Marriage
Mary Brave Bird married Leonard Crow Dog in 1973 after the occupation of Wounded Knee. Not yet 18 years of age, she was about 12 years younger than her famous husband. In some ways, she was unprepared for what was to come. Leonard’s parents, including his father, Henry Crow Dog, were initially uncertain that their son had made a wise choice. Leonard had been married before and had two daughters, Ina and Bernadette, and a son, Richard, who were old enough not to automatically accept a teenager as their new mother. Nor did the new wife have any special domestic skills: She admits in Lakota Woman that she did not even know how to make coffee.
In addition, Crow Dog’s stature as a holy man attracted many people to their home, often seeking help of one sort or another, sometimes including money. That he was enormously generous fit well the old Lakota ideal but was not necessarily conducive to running a household efficiently. Brave Bird writes of the challenges in being married to a revered Wichasha Wakan, or holy man, noting that “confidentially, it can be hell on a woman to be married to such a holy one.”7
The demands of her new life led Mary Brave Bird (now Mary Crow Dog) to become ill. She lost weight, had trouble sleeping, and regularly dreamed of the dead. Nonetheless, she tried hard and began to earn the respect of her husband’s family and friends. Unfortunately, still greater trials lay ahead.
Arrest
Leonard Crow Dog’s political activism, especially his role at Wounded Knee, had made him a marked man. In addition, a violent incident that occurred on June 26, 1975, which in no way involved him, would also help to deprive Crow Dog of his freedom. On that day, FBI agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams were investigating an assault and robbery allegedly committed by Jimmy Eagle of Pine Ridge. The theft reportedly involved a pair of boots. The agents came under rifle fire from a pickup matching the description of the vehicle supposedly driven by Jimmy Eagle and called for backup. Both agents were killed, as was one of the shooters, Joe Stuntz.
A suspect in the crime, Leonard Peltier, an AIM activist, was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in February 1976, extradited to the United States, tried and convicted, and in April 1977 sentenced to two consecutive life terms for the murders of Coler and Williams. Peltier is still in prison, but his conviction has been highly controversial. Many believe that he was falsely convicted based on fraudulent testimony and that he is essentially a political prisoner.
Leonard Crow Dog had been charged with interfering with federal officials because of an incident during the siege at Wounded Knee. Four agents pretending to be postal inspectors attempted to sneak into the compound during a truce but were caught and disarmed. Crow Dog lectured them on the reasons for the occupation before allowing the four to leave. However, he received a suspended sentence for these actions.
Then in March 1975, several Euro-Americans arrived at Crow Dog’s home. After they used drugs openly and insulted Mary, Leonard ordered them to leave. One, a man named Pfersick, became violent but was subdued by several of Crow Dog’s family and friends. Pfersick later charged Leonard with assault and battery, leading to a trial and his conviction the following January.
More was yet to come. On September 2, 1975, Robert Beck and William McCloskey arrived at the Crow Dog home, many believe at the instigation of the FBI. They drove through a fence into the Crow Dogs’ yard. Leonard Crow Dog’s nephew Frank Running, who had earlier been assaulted by Beck, and others beat up the intruders. Beck and McCloskey subsequently filed charges of assault and battery against Crow Dog.
Four days after the Beck and McCloskey incident, on September 5, a large number of FBI agents and U. S. marshals launched an assault on the Crow Dog home as well as on the home of Leonard’s parents and the nearby Running home. According to Mary Brave Bird, one of the reasons for the military-type raid was that the FBI believed that Peltier might be hiding with Leonard Crow Dog.
Peter Matthiessen, writing in his book In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, describes the raid this way:
The morning of September 5, an air-land-and-river operation had descended at daybreak on the Crow Dog and Running properties, in a massive racketing of helicopters that swept in over the dawn trees. More than fifty FBI agents in
Combat dress, with four large helicopters, military vehicles, trucks, vans, cars, and even rubber boats—presumably to prevent aquatic escapes down the narrow creek called the Little White River—surrounded the houses and tents, shouting, “This is the FBI! Come out with your hands up!” No one was given time to dress—Crow Dog himself was marched out naked—and even the small frightened children were lined up against walls as the agents ransacked and all but wrecked every house, tent, cabin, and car on both properties.8
Mary Brave Bird puts the invading number even higher:
They came one hundred and eighty-five men strong, marshals, agents, SWAT teams, making an Omaha Beach-type assault on the home of a single medicine
9
Man.
