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During the early reservation period, there were three men named Red Shirt living on Pine Ridge. Just a caution for the possibility of confusing the various individuals.
http://lbha.proboards12.com/index.cgi?board=Indians&action=display&thread=1160400266&page=1The Red Shirt appearing in the photographs and who traveled with the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show was, as already noted, a member of the Wagluhe or Loafer Band, generally considered to be a mixture of Oglala and Brule.
In an interview in 1923, Red Shirt noted that he was born near a fort on the Platte River in Wyoming, the name of which he could not recall. Hans recently forwarded a reference to me that indicated Red Shirt was born near Orin Junction. For those of you not from Wyoming, Orin is roughly twenty miles downstream from Fort Fetterman.
Several books have indicated that Red Shirt was the son of Red Dog. This is incorrect. I have not been able to locate the original reference for this information but it is possible that this was a reference to one of the other Red Shirts (Remember, Red Dog was a Hunkpapa who married into the Oyuhpe Oglala).
Several sources indicate that our Red Shirt was the son of a white man and a Lakota mother. We do not yet know their names.
A young man named Red Shirt was part of the 1870 delegation to Washington D.C., though I can not say for certain that this was him. By the time of the Great Sioux War of 1876-77, he was a rising young man within one of the military societies, an "up and coming" individual among the Wagluhe. This band had been led by the prominent headman Big Mouth, until he was shot and killed by Spotted Tail; Big Mouth's brother Blue Horse by the mid-1870s was the most influential member of this band. In the fall of 1876 as the army dismounted and disarmed the agency bands, Blue Horse was arrested by Gen. Mackenzie for not turning in northern Indians slipping into his village. After that, Blue Horse seems to disappear from prominence, perhaps he stepped back from active political engagement. In this vacuum, several young men emerged as leaders among the Wagluhe, most prominently American Horse and Three Bears. Red Shirt seems to be most closely associated with Three Bears during this period; perhaps kind of his lieutenant.
Given his association with the Loafers, I doubt that Red Shirt was at the Little Bighorn, though we should note that a number of young men had gone out independently from their band. In later years, newspaper articles about the Wild West Show specifically stated that Red Shirt was at the Little Bighorn, but that should be taken with some skeptism, given the Buffalo Bill Cody PR machine. No doubt it was good for business for the Indians in his show to be advertised as having been at the LBH. But the possibility cannot be entirely discounted without further research.
Red Shirt became leader of a small band of Loafers on Pine Ridge about 1878-79. In his 1923 interview, he showed commissioners his chief's certificate dated 1879 signed by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and the Secretary of the Interior. In 1880, he traveled to Carlisle Barracks and on to Washington D.C. with Red Cloud.
Red Shirt's leadership role appears to have only lasted a few years. He soon became involved with the Wild West Shows which seems to be his main economic support for the next several decades. We will have to do some more research into his final decade to know if he became involved again at all in Oglala politics. He died in 1925