Compiled and written by David R. Schleper, 2021
Tamaha was born around 1776 at Prairie à l’Aile (present-day Winona, Minnesota) and was originally part of leader Wapahaṡa’s band of Mdewakaŋtoŋwaŋ Dakota. He was also known as Standing Moose or L’Orignal Levé.
Tamaha lost an eye in an accident as a 17-year-old, so he was called Tamaha, or One eye, in the Dakota language. The French called him “Le Borgne”, or “One Eye.” English picked up the name as “the One-eyed Sioux.”
There are many colorful stories about his youthful exploits. In Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains (1918), Ohíye S’a (Dr. Charles Eastman) portrays Tamaha as a young man with “heroic proportions, herculean in strength, a superb runner; in fact, he had all the physical qualities of an athlete or a typical Indian. In his scanty dress, he was beautiful as an antique statue in living bronze.”
Ohíye S’a said that the injury to his eye was devastating to Tamaha, who then “sought glory and defied danger with even more than the ordinary Indian recklessness.” On one occasion, young Tamaha and his best friend disguised themselves as Ojibwe warriors to flirt with Ojibwe girls. On another, he was hunting for buffalo when he was thrown off his pony and attacked by a bull. He quickly straddled the buffalo on its neck and held it by the horns, earning him the name Held-the-Bull-by-the Horns.
According to Ohíye S’a, it was during his escapade running from the Ojibwe that Tamaha famously said to his friend, “I’ll meet you at the mouth of the St. Croix River, or in the spirit land!”
In 1806 and 1807, Tamaha became a friend of U.S. Army Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike. He was one of two Mdewakanton Dakota scouts for the United States in the War of 1812. He retained his loyalty even after his capture by the British, during which he refused to divulge information about the Americans on pain of death. The threat turned out to be a bluff.
Tamaha was presented with a medal and certificate by Governor William Clark of Missouri Territory for his loyalty to the U.S. He often wore the medal.
Tamaha was known as a powerful orator and a diplomat of unusual ability. Wearing his trademark stovepipe hat, he managed to maintain amicable relations between whites and Indians. At one time he was confined to a fort called McKay, where now stands the town of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. He had just returned from St. Louis and was suspected of exciting his people to rebel against British subjects. His life was even threatened, but to this Tamaha merely replied that he was ready to die.
On May 27, 1858, Tamaha, who was 86 years old, was living at Tínṫa Otuŋwe, which was located on the south side of the Minnesota River. Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) from the Watpa waḳaŋ (Dakota) or Misi-zaaga’iganiziibi (Ojibwe) area headed south. On May 26, 1858, between 150 and 200 Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) warriors approached an encampment of Dakota on the Minnesota River near Shakopee.
The next day, shots were fired and a Dakota man was killed. “I saw the Indians and whites pass our house, the former rushing into battle ten minutes after the first shot was fired,” said E. Judson Pond.
The Dakota had old men, boys, and even some men who were disabled in the battle, a total of 65 men. And one of them was Tamaha. According to the History of Carver County, “There were but few good guns among them, all being common fowling pieces, some of them old and unreliable, while a dozen or more men had no guns at all. But the white men of Shakopee supplied this deficiency; they gave the Indians every gun in town.”
During the Battle, Tamaha killed one Ojibwe.
A St. Paul newspaper described Tamaha as “a very old warrior, bent nearly double, but he had the good luck and grim satisfaction of putting the finishing touches to a gentleman of the enemy, of which the fellow feels very proud.”
The Dakota leader and historian Ohíye S’a said during the first alarm, Tamaha seized his gun and hobbled across the Minnesota River and provided a good fighter.
Ohíye S’a said that all the remaining old members of Ṡakpe II’s tribe enjoyed telling of the exploits of Tamaha in Shakopee.
Wearing his trademark stovepipe hat, Tamaha was a vocal advocate of amicable relations between whites (particularly Americans) and Indians, Before the Dakota War of 1862, Tamaha stood before Little Crow and advised him not to go to war against the whites.
Tamaha died in 1864 at Fort Pierre South Dakota.
Bibliography
Eastman, Charles A. (Ohíye S’a). Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains, 1918.
History of Carver County.