Explore the real-world places that appear in In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include Jumping Bull Compound, Wounded Knee Massacre Site and Mass Grave, Wounded Knee Village (1973 Occupation Site), Pine Ridge Village and BIA Headquarters, Oglala Lakota College, Kyle and 6 more.
Oglala, Pine Ridge Reservation — Site of the June 26, 1975 shootout
On June 26, 1975, FBI agents Jack Coler and Ron Williams followed a red pickup truck onto the property of the Jumping Bull family, hunting a suspect in a robbery of cowboy boots. A firefight erupted with AIM members and residents, including Leonard Peltier, Darrelle 'Dino' Butler and Bob Robideau. Both agents were killed, along with a young Indian man, Joe Stuntz. Matthiessen treats this as the central event around which the book's investigation turns.
The land was owned by the elderly Harry and Cecelia Jumping Bull, traditional Lakota, whose family had lived in the area for generations. In 1975 AIM supporters had set up a spiritual camp there at the request of the family during a time of violence on the reservation. The shootout led to one of the largest FBI investigations of its era, known as RESMURS.
The site is on private land near Oglala and is not open to the public. A small number of memorials and the surrounding landscape remain a place of remembrance for many Lakota and supporters of Peltier.
Wounded Knee, SD — Site of the 1890 massacre
Matthiessen builds the book's historical backbone around Wounded Knee, where in December 1890 the U.S. 7th Cavalry killed some 250 or more Lakota men, women and children under Chief Big Foot. He draws a line from this massacre to the 1973 occupation and the violence that followed on Pine Ridge. For the author, the 1975 events cannot be understood apart from this long history of broken treaties and killing.
Troops intercepted Big Foot's band of Miniconjou Lakota and attempted to disarm them on December 29, 1890. A shot rang out and soldiers opened fire with rifles and Hotchkiss guns. The victims were buried in a mass grave on the hill, and the site was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965.
A roadside memorial and cemetery stand on the hill above the creek, with a sign and often handmade crafts sold nearby by local Lakota. It is a solemn historic site where visitors are asked to behave respectfully.
Visit: Wounded Knee Massacre Site (historic site)
Wounded Knee, SD — The 71-day AIM occupation
In February 1973, about 200 Oglala Lakota and AIM members seized the hamlet of Wounded Knee, protesting the corrupt tribal government of Dick Wilson and the federal government's treaty violations. Surrounded by FBI agents, U.S. marshals and armored vehicles, they held out for 71 days, and two men, Frank Clearwater and Buddy Lamont, were killed. Matthiessen shows how the siege and its aftermath, a period of terror on the reservation, set the stage for the 1975 shootout.
Wounded Knee was a small community with a trading post and church on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The 1973 occupation drew national and international attention to Native American rights. Afterward, hundreds were arrested and the trials of AIM leaders Russell Means and Dennis Banks largely collapsed.
Wounded Knee remains a small, rural community, and the occupation is remembered through signs and local stories. Visitors typically stop at the nearby massacre memorial.
Pine Ridge, SD — Seat of the tribal government under Dick Wilson
Pine Ridge is the administrative center of the reservation and the base of tribal chairman Dick Wilson and his 'goon squad' (GOONs), who in the book terrorized traditional Lakota and AIM supporters. Matthiessen documents dozens of unsolved deaths of Wilson's opponents in the mid-1970s. The Bureau of Indian Affairs and the tribal council's power here shaped the conflict between traditionalists and the government.
Pine Ridge was established as the agency headquarters for the Oglala Lakota after the 1870s, when Chief Red Cloud's people settled near the site. It became the main town of the Pine Ridge Reservation. In the 1970s the town was at the heart of the violence between the Wilson government and traditionalists.
Pine Ridge is the main community and tribal center of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, with government offices, a hospital, and businesses. It faces severe poverty but is also home to cultural and educational institutions.
Kyle, SD — Lakota education and cultural revival
Matthiessen discusses the revival of Lakota culture, language and traditional spirituality as part of the context for AIM's rise and the traditionalist stand on Pine Ridge. Institutions on the reservation reflected the struggle for self-determination amid poverty and federal control.
Oglala Lakota College was chartered by the Oglala Sioux Tribe in 1971 as Lakota Higher Education Center and later became a fully accredited tribal college. Its main campus is at Kyle, with district centers across the reservation.
