Bearpaw

By Chester Thompson

Bearpaw is a historical fiction about an unreal character in historical settings. The historic events mentioned in this book are real. The early years of Bearpaw have a lot of truth and will teach you a little about the world of the Lakota People from birth to adulthood. I believe Bearpaw would make a good gift for any preteen or teen especially those who love to read and picture themselves in the world of the stories and characters that they read about.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546255178

Chester Thompson

Chester Thompson was born on January 18th, 1945 at Amarillo, Texas on poultry ranch owned by his grandfather and father. His parents were told that he would die before he reached age two, but by age two he was very much alive. When he was two his grandmother died and his parents left Amarillo to move to Philadelphia to be near his mother’s family. However when he was in the third grade the family doctor told hismother that she and his younger brother Tom, needed to move to a dryer climate. So the family moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Chester entered the fourth grade when school started and attended school in Phoenix until he graduated from high school. He began his writing career doing reports on animals during his fifth grade and sixth grade school years. He was turned onto mystery books at the Maricopa county library branch in his Phoenix neighborhood while in the sixth grade. Being an avid reader he read many books on several topics. Detective and mystery books were among them. Books like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and Franklin W. Dixon’s ‘The Hardy Boys’ to name a few. Today at nearly 74 Chester enjoys writing on various topics but especially detective mystery. Mr. Fenton and ‘The Halloween Moon Case’ is just such a book.

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© 2018 Chester Thompson. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/09/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-5518-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-5517-8 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Dedication

The Early Years

The Vision Quest

Bearpaw’s Sioux Tipi

Bearpaw At War

Life With His Adopted Tribe

About the Book

About the Author

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to all the preteens and teens who are adopted.

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THE EARLY YEARS

Bearpaw’s people were members of the Oglala Teton band of the Sioux. The Dakota nation was knownby the name ‘Sioux’ by the whites. The name Dakota means allies or friends. There are three dialects in their language which came about because they traveled in three main groups separately and as with most languages, the Sioux language changed over time. This change created the three different language groups. The Four Santee bands speak the Dakota dialect, while the two Yankton bands speak the Nakota dialect and the seven Teton bands speak the Lakota dialect. Bearpaw was raised speaking the Lakota version of the language. Each group could understand the other just fine. The Oglala were divided into smaller bands. There were actually seven Teton bands, the Oglala, the Brule, the Hunkpapa, the Sans Arc, the Minnicoujou, the Two Kettles, and the Black Feet Sioux. In the year 1857, on February 15th, Bearpaw was born at the Lakota winter camp before the summer of the great council of the Teton Sioux. On July 29th, five months and 14days after his birth, General Sumner and his men attacked a Cheyenne camp on the Solomon River. That and the shooting death of the Brule peace chief Conquering Bear by the white soldiers in 1854 played a part in the council. Also the attack at the Blue Water on Little Thunder’s Cheyenne camp in 1855 added to the anger of the Lakota Nation. The boy Bearpaw heard these and other stories every winter by the story teller as he grew up. In 1864 he was seven winters old and his father allowed him to look after the family’s horses. His uncle was training him to scout for the buffalo herd for the tribal hunt. Then in 1866 at just nine winters old he killed his first buffalo calf with his bow during a tribal hunt. These were not unusual things for a Sioux boy to doat that age.

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Then in 1869 at twelve winters he went into the sweat lodge to prepare for his vision quest after which he would be counted among the warriors of the Lakota. But for now let’s look at the years of his childhood from 1864 until 1869.

As I already told you at seven his father allowed him to watch over the family’s horse herd with other boys who were looking after their family’s horses. The herds were not too far from the camp in a good grass area near a shallow creek. The band leader’s youngest son was also guarding his father’s horses. It was just at sunrise when a party of eight Crow warriors rode in to steal as many horses as they could. The boys sent out the alarm by runner to the still waking camp. But before the men could get to the herds the boys took it upon themselves to repel the Crow raiders. The younger ones like Bearpaw joined their older companions in the counter attack. During the skirmish