Rosebud

Half white, half Sioux and totally beautiful, Rosebud -- from 1876 till 1891, as she aged from fifteen to twenty-nine in the pages of this book -- emerged as the greatest legend of the Indian Campfire Stories all across the Great Plains, an honor she still holds to this day. Madly in love with Lt. David Hamilton Maynadier -- the
most influential young officer at Fort Laramie -- Rosebud, in the spring of 1876,
cast her lot with Sitting Bull's Hunkpapa Sioux when she sensed the impending demise of the Sioux nation. She saw Custer die at the Little Bighorn on June 25th, 1876; she witnessed Sitting Bull's murder at Standing Rock on December 15th, 1890; and she barely escaped the Massacre at Wounded Knee Creek on December 29th, 1890. Her Sioux nickname was Wanekia ("Angel") but the soldiers that threatened what remained of her beloved Hunkpapas had ample reason to fear her as the very greatest of the Sioux warriors. During those fifteen years -- 1876 to 1890 -- no one, not even her idol Sitting Bull or her friend Crazy Horse, fought as tenaciously or as effectively as Rosebud did to preserve the life and the legacy of the Sioux nation she cherished.