Chief Red Fox

Chief Red Fox (Lakota: Tokála Luta, also known as Chief William Red Fox; June 11, 1870 – 1976) was an Oglala Lakota Sioux performer, actor, and Sioux Indian rights advocate, born on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the Dakota Territory. He was a nephew of famed Sioux war leader, Crazy Horse.^[1]

Participation in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show

In 1893, Colonel William Frederick Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, visited Pine Ridge Reservation to recruit Native Americans as performers in his "Wild West Show" and asked Chief Red Fox to join the troupe of performers who were about to make an appearance at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition (better known as the Chicago World's Fair.) Buffalo Bill also asked Chief Red Fox to serve as a translator and "have charge" of the Native Americans that were in the show. Red Fox agreed to join the traveling show and worked for Buffalo Bill for many years. In 1905, Chief Red Fox "scalped" King Edward VII in a stagecoach robbery scene in a Wild West show performance in London.^[2]

In popular culture

Chief Red Fox appeared in many early silent westerns shown in Nickelodeon movie theaters, most notably The Round Up.

List of Movies Chief Red Fox appeared in²:

• War on the Plains,
• When the Heart Calls,
• Daughters of the Tribe,
• Toll of the Warpath,
• Red Fox and Wild Flower,
• Perils of the Plains,
• Medicine Boy,
• The Covered Wagon,
• The Vanishing American,
• Desert Gold,
• The Wild Horse Massacre,
• The Flaming Arrow,
• The Law of Crippled Creek,
• The Round Up

References

1. "Books: Notable". TIME.com. 29 March 1971.
2. Fox, Chief William Red. (1971). The Memoirs of Chief Red Fox McGraw Hill Book Company. ISBN 0-07-051362-7.