Dewey Beard

Who was Dewey Beard?

Dewey Beard or Wasú Máza was a Minneconjou Lakota who fought in the Battle of Little Bighorn as a teenager. After George Armstrong Custer's defeat, Wasu Maza followed Sitting Bull into exile in Canada and then back to South Dakota where he lived on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. Chief Iron Hail is often mistaken by historians for Chief Iron Tail, being Lakota contemporaries with similar sounding names. Most biographies incorrectly report that Chief Iron Tail fought in the Battle of the Little Bighorn and that his family was killed in 1890 at Wounded Knee, when in truth it was Chief Iron Hail who suffered the loss.

Iron Hail joined the Ghost Dance movement and was in Spotted Elk's band along with his parents, siblings, wife and child. He and his family left the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation on December 23, 1890 with Spotted Elk and approximately 300 other Miniconjou and 38 Hunkpapa Lakota on a winter trek to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation to avoid the perceived trouble which was anticipated in the wake of Sitting Bull's murder at Standing Rock Indian Reservation.