Mo-nah-se-tah

Mo-nah-se-tah
Cheyenne: Monâhtseta'e, Mo-nah-see-tah ("Spring Grass"), Meotxi, Me-o-tzi
Cheyenne leader
Personal details
Bornc. 1850
Died1922
Domestic partnerGeorge Armstrong Custer (?)
Parent(s)Father, Little Rock
Known forTaken captive by the 7th U.S. Cavalry under the command of Lt. Colonel (brevet Major General) George Armstrong Custer after the Battle of Washita River

Mo-nah-se-tah or Mo-nah-see-tah[1] (c. 1850 - 1922), aka Me-o-tzi,[2] was the daughter of the Cheyenne chief Little Rock. Her father was killed on November 28, 1868, in the Battle of Washita River when the camp of Chief Black Kettle, of which Little Rock was a member, was attacked by the 7th U.S. Cavalry under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer.[3] Mo-nah-se-tah was among the 53 Cheyenne women and children taken captive by the 7th Cavalry after the battle.[4]

According to Captain Frederick Benteen, chief of scouts Ben Clark, and Cheyenne oral history, Custer "cohabited" with teenage Mo-nah-se-tah during the winter and early spring of 1868–1869 after she and many other Sioux women were captured by the US Army at Washita.[4][5] Mo-nah-se-tah gave birth to a child in January 1869, two months after Washita; Cheyenne oral history alleges that she later bore a second child, fathered by Custer, in late 1869. Custer, however, had apparently become sterile after contracting venereal disease at West Point, leading some historians to believe that the father was really his brother Thomas.[5]

  1. ^ Recorded to mean "Spring Grass". The name may possibly be Monâhtseta'e, which might mean "Shoot Woman"—"shoot" as in "the young grass that shoots in the spring." See Cheyenne Names Archived 2000-10-07 at the Wayback Machine by Wayne Leman.
  2. ^ Recorded to mean "Spring Grass". The name may possibly be Meoohtse'e. Meaning unknown. See Cheyenne Names Archived 2000-10-07 at the Wayback Machine by Wayne Leman.
  3. ^ Greene 2004, p. 120.
  4. ^ a b Greene 2004, p. 169.
  5. ^ a b Utley 2001, p. 107.