Isaiah Dorman
Encyclopedia
Isaiah Dorman was a former slave
who served as an interpreter for the United States Army
during the Indian Wars
. He perished at the Battle of Little Bighorn, the only black man killed in the fight.
to the D'Orman family and may have escaped and gone out West. By 1850, he had settled near Fort Rice
in the Dakota Territory
, where he supported himself by cutting wood for the garrison. He was on friendly terms with the Indians and probably knew Sitting Bull
, according to Evan Connell's bestselling 1985 book Son of the Morning Star
.
In November 1865, he was hired to carry the mail on a 360-mile round trip between Forts Rice and Wadsworth for $100 a month - good pay at the time. It is said that he had no horse
and walked the entire distance with his sleeping bag
over his shoulder and the mail in a water-proof pouch. He did this for about two years.
In September 1871, he served as a guide and interpreter for a party of engineers making the Northern Pacific Railroad Survey. He may have accompanied the 7th Cavalry on the 1874 Black Hills Expedition; there are references to Custer's servant 'Isa', which may have been him mistaken by people who didn't know who he was.
He lived with the Lakota tribe as a trapper and trader in the 1850s and married to a young woman of Inkpaduta
's band of the Santee Sioux
. The Sioux called him 'Azinpi', which translates to '(Buffalo's) Teat', perhaps because his black skin and curly hair reminded them of one. Or perhaps his name, Isaiah, sounded similar to them. There are no known photographs of him, and the only existing descriptions describe him as "very big" and "very black". An Indian pictograph of Reno's retreat shows a black man in Army uniform flat on the ground beside a prostrate white horse, with "an abnormally thick right thumb."
hired Dorman as an interpreter for his expedition to the Little Bighorn Country
. (At least one report says that Dorman had not started out with the rest of the Montana Column, but had caught up with it at the Rosebud with a message and when he attempted to return to Fort Lincoln
, Custer ordered him to remain. However, Custer's request for his assignment still exists and is dated May 14.)
On June 25, 1876, Dorman accompanied the detachment of Major Marcus Reno
into the battle and was left behind when Reno retired across the river to the high bluffs. According to most accounts as in Connell (1985), he gave a good account of himself- shooting several braves with a non-regulation sporting rifle. According to the account of one Indian survivor of the battle:
According to Connell 1985, white survivors tell a similar story. Dorman had been unhorsed but continued to fire at the Indians:
Other eyewitness accounts from survivors indicate that Dorman was torture
d by a group of women who pounded him with stone hammers, slashed him repeatedly with knives, and shot his legs full of buckshot. One odd detail reported is that his coffee pot and cup were filled with blood. A report that he had been 'sliced open' may be a translator's error; near his body was that of one of the Ree (Arikara
) scouts, which had been slashed open and a willow branch stuck in the opening. To the Indians, mutilations were characteristic of different tribes and particular marks meant certain things. As for the torture, the Indians considered him a traitor who had fought with the bluecoats against them.
Dorman's last stand at the Little Bighorn is documented in Stanley Vestal
's Sitting Bull-Champion of the Sioux (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1932), "Isaiah Dorman and the Custer Expedition" by Ronald McConnell, (Journal of Negro History, 33 (July 1948), and Troopers with Custer: Historic Incidents of the Battle of the Little Big Horn by E. A. Brininstool, 1925, 1989. Vestal relates that Dorman was shot and wounded by the Indians on the field of battle. The Sioux chief Sitting Bull
recognized the black interpreter and stopped during the fighting to give him a last drink of water. According to Vestal:
Connell holds that Dorman and Sitting Bull most likely knew each other, but doubts the veracity of the Sioux chief's drink offer, noting that similar stories of European style chivalry
were common at the time. Some writers on Sutting Bull repeat the account as credible however, suggesting that it had little to do with sentimental notions of grand chivalry, but rather a practical gesture by the Sioux leader towards a doomed man. The water given and the 'stop order' was therefore a temporary reprieve, one last acknowledgement of the interpreter the medicine man had once personally known.
