Two Strike

Who was Two Strike?

Two Strike was a Brulé Lakota chief born in the White River Valley in the northwest of present day Nebraska. He earned his Lakota name "Nomkahpa", meaning "Knocks Two Off" in a battle with the Utes, when he knocked two Utes off their horses with a single blow of his war club. Two Strike fought in various battles against the U.S. Army during the time of Bozeman Trail wars, allied with Chief Crow Dog and Chief Crazy Horse in the Powder River country of Wyoming.

Two Strike and his band were present along with bands of the Southern Cheyenne, at the Battle of Summit Springs in Colorado on July 11, 1869, when the U.S. Fifth Cavalry and 50 Pawnee scouts made a surprise attack against their camp. Buffalo Bill Cody was present at the battle serving in the capacity as chief scout. Chief Tall Bull of the Southern Cheyenne along with 51 members of the combined Lakota-Cheyenne encampment were killed and 17 women and children were taken prisoner, the rest of the Lakota and Cheyenne managed to escape. The soldiers then burned their camp including their tipis and supplies.

Chief Two Strike was one of the principal chiefs of combined Oglala and Brulé war party of over a thousand braves that attacked a group of 350 Pawnee that had left their reservation in Nebraska to hunt buffalo. More than 70 Pawnee were killed in the battle which occurred in and along a canyon in present day Hitchcock County, Nebraska. The canyon was subsequently named Massacre Canyon.