She offers very personal details of the raid, describing how agents threw her son, Pedro, across the room. Another threatened to shoot her, and two agents put their guns against her head.
A number of other people were also taken away, including a close friend of Brave Bird’s, Annie Mae Aquash. On the way to Pierre, South Dakota, the state capital, agents stopped so that Leonard Crow Dog could relieve himself by the side of the road. They tossed a gun at his feet and dared him to pick it up, taunting him with the threat of spending the rest of his life behind bars. Despite the massive operation, the only actual charge was that Crow Dog had in some way been responsible for McCloskey’s broken jaw. The arrest of her husband would soon propel Brave Bird into very public actions to try to obtain his release. She never again would be a strictly private person.
Fighting the System
Leonard Crow Dog was subsequently convicted at three trials and received sentences totaling 23 years. He was moved repeatedly as a prisoner. Brave Bird lists the places of incarceration as “Pennington County Jail in Rapid City; Pierre, South Dakota; legendary Deadwood in the Black Hills; Minnehaha County Jail in Sioux Falls; Oxford and Cedar Rapids in Iowa; Terre Haute in Indiana; Leavenworth in Kansas; Chicago; Sioux City in Iowa; Lewisburg in Pennsylvania; Richmond in Virginia; and for a short time a holding tank in New York City.”10
Mary followed her husband as well as she could, although both she and their attorneys had difficulty even keeping track of where he was being held at any given moment. Fortunately, various organizations and prominent individuals helped. The National Council of Churches, Amnesty International, and other organizations contributed money to Crow Dog’s defense. A team of lawyers that included William Kunstler and Sandy Rosen worked hard on appeals. Such celebrities as Harry Belafonte, Marlon Brando, Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, and Rip Torn got involved. Richard Erdoes, a book and magazine illustrator, and his wife served as defense coordinators and also took Brave
Bird into their apartment in New York City. She, along with baby Pedro, stayed with the Erdoes for about a year to be relatively close to her husband when he was being held in the prison at Lewisburg.
Crow Dog suffered a level of discrimination in prison that in certain ways exceeded what most prisoners faced. While Christian and Jewish inmates were allowed access to clergy and their sacred books, American Indians who practiced traditional spirituality often found themselves denied the means with which to practice their religion. Crow Dog, for example, was denied his sacred pipe. When the warden at Terre Haute finally was forced to comply with his request for his pipe, the warden still withheld the red willow tobacco that he used in it, claiming that the tobacco might be an illegal drug.
Brave Bird did far more than simply follow her husband from prison to prison. She gave talks on his behalf, granted interviews to the press, consulted with lawyers, and raised money to help defray legal expenses. Leonard Crow Dog was finally released pending appeal in the spring of 1976, but his appeal was ultimately rejected. After three months of uncertain freedom, Crow Dog returned to prison. The extensive legal activity and outpouring of support, much of it due to Mary’s consistent efforts, ultimately prevailed, however. Judge Robert Merhige, who had presided over Crow Dog’s assault-and-battery cases, reduced his sentence to time served.
Three more months passed before Leonard Crow Dog was released on parole in 1977, having served 27 months behind bars. Brave Bird and her husband returned to Rosebud amid great jubilation, and the former prisoner was honored with music, dance, and feasting. Brave Bird also was honored for her great struggle against a system that had imprisoned her husband. Led forward by two medicine men, Wallace Black Elk and Bill Eagle Feathers, she was given an eagle plume for her hair and a new name: Ohitika Win, which means Brave Woman. Ohitika Woman would become the title of her second book of memoirs.
World History
