Conquering Bear

Matȟó Wayúhi ("Conquering Bear") (1800 – August 19, 1854) was a Brulé Lakota chief who signed the Fort Laramie Treaty (1851). He was killed in 1854 when troops from Fort Laramie entered his encampment to arrest a Sioux who had shot a calf belonging to a Mormon emigrant. All 30 troopers in the army detachment were annihilated, in what would be called the Grattan massacre or "the Mormon Cow War" according to Army Historian S.L.A. Marshall in his book "Crimsoned Prairie." Little Thunder took over as chief after his death.

Conquering Bear was born around 1800, a Brulé Lakota Sioux. At the Fort Laramie treaty council in 1851, the Americans demanded the name of the head chief of each tribe who could sign for his people. However, none of the tribes responded with a single name of a leader, so the white men arbitrarily picked chiefs for them. Conquering Bear was chosen to represent the Lakota.

Conquering Bear was basically a man of peace, but was also a proud warrior. The advent of the white men into the Native American ancestral homeland was at first just a nuisance to the original inhabitants. The Indians only wanted to live in peace and tolerated the first white men. Given the encroachment of white settlers with their wagon trains and disease, the Native Americans feared the loss of their way of life and culture. So over and over again they signed the white men's treaties to try to slow the flow of white men onto their land. However, younger warriors within the Sioux were beginning to tire of broken treaties, and it fell to the older leaders such as Conquering Bear to try to hold these young warriors in line. Without leadership and guidance from older warriors they surely would not have survived.

In August, 1854, Conquering Bear and his people were encamped near Fort Laramie in a state of strained peace, adhering to the treaties as they understood them. Supplies and food were to be delivered, as per the treaty agreement, and many different bands of the Sioux had gathered together for this purpose along the North Platte River. It is estimated that some 600 lodges made up the encampment, making a total population of some 4,000 people, 1,200 of which were warriors or of fighting age.

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