Wild Bill's killer walked free. Then a broken treaty hanged him
On 2 August 1876, Jack McCall shot Wild Bill Hickok in the back of the head at a poker table in Deadwood. The next day, a jury in a theater found him not guilty.
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Sources
Sources
- Daily Press and Dakotaian (Yankton), the trial testimony and the hanging, December 1876 to March 1877 (Chronicling America, Library of Congress)
- McCall v. United States, 1 Dakota Reports 320 (1877)
- Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), National Archives; Act of 15 August 1876 (19 Stat. 176); Act of 28 February 1877 (19 Stat. 254)
- United States v. Sioux Nation of Indians, 448 U.S. 371 (1980), which quotes Sheridan's letters, the 1876 agreement and the Court of Claims in 1975
- William Ludlow, Report of a Reconnaissance of the Black Hills of Dakota (1875)
- George Ward Nichols, "Wild Bill", Harper's New Monthly Magazine, February 1867; the Springfield Patriot on it, as transcribed
- Black Hills Pioneer, 5 August 1876, as reprinted in Brown and Willard, The Black Hills Trails (1924)
- Laramie Daily Sentinel, 30 August 1876, as transcribed
- W. Y. Kuykendall, Frontier Days (1917); Frank J. Wilstach, Wild Bill Hickok (1926); J. W. Buel, Heroes of the Plains (1881)
- Peter Carrels, Reason, October 1988; Henry Gass, Christian Science Monitor, June 2023
- Deadwood Alive, "Trial of Jack McCall"
Pictures
- S. J. Morrow's Deadwood photographs of 1876; William Illingworth with Custer's expedition, 1874; Alexander Gardner at Fort Laramie, 1868; John C. H. Grabill's Black Hills and Pine Ridge photographs; portraits by Rockwood, Hillers and Brady; A. J. Russell and W. H. Jackson in Wyoming; Strahorn's Hand-Book of Wyoming (1877); the Ludlow map, Library of Congress; the General Land Office's Territory of Dakota (1876); Wright, Dodge City (1913); Collins, Historical Sketches of Kentucky; Beadle's Half Dime Library; National Archives, Library of Congress, National Portrait Gallery, California Historical Society.
Film
- South Dakota Saga (Homestake Mining Company, about 1940, Prelinger Archives); Edison's Sioux dance films (1894) and Cripple Creek Bar-Room (1899), Library of Congress; A Cattle Ranch (Ford Motor Company, 1922), National Archives; The River (Farm Security Administration, 1937).
Credits
- Bear Butte by Jerrye and Roy Klotz MD, CC BY-SA 3.0. Bear Butte by William Neuheisel, CC BY 2.0. Black Hills from Harney Peak by Navin75, CC BY-SA 2.0. Black Elk Peak by Skye Marthaler, CC BY-SA 4.0. Dead man's hand by Tage Olsin, CC BY-SA 2.0.