A 2008 biography of Sitting Bull by former US Park Service Ranger R. Utley, notes the incident in more detail. According to Utley, Dorman fell, badly wounded in the chest, and several warriors gathered around to finish the job. Dorman made a final plea in the Sioux language to "my friends", asking that they not count coup on him, since he was already dead. Sitting Bull rode up and said "Don't kill that man, he is a friend of mine." The Sioux leader then dismounted, poured water into a buffalo-horn cup and gave it to the black man. His obligation thus discharged, Sitting Bull mounted up once more, and rode on. Eagle Robe, a Hunkpapa
woman scouring the battlefield, dispatched Dorman with a rifle shot, and others following mutilated the body. This was done so that the enemy would not look good in the spirit world. Whatever the exact details most writers agree that Dorman was friendly with the Indians, but this did not save him once the battle was joined.
's and he was buried on the Reno Battlefield. It was reinterred in 1877 in the Little Bighorn National Cemetery. In Quartermaster
Nowlan's official report on the 7th's 1876 Campaign, an item of $62.50 is listed as being owed to Dorman for services rendered in June 1876. A man named Isaac McNutt, who was a handyman at Ft Rice, attempted to claim the wages; but his claim was dismissed for lack of proof of connection. Dorman's Indian widow could not be found and the account may be still drawing interest somewhere in the Army bureaucracy.
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
who served as an interpreter for the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
during the Indian Wars
Indian Wars
American Indian Wars is the name used in the United States to describe a series of conflicts between American settlers or the federal government and the native peoples of North America before and after the American Revolutionary War. The wars resulted from the arrival of European colonizers who...
. He perished at the Battle of Little Bighorn, the only black man killed in the fight.
Early life and service with the US Army
Not much is known of Dorman's early life. Records suggest that he was a slave in the 1840s in LouisianaLouisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
to the D'Orman family and may have escaped and gone out West. By 1850, he had settled near Fort Rice
Fort Rice
Fort Rice was a frontier military fort in the 19th century in what was then Dakota Territory and what is now North Dakota....
in the Dakota Territory
Dakota Territory
The Territory of Dakota was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1861, until November 2, 1889, when the final extent of the reduced territory was split and admitted to the Union as the states of North and South Dakota.The Dakota Territory consisted of...
, where he supported himself by cutting wood for the garrison. He was on friendly terms with the Indians and probably knew Sitting Bull
Sitting Bull
Sitting Bull Sitting Bull Sitting Bull (Lakota: Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (in Standard Lakota Orthography), also nicknamed Slon-he or "Slow"; (c. 1831 – December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man who led his people as a tribal chief during years of resistance to United States government policies...
, according to Evan Connell's bestselling 1985 book Son of the Morning Star
Son of the Morning Star
Son of the Morning Star is a 1984 non-fiction book on the subject of George Armstrong Custer, with the subtitle 'Custer and the Little Bighorn'. A 1991 television film was based on the book. Both the book and the film chronicle the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the personalities involved, and the...
.
In November 1865, he was hired to carry the mail on a 360-mile round trip between Forts Rice and Wadsworth for $100 a month - good pay at the time. It is said that he had no horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
and walked the entire distance with his sleeping bag
Sleeping bag
A sleeping bag is a protective "bag" for a person to sleep in, essentially a blanket that can be closed with a zipper or similar means, and functions as a bed in situations where a bed is unavailable . Its primary purpose is to provide warmth and thermal insulation...
over his shoulder and the mail in a water-proof pouch. He did this for about two years.
In September 1871, he served as a guide and interpreter for a party of engineers making the Northern Pacific Railroad Survey. He may have accompanied the 7th Cavalry on the 1874 Black Hills Expedition; there are references to Custer's servant 'Isa', which may have been him mistaken by people who didn't know who he was.
He lived with the Lakota tribe as a trapper and trader in the 1850s and married to a young woman of Inkpaduta
Inkpaduta
Inkpaduta was a war chief of the Santee Sioux during the 1857 Spirit Lake Massacre and the 1862 Dakota War against the United States Army in Minnesota and the Dakota Territory.-Early life:Inkpaduta was born in what later became the Dakota...
