ft. Meade near Sturgis, South Dakota and tribal police were ordered to arrest Two Sticks. When they arrived at his camp a gunfight ensued five of the policemen were killed and one was wounded.

After this first fight, a party of 25 tribal policemen went to the camp of Chief No Waters where Two Sticks was holed up and another gun battle followed. First Eagle, Two Two-, and White-Faced Horse were killed in the shootout. Two Sticks was badly wounded.

Two Sticks survived and, in the spring, came up for trial, and although their witnesses did not place him at the scene and there was no other evidence of his participation in the killing of the Humphrey riders he was still convicted.

At his hanging, Two Sticks said, “My heart knows I am not guilty, and I am happy. I am not afraid to die. I was taught that if I raised my hands to Wakan Tanka (God), and told a lie, that God would kill me that day. I never told a lie in my life.”

As the noose was placed around his neck Chief Two Sticks sang his death song. He was dropped through the trapdoor and, according to the reports, “his death was instantaneous.”

He was placed in a pine box and buried outside of the gates of the regular graveyard because the citizens of Deadwood did not want the body of an Indian contaminating their graveyard. 

On December 9, 1998, the Adams Museum in Deadwood repatriated Two Sticks’ Sacred Pipe to his great-grandson, Richard Swallow, Sr., and the Oglala Lakota Tribe in compliance with the Native Americans Graves Protection and Act of 1990.



Sources:

https://www.indianz.com/News/2009/07/06/tim_giago_the_execution_of_lak.asp

https://www.historynet.com/sioux-chief-two-sticks/

https://academic.oup.com/whq/article-abstract/52/2/225/6178604?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false

https://www.sdhspress.com/journal/south-dakota-history-42-1/reasonable-doubt-the-trial-and-hanging-of-two-sticks/4201_hall.pdf

https://www.newspapers.com/image/648857625/?terms=%22four%20cowboys%22&match=1

https://www.newspapers.com/image/674941514/?terms=%22Chief%20Two%20Sticks%22&match=1

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