Frank Grouard

Frank Benjamin Grouard (also known as Frank Gruard, Benjamin Franklin Grouard, and Standing Bear) (September 20, 1850 – August 15, 1905) was a Scout and interpreter for General George Crook during the American Indian War of 1876. Grouard was born in the Tuamoto Islands to a Mormon missionary and his Polynesian wife. While working as a mail carrier in the Montana Territory, he was captured by Crow warriors and later adopted into a Sioux camp. He would live among the Sioux for the better part of a decade before returning to Anglo-American society. Owing to his knowledge of Sioux language and culture, he became a skilled Indian Scout. He was General Crook's lead scout at the Battle of the Rosebud, participated in the Slim Buttes Fight, Battle of Red Fork, helped to assess the immediate aftermath of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and participated in the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Early years Grouard was born in the Tuamotu Archipelago in the south Pacific Ocean, to a European father, Benjamin Franklin Grouard, an American missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a Polynesian mother of Asian descent on the island of Anaa in the South Pacific Ocean;

He moved to Utah with his parents and two brothers in 1852, later moving to San Bernardino in California. After a year in California, Grouard's wife returned to the South Pacific with two of the children, leaving Benjamin with the middle son, Frank. In 1855 he was adopted into the family of Addison and Louisa Barnes Pratt, fellow missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with his father. Grouard moved with the Pratt family to Beaver, Utah, from where he ran away at age 15, moving to Helena, Montana and becoming an express rider and stage driver.

Indian scout

In about 1869, while working as a mail carrier, Grouard was captured near the mouth of the Milk River in Montana by Crow Indians who took all his possessions and abandoned him in a forest where he was found by Sioux Indians and later adopted as a brother by Chief Sitting Bull. (Yugata), as he had been captured wearing a bearskin coat. For seven to eight years he lived in the camps of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse until he managed to escape, becoming an emissary of the Indian Peace Commission at Red Cloud Agency in Nebraska. In 1876, Grouard became a Chief Indian Scout in the United States Army under General George Crook, fighting Sioux Indians. By February 1876, many Indians were leaving the reservations with some refusing to return when ordered to by the United States government. General Crook began his winter march from Fort Fetterman on March 1, 1876 with many companies of troops and with Grouard as his Chief Indian scout and interpreter. Other scouts, jealous of Crook's preference for Grouard, tried to turn the General against him by claiming that Grouard had joined up as a scout in order to lead the Army into a carefully orchestrated trap, but Crook saw through all this. Thus, Grouard could pass as an American and an American Indian.

He was a major participant in the Rosebud campaign, and saw action in the Battle of the Rosebud. General George Crook and his officers, having retreated from the Rosebud, were hunting in the foothills of the Bighorns when Grouard, known to the Brulé as 'One-Who-Catches' and to the Hunkpapa as 'Standing Bear',

Crazy Horse Grouard has been blamed by some as being instrumental in the subsequent death of Crazy Horse. When he was challenged over his interpretation, Grouard left the council. Grouard claimed that he was present when Crazy Horse was killed.

Grouard was also present at the Yellowstone Expeditions and the Battle of Slim Buttes. He was assigned to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation during the Ghost Dance Uprising and was present at the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890. Grouard later served as a U.S. Marshal in Fort McKinney, Buffalo, Wyoming and was involved in the Johnson County War of 1892. With his carbine in one hand, Grouard tried to wave McGloskey to a stop with the other. McGloskey put spurs to his horse and as he rode past Grouard he fired his revolver at him, barely missing people in the crowd. When he got a hundred yards near the end of town, he stopped his horse for another shot, but Grouard shot him off his horse with his carbine. Frank made a quick stop at the wounded outlaw who was being attended to by one of the spectators, saw that he was still alive, then proceeded upon a fourteen mile chase for his partner, who ended up escaping. McGloskey cursed out Grouard until his last breath, stating that he just wanted to live long enough to get one more shot at him; Grouard replied, that "he could have the first shot...He died that night at eight o'clock hurling curses at me with his very last breath.

Marriage, family and later years By 1893, Frank Grouard had become famous, and his father, Benjamin Franklin Grouard, who hadn't seen his son since 1855, read of the publication of a biography of the scout. Benjamin Grouard then travelled to Sheridan, Wyoming, where he immediately recognized his son despite a forty-year separation. Frank was married in Amazonia, Missouri on April 10, 1895 to Lizabell "Belle" Ostrander (1862-1912). At least one son, possibly two, seem to have been the result of this union, Benjamin Franklin Grouard, also known as Frank B. Grouard Jr., born in St. Joseph, Missouri on May 15, 1896. The marriage seems to have been brief or Frank was mostly absent from his wife and family for public records primarily list his wife and sons as living with the latter's parents. Grouard's son Benjamin F. Grouard was married at St. Joseph, Missouri on November 28, 1912 to Ethel M. Poe. The later fate of him remains unknown.

Frank Grouard died at St. Joseph, Missouri in 1905, and was buried at Ashland Cemetery.

In fiction Grouard appears in Flashman and the Redskins by George MacDonald Fraser as the illegitimate son of Flashman and Cleonie Grouard, Flashman's mistress and a slave and prostitute. Fraser has Grouard being brought up by Indians after Flashman sells his pregnant mother Cleonie to the Navajo. In the story, the Harvard-educated Grouard rescues Flashman during the Battle of the Little Bighorn while fighting against the American Army as a Sioux.

On television The actor Bruce Kay, who appeared only five times on screen between 1955 and 1958, played Grouard in the 1958 episode, "The Greatest Scout of All", on the syndicated anthology series Death Valley Days, hosted by Stanley Andrews. Frank Richards (1909-1992) was cast in the same episode as Sitting Bull. In the story line, the half Sioux Grouard is caught in a culture clash but becomes a highly regarded scout for the United States Army, who is dispatched on the toughest of assignments.