Talk:Lean Bear

Untitled

Hello! I plan to begin adding more information about Lean Bear's deals made as peace chief. I hope to draw information from Nation to Nation by Suzan Harjo, as well as other sources.Jminteal (talk) 05:53, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Jminteal. Peer reviewers: Meliasimpkins, Clarksc2.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 02:21, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Suggestions

This article is managing to rescue an often obscure figure. Here are some suggestions for improving it.

• Lead section should include a summary of the main events of LB's life and of his murder.
• Who are the Council and what is their relationship to the Dog Soldiers, and other Cheyenne? Also, what's a "peace chief"?
• Lean Bear's peace making efforts should be contextualized within the overall US-Cheyenne war, the particular compromises made for peace, and the differences of opinion within Cheyenne society over what course to pursue.
• Lean Bear's death is widely reported as a murder by current sources. You could use this term outright, or attribute it to multiple sources.
• Lean Bear's wife — Do we have a name? Or further details about her murder?
• "when the 1st Colorado Cavalry Regiment arrived" — This seems like an unduly passive description.
• "The rest of the tribe… was killed as well" — this seems to be false. See Weeks' account below.
• The description of the death should include the role of Black Kettle after the murders.
• The National Park Service biography below attributes Dog Soldier reprisal actions and escalating tensions leading to the Sand Creek massacre to the killing of Lean Bear and his companions. This deserves discussion.
• It's legally permissible to use the out-of-copyrights photo assumed to be Lean Bear in this article. Its age makes it public domain/out of copyright.

Incorporate the information found in these sources…

• Philip Weeks, Farewell, My Nation: The American Indian and the United States in the Nineteenth Century — a substantial scholarly account of the killing of Lean Bear. Also claims that he was a participant in the Fort Wise Treaty Council.
• Peter Cozzens, The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West offers a detailed description of Lean Bear and the other chiefs' visit to East Coast cities in the Prologue.
• [1]
• Biography of Lean Bear's brother: [2]
• Douglas C. McChristian, Fort Laramie: Military Bastion of the High Plains, [3]
• Barbara Nixon, Mi' Taku'Ye-Oyasin: Letters from Wounded Knee: [4]

--Carwil (talk) 15:30, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Peer Review

Your article did a good job of illuminating a previously un-remembered Cheyenne chief. I appreciated that you included a note at the end about how there are little know images of Lean Bear, but you should consider adding some of the works you do mention. I think you article could be improved by adding a longer introduction at the top of the page using more details from Lean Bear's life. For example, you could include that het met with Abraham Lincoln. Additionally, the article was choppy to read at times, and jumped from topic to topic with each sentence. More details/sources are needed, especially in the personal life section. I appreciate that it must be hard to find sources for a more obscure historical figure -- nice job so far!

I agree that the it would help to expand the lead section to summarize the rest of the article in a paragraph. Also, I know there is very little coverage on Lean Bear, but if you could just expand a little more in detail in your sections I think it would really round out the article. Some suggestions would be giving context on the importance of the Council of the Forty Four, maybe some information on the Cheyenne people, or just more details about his life if you can find anything. Great job and props for picking a topic that isn't easy to find information on. Meliasimpkins (talk) 21:20, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Lead image

Not sure we should be leading with an image that might not be him but here's a better quality version of the image and another from the same series:

• https://www.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.81.M2565
• https://www.si.edu/object/npg_NPG.81.M2288

©Geni (talk) 19:37, 1 March 2020 (UTC)