Bloody Knife - Early Life

Early Life

While his exact date and place of birth are unknown, Bloody Knife was probably born between 1837 and 1840 in Dakota Territory. His father was a Hunkpapa Sioux and his mother a member of the Arikara tribe, also known as the Ree. Along with brothers and perhaps one sister, he lived with his father's tribe during his early childhood, but was not well-treated by them because of their enmity with his mother's people. Bloody Knife grew to hate the Sioux and especially a Sioux named Gall. Gall was the adopted brother of Sitting Bull, but while Sitting Bull had also mistreated Bloody Knife it was his peer with whom Bloody Knife developed an enduring feud. When Bloody Knife's mother left his father in 1856 to return to her own tribe, Bloody Knife joined her. About fifteen, he found himself on the Upper Mississippi River at an American Fur Company trading post called Fort Clark.

Conflicts between the Arikaras and Sioux were routine there, with Sioux war parties attacking Arikaras who wandered too far from the fort. In spite of the threat they represented, Bloody Knife took on and succeeded in the dangerous job of delivering mail to other forts in Missouri and to Fort Totten in North Dakota. He did not, however, pass through these years unscathed. During a visit to his father, Bloody Knife was—contrary to the customary protection of guests—attacked and ambushed by Gall and several other Hunkpapas who beat him severely, stripped him, spat on him, mocked him and hit him with coup sticks and musket ramrods. In the fall of 1862, two of his brothers were killed, mutilated, and scalped by a Sioux war party led by Gall. Their bodies were left to be eaten by wolves.