's band of the Santee Sioux
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
. The Sioux called him 'Azinpi', which translates to '(Buffalo's) Teat', perhaps because his black skin and curly hair reminded them of one. Or perhaps his name, Isaiah, sounded similar to them. There are no known photographs of him, and the only existing descriptions describe him as "very big" and "very black". An Indian pictograph of Reno's retreat shows a black man in Army uniform flat on the ground beside a prostrate white horse, with "an abnormally thick right thumb."
Dorman during the Battle of the Little Bighorn
In the late spring of 1876, George Armstrong CusterGeorge Armstrong Custer
George Armstrong Custer was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Raised in Michigan and Ohio, Custer was admitted to West Point in 1858, where he graduated last in his class...
hired Dorman as an interpreter for his expedition to the Little Bighorn Country
Little Bighorn River
The Little Bighorn River is a tributary of the Bighorn River in the United States in the states of Wyoming and Montana. The Battle of the Little Bighorn was fought on its banks in 1876, as well as the Battle of Crow Agency in 1887....
. (At least one report says that Dorman had not started out with the rest of the Montana Column, but had caught up with it at the Rosebud with a message and when he attempted to return to Fort Lincoln
Fort Lincoln
Fort Lincoln may refer to:*Fort Lincoln *Fort Abraham Lincoln, an old military post near Mandan, North Dakota, now a state park*Fort Lincoln Internment Camp, former military post and internment camp near Bismarck...
, Custer ordered him to remain. However, Custer's request for his assignment still exists and is dated May 14.)
On June 25, 1876, Dorman accompanied the detachment of Major Marcus Reno
Marcus Reno
Marcus Albert Reno was a career military officer in the American Civil War and in the Black Hills War against the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne...
into the battle and was left behind when Reno retired across the river to the high bluffs. According to most accounts as in Connell (1985), he gave a good account of himself- shooting several braves with a non-regulation sporting rifle. According to the account of one Indian survivor of the battle:
- We passed a black man in a soldier’s uniform and we had him. He turned on his horse and shot an Indian right through the heart. Ihen the Indians fired at this one man and riddled his horse with bullets. His horse fell over on his back and the black man could not get up. I saw him as I rode by.
According to Connell 1985, white survivors tell a similar story. Dorman had been unhorsed but continued to fire at the Indians:
- "Pvt. Roman Rutten, unlike Vestal [Stanley Vestal; in reference to the story mentioned below], did fight at the Little Big Horn and his report of Isaiah's last stand rings through. Rutten was on a horse that hated the odor of Indians so his immediate problem was how to stay in the saddle. During a wild ride he passed Isiaih, whose horse had been shot. The black man was on one knee, firing carefully with a non-regulation sporting rifle. He looked up and shouted, “Goodbye, Rutten."
Other eyewitness accounts from survivors indicate that Dorman was torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
d by a group of women who pounded him with stone hammers, slashed him repeatedly with knives, and shot his legs full of buckshot. One odd detail reported is that his coffee pot and cup were filled with blood. A report that he had been 'sliced open' may be a translator's error; near his body was that of one of the Ree (Arikara
Arikara
Arikara are a group of Native Americans in North Dakota...
) scouts, which had been slashed open and a willow branch stuck in the opening. To the Indians, mutilations were characteristic of different tribes and particular marks meant certain things. As for the torture, the Indians considered him a traitor who had fought with the bluecoats against them.
Dorman and Sitting Bull
Stanley Vestal
Stanley Vestal was an American writer, poet and historian best known for his book Dodge City, Queen of the Cowtowns.-Biography:...
