Ancient Voices A Museum to honor the least known people in North America, the Original Tribal Women

Susbe (Alice Amos)
Dakota
1850 -

When Susbe was a young girl she travelled with her family to South Dakota where they visited the Teton Sioux and they experienced a very bad blizzard. Many of the people died as they were caught out in the snow but Susbe's parents knew that they could survive under a buffalo hide tipi (minus the poles ) they managed to spread it over them and survived. Another time Susbe helped a tribe who were fighting but had left their bullets behind, she ran back to retrieve them as she was the smallest and the fastest, and she ran back dodging a hail of bullets. She became a heroine for that.

Also when she was young her family came to Pipestone where the men quarried the red stone that became known as Catlinite. This stone was taken back to the tribe and Pipes were crafted for those who needed one. This was a tradition that they repeated every year. In 1862 the family were once again in Pipestone and on their way home to the Upper Sioux reservation they noticed smoke on the horizon. They found out closer to their home that what has become known as the 1862 Minnesota Uprising between the Dakota and the settlers/Military had begun. The family decided to bury the stone and carry on to Canada and safety. They stayed in Manitoba, Canada for quite a while and during that time Susbe got married, the couple returned to Flandreau, South Dakota. Susbe later married Joseph Amos (Hotontonna) and stayed together until his passing in 1899. Their daughter Eunice married Fred Pearsall an English man who wrote up the history of the family. Their daughter Estella married Moses Crow, and their daughter Ethel married Harvey Derby, who are Chuck's parents. Chuck comes from a strong family line.

Back L to R: Fred Pearsall, Eunice, Susbe, Hotontonna.
Front row: ?, Estella, ?.