The Art of Judy Gordon
Spotted Eagle
of the Sans Arcs – 1876
Black ink on paper, digitally shaded with tan and brown, 2002
8½ in. x 11 in.
Collection of the artist
Judy says:
Before February 7, 2000, Roxy insisted that I keep going onward with my artwork. This is one of my new drawings, as a result of that request. The original is shown here.
Somewhere at Rosebud Creek, south of the Yellowstone, about 1869, Spotted Eagle and other Sitting Bull's supporters, prepared a ceremony to appoint Sitting Bull as supreme chief of the Sioux confederation.
He reassured the Sioux with the Battle of Arrow Creek which drove the surveyors to the Musselshell River, and then back to the safety of Fort Ellis.
Remembered most about Arrow Creek was the fate of Plenty Lice; four soldiers with the Baker Expedition killed, butchered and threw his arms and legs into a campfire. Later his relatives retrieved the scorched bones.
Needless to say, Spotted Eagle, did not care for railroad workers. Realizing in 1875, with the rising white pressure, one of the four tribal circles, was Sans Arcs of Spotted Eagle. He was not one to give up, and akicita (meaning tried to live peacefully already with whites) soldiered people who had tried. Not one to surrender at that time.
Spotted Eagle was still allied with Sitting Bull, in the war of 1876, during their Canadian exile. Indians would be treated as enemies, if they carried their arms in the United States. Spotted Eagle armed with a belt filled with Winchester cartridges draped over his shoulder and chest, and a huge war club with three knife blades in his lap, mischievously winked at Colonel Macleod.
Then June 15, 1881, Spotted Eagle along with surviving members of the Sans Arcs surrendered and was deposited at Standing Rock, now named Fort Yates, North Dakota. At that time the Dakotas, north and south states, had not yet been established by the United States.
Spotted Eagle of the Sans Arcs – 1876, © 2003, by Judy Nell Gordon. All rights reserved.
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