The college offers associate through graduate degrees with an emphasis on Lakota language and culture. Its campus is the educational heart of the reservation.
Black Hills, SD — Monument to the Oglala leader
The title invokes Crazy Horse, the Oglala war leader who refused to submit to reservation life and was killed in 1877. Matthiessen presents his spirit as the emblem of Lakota resistance carried by those in AIM and the traditionalists. The Black Hills, sacred to the Lakota, are the heart of the land dispute.
Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski began carving the mountain monument in 1948 at the invitation of Chief Henry Standing Bear. It remains unfinished and is privately funded, though some Lakota have criticized it as inappropriate. Crazy Horse himself refused to be photographed during his lifetime.
The Crazy Horse Memorial includes the mountain carving, the Indian Museum of North America, and a cultural center. It is a major tourist attraction in the Black Hills.
Visit: Crazy Horse Memorial (monument)
Crawford, Nebraska — Where Crazy Horse was killed, 1877
Matthiessen recounts how Crazy Horse surrendered in 1877 and was bayoneted at Camp Robinson after being led toward the guardhouse. The retelling frames the betrayal of Lakota leaders by the U.S. government, a theme running through the contemporary events of the book.
Camp Robinson was founded in 1874 to oversee the Red Cloud Agency and was later renamed Fort Robinson. Crazy Horse died there on September 5, 1877. The fort also saw the Cheyenne Outbreak in 1879 and was later a cavalry post and POW camp.
Fort Robinson is now a Nebraska state park with a museum, reconstructed buildings, and a lodge. A marker identifies where Crazy Horse died.
Visit: Fort Robinson State Park (historic site)
Near Sturgis, SD — Sacred Lakota mountain
Matthiessen explores the Lakota concept of sacred land, including the Black Hills region, and why Native peoples treat the earth as a living being rather than a resource. Sites like Bear Butte stand for this spiritual relationship and the claim that the 1868 treaty lands were illegally taken.
Known to the Lakota as Mato Paha, Bear Butte has long been a place of prayer and vision quests for the Lakota, Cheyenne and other nations. Crazy Horse is said to have gone there for ceremony. It became a South Dakota state park in 1961.
Bear Butte State Park is open to visitors, with a trail to the summit where prayer cloths and offerings are tied to trees. Hikers are asked to respect Native religious practice.
Visit: Bear Butte State Park (park)
Pine Ridge, SD — Catholic mission and school
The mission school represents the long history of federal and church assimilation efforts in Lakota life that Matthiessen examines. Tension between traditional spirituality and imposed institutions form part of the background to AIM's emergence.
The Holy Rosary Mission was founded in 1888 by Jesuits and the Drexel family, and later renamed Red Cloud Indian School. It has educated generations of Lakota children, with a complicated legacy tied to boarding school assimilation.
The school continues to operate and includes the Heritage Center with an art museum and gift shop featuring Lakota art.
Visit: Red Cloud Heritage Center (museum)
Fargo, ND — Peltier's 1977 trial
Leonard Peltier was tried in Fargo in 1977 by Judge Paul Benson for the murders of Agents Coler and Williams, after Butler and Robideau were acquitted on self-defense in Cedar Rapids. Matthiessen details the trial's irregularities: the change of venue, restrictions on defense evidence, and the coerced affidavits of Myrtle Poor Bear. Peltier was convicted and given two consecutive life terms.
The trial took place in the Federal Courthouse in Fargo, North Dakota, in April 1977. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals later upheld the conviction, though acknowledging problems with the government's case. The case became a worldwide cause.
The downtown Fargo federal building continues to host federal court proceedings. It is not a tourist attraction, though the case is still widely discussed.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa — Butler and Robideau acquittal, 1976
In 1976 Dino Butler and Bob Robideau were tried here for the killings of the two FBI agents and acquitted by an all-white jury on grounds of self-defense. Matthiessen contrasts this outcome with Peltier's later conviction in Fargo, arguing that the government shifted tactics and venue to secure a verdict against him.
The trial was held at the federal courthouse in Cedar Rapids in the summer of 1976 before Judge Edward McManus. The jury found the defendants not guilty after evidence of FBI conduct on the reservation was presented.
The building remains in use as a federal courthouse in downtown Cedar Rapids. It is not open as a historic site.
More by Peter Matthiessen: All Peter Matthiessen books
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