's Sitting Bull-Champion of the Sioux (Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1932), "Isaiah Dorman and the Custer Expedition" by Ronald McConnell, (Journal of Negro History, 33 (July 1948), and Troopers with Custer: Historic Incidents of the Battle of the Little Big Horn by E. A. Brininstool, 1925, 1989. Vestal relates that Dorman was shot and wounded by the Indians on the field of battle. The Sioux chief Sitting Bull
Sitting Bull
Sitting Bull Sitting Bull Sitting Bull (Lakota: Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake (in Standard Lakota Orthography), also nicknamed Slon-he or "Slow"; (c. 1831 – December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux holy man who led his people as a tribal chief during years of resistance to United States government policies...
recognized the black interpreter and stopped during the fighting to give him a last drink of water. According to Vestal:
- "The Negro asked for water and Sitting Bull took his cup of polished black buffalo horn, got some water and gave him to drink."
Connell holds that Dorman and Sitting Bull most likely knew each other, but doubts the veracity of the Sioux chief's drink offer, noting that similar stories of European style chivalry
Chivalry
Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood which has an aristocratic military origin of individual training and service to others. Chivalry was also the term used to refer to a group of mounted men-at-arms as well as to martial valour...
were common at the time. Some writers on Sutting Bull repeat the account as credible however, suggesting that it had little to do with sentimental notions of grand chivalry, but rather a practical gesture by the Sioux leader towards a doomed man. The water given and the 'stop order' was therefore a temporary reprieve, one last acknowledgement of the interpreter the medicine man had once personally known.
A 2008 biography of Sitting Bull by former US Park Service Ranger R. Utley, notes the incident in more detail. According to Utley, Dorman fell, badly wounded in the chest, and several warriors gathered around to finish the job. Dorman made a final plea in the Sioux language to "my friends", asking that they not count coup on him, since he was already dead. Sitting Bull rode up and said "Don't kill that man, he is a friend of mine." The Sioux leader then dismounted, poured water into a buffalo-horn cup and gave it to the black man. His obligation thus discharged, Sitting Bull mounted up once more, and rode on. Eagle Robe, a Hunkpapa
Hunkpapa
The Hunkpapa are a Native American group, one of the seven council fires of the Lakota Sioux tribe. The name Húŋkpapȟa is a Sioux word meaning "Head of the Circle"...
woman scouring the battlefield, dispatched Dorman with a rifle shot, and others following mutilated the body. This was done so that the enemy would not look good in the spirit world. Whatever the exact details most writers agree that Dorman was friendly with the Indians, but this did not save him once the battle was joined.
Aftermath
Dorman's body was found just out of the timber, near Charley ReynoldsCharley Reynolds
"Lonesome" Charley Reynolds was a scout in the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment who was killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in the Montana Territory. He was noted as an expert marksman, frontiersman and hunter. He had also been a scout with Buffalo Bill.-Biography:Charles Alexander Reynolds was...
's and he was buried on the Reno Battlefield. It was reinterred in 1877 in the Little Bighorn National Cemetery. In Quartermaster
Quartermaster
Quartermaster refers to two different military occupations depending on if the assigned unit is land based or naval.In land armies, especially US units, it is a term referring to either an individual soldier or a unit who specializes in distributing supplies and provisions to troops. The senior...
Nowlan's official report on the 7th's 1876 Campaign, an item of $62.50 is listed as being owed to Dorman for services rendered in June 1876. A man named Isaac McNutt, who was a handyman at Ft Rice, attempted to claim the wages; but his claim was dismissed for lack of proof of connection. Dorman's Indian widow could not be found and the account may be still drawing interest somewhere in the Army bureaucracy.
Other sources
- Dorman biography
- Evan S. ConnellEvan S. ConnellEvan Shelby Connell, Jr. is an American novelist, poet, and short story-writer. He has also published under the name Evan S. Connell, Jr. His writing has covered a variety of genres, although he has published most frequently in fiction.In 2009, Connell was nominated for the Man Booker...
; Son of the Morning StarSon of the Morning StarSon of the Morning Star is a 1984 non-fiction book on the subject of George Armstrong Custer, with the subtitle 'Custer and the Little Bighorn'. A 1991 television film was based on the book. Both the book and the film chronicle the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the personalities involved, and the...
, (1985) - Ken Hammer, ed., Custer in '76: Walter Camp's Notes on the Custer Fight, Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1976.