02/14/2026
The true Indian does not set any price either on his property or on his labor. His generosity is only limited by his strength and ability. He considers it an honor to be chosen for difficult or dangerous service and would think it shameful to ask for a reward.
Teton Sioux Chief 1837 -1918
John Grass's English name came from the Dakota "Pezi," meaning "Field of Grass"; he also was sometimes called Mato Wtakpe (Charging Bear).
He was a son of Grass, a Sioux leader of the early nineteenth century.
He spoke a number of Dakota dialects as well as English, so he was one of the few peaople in the Dakotas who could communicate with nearly everyone else.
Indian agent Major James ("White Hair") McLaughlin set up Grass, Gall, and other Sioux as rival chiefs to Sitting Bull after the latter had surrendered in 1881, in an attempt to break Sitting Bull's influence over the Sioux.
Over Sitting Bull's objections, Grass signed an 1889 agreement that broke up the Great Sioux Reservation.
He probably was bowing to threats by Indian agent McLaughlin that the U.S. government would take the land with or without Sioux consent.
Even after the land was signed over, the government reduced the food allotments on Northern Plains reservations, intensifying poverty and suffering; this action increased tensions just before the massacre of Big Foot's people at Wounded Knee.
For more than three decades, Grass served as head judge in the Court of Indian Offenses of the Standing Rock Reservation.
He died at Standing Rock in 1918.
