What Is Crow Dog Resilient

Crow Dog
The Rebellious, Committed, and Resilient
Crow Dog is a Native American writer and activist from the Burnt Thigh Nation of Lakota Indians. Her life and participation in the American Indian Movement (AIM) has shown how a woman’s successful work can change a life of despair. Crow Dog was rebellious, committed, and resilient during her struggle for equality. Crow Dog was born Mary Ellen Brave Bird, in 1953, on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The absence of work was prevalent on reservations and manymen left so their families could receive government assistance. However, Crow Dog’s father had deserted the family when she was young and her moth was left to be the sole financial provider for the family. Crow Dog and her six
siblings were raised by their grandparents while her mother worked as a nurse and lived a hundred miles away. Like so many of her people, Crow Dog lived in a one room shack with no electricity, heating system, or plumbing. She and her siblings rarely had shoes and never had new clothes; instead, the family went to annual rummage sales at a local Catholic mission. With little money for food, Crow Dog’s family ate rabbits, deer meat, ground squirrels, and even porcupines. The resilience that was imbedded in her people was reflected in their lifestyle. Crow Dog’s aunt, Elsie Flood, was independent, never asking or receiving help from other, and was unafraid. She had a great impact on Crow Dog’s life. Mission schools were the norm for generations of American Indians. Children were required to leave home and if a family was unwilling to send them, the repercussions resulted in a loss of food aid, land and even jail. “The schools were intended as an alternative to the outright extermination seriously advocated by generals Sherman and Sheridan, as well as by most settlers and prospectors…” (Crow Dog, 30) Crow Dog, who had only lived with her mother and grandmother, was forced to leave home and live at the St. Francis mission school. While the BIA now manages the schools, at the time the Catholic Church ran tem and was infamous for physical and emotional abuse. Beatings were given for a failure in devotions, praying the wrong way or speaking in one’s native language, few, if any if the children were allowed to visit their families. For Crow Dog, like so many others, this was a culture shock. The old atmosphere, unfamiliar routines, language problems, and clock were all counter to the American Indian Culture were children were constantly surrounded by relatives, carried around, treated respectfully and never beaten. It was at this stage of Crow Dog’s life, when she first became rebellious. Crow Dog witnesses the abuse of her friends at the mission school and when she went home for a visit, a young girl who was active in the Civil Rights movement spoke to her about the Black Panthers, Young Lords, and Weathermen.
This girl suggested they start an underground newspaper and reveal the atrocities against them. Crow Dog, along with her friends Charlene Left Hand Bull and Gina One Star put together a newspaper they titled Red Panther, in which they wrote of the poor food, living conditions, beaten and even sexual relations between some of the priests and nuns of St. Francis. When Crow Dog was held up as a bad example, she didn’t mind. She was determined not to allow herself or others to be treated so badly without speaking out. Upon Crow Dog’s insistence to the school, she was allowed to leave early and her life took another major
turn. Crow Dog returned home from the school only to leave once again. At seventeen, she was unable to understand her mother’s ‘white belief.’ Crow Dog ran away and wandered aimlessly with a large group of American Indian youth getting a first-hand view of racism and inequality outside of her reservation’s sphere. She had started drinking alcohol at an early age and alcoholism was a way of life for many who lived in such a hopeless situation. Crow Dog and her group stayed drunk or high that summer and traveled almost penniless, shoplifting for food. Because in their opinion they “had always been stolen from by what shopkeepers and government agents,” she and her friends felt moral satisfaction. Crow Dog knew of her ancestors being told to eat grass by government agents and this fueled her rebellion, Roaming helped Crow Dog have a broader outlook and she soon desired to exhibit even more of her Indian culture. She stopped drinking all together and went back home once more. It was then that Crow Dog found AIM. Crow Dog’s first encounter with AIM was a powwow in 1971. There, she met her future husband, Leonard Crow Dog, a medicine man from the Red Nation of Lakota Indians. AIM was an organization formed to address treaty issues poverty, housing, and harassment by police, attracted members across the United States. Crow Dog was able to join her fellow American Indians and make a stand through protests. The Trail of Broken Treaties was her first. In the Fall of 1972, Crow Dog joined AIM in a cross-country protest that led to the takeover of the BIA building in Washington D.C. The seven days Crow Dog spent there was an eye-opener to her as far as what the American Indians would do for their rights. “The takeover of the BIA building had not been planned.” Due to government pressure, church groups which had offered to lodge to the six hundred protesters, backed out. Frustrations led everyone to go to the BIA building and set up residence. Police and guards tried to evict everyone by force. When that didn’t work, the protestors found themselves surrounded by alarm police and the occupation turned into a siege. Crow Dog noticed that when her people behaved well, no one cared about their demands. But, as soon as the protestors got rowdy, they got plenty of support and media coverage. In the end, a compromise was reached and the government promised to appoint two administration officials to discuss AIM’s issues. This promise was not fulfilled AIM still felt victorious. “Morally it had been a great victory.” Crow Dog learned what a true commitment could yield in their cause. Commitment was an asset of Crow Dog’s that showed during the seventy-one day siege at Wounded Knee. Conditions had not changed the Pine Ridge reservation and employment and opportunity was controlled by the tribal chairman, Dicky Wilson. When people complained to Wilson, they or their family were brutalized or even murdered. Wilson turned Pine Ridge into an armed encampment, and so the decision was made to make a stand at Wounded Knee. While Crow Dog witnessed the FBI and federal marshals trade fire with her fellow protestors, much of the time was spent trying to keep warm and finding food to eat. “Wounded Knee was a place one got scared in occasionally, a place in which people made love, got married Indian Style, gave birth, and died.” Crow Dog was pregnant at that time and as various people left for safety, she stayed and gave birth to her first son amidst the gunfire. Ceremonies had been held each night and Crow Dog developed a spiritual awakening that replaced the emptiness she had felt for so long. Leonard Crow Dog was the spiritual leader for the AIM and conducted the ceremonies, including the Ghost Dance, during the siege, Crow Dog felt a great reverence for Leonard and later, when their stand at Wounded Knee ended, they married and joined families.
Leonard, having three children from his previous marriage and Crow Dog with her infant son Pedro created a large, happy family. But, the life of Leonard’s was constantly filled with visitors and Crow Dog found herself exhausted from their constant influx. Crow Dog proved her resilience when, in 1975 her husband Leonard was sentenced to twenty-three years on trumped up charges by the government, “From the first day Leonard soent in jail his friends rallied to free him.” For Crow Dog she found herself alone and the sole provider for their children. Yet, through her resilience, she adjusted to the misfortune she had known most of her life. Finally, after two long years, Leonard was re-sentenced to time served and released from prison. Their tribe joined in a feast, welcoming Crow Dog’s husband home, and giving her a new name: Ohitika Win, “Brave Woman”. Compelled by poverty and prejudice, Crow Dog was rebellious, committed and resilient in order to help her people stand up and say they were human beings with natural born rights, Her spirit made a difference and gave others
hope.