Shirt associated with Sinte Gleska (Spotted Tail, Sicangu Lakota, 1823–1881)
ca. 1845–1855
Fort Laramie, Wyoming (then Dakota Territory)
Hide, porcupine quills, glass bead/beads, human hair, horsehair, dye/dyes, sinew
156 x 91 cm
Collected by Brigadier General (then Second Lieutenant) Charles G. Sawtelle from Chief Spotted Tail
17/6694
for similar objects.
This shirt, heavily decorated with a unique technique of quillwork, is catalogued as having belonged to Sinte Gleska, or Spotted Tail, a Sicangu Lakota warrior and Shirtwearer who, over time, came to believe that survival for the Lakota required diplomacy and coexistence with whites. Sinte Gleska urged negotiating with white settlers during conflicts along the Bozeman Trail from 1866 to 1868 and agreed to the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1868. He later sent four of his sons and two grandchildren to the new Carlisle Indian Industrial School. When he realized the students were being trained as laborers, however, he tried to take all the children from the Rosebud Reservation home. The tribal university established on the reservation in 1971 bears his name.
