Monaseetah

• Wikipedia

Mo-nah-se-tah or Mo-nah-see-tah[1] (c. 1851 - 1922), aka Me-o-tzi,[2] was the daughter of the Cheyenne chief Little Rock, who was killed on November 28, 1868 in the Battle of Washita River when the camp of Chief Black Kettle, of which Little Rock was a member, was attacked by the 7th U.S. Cavalry under the command of Lt. Colonel (brevet Major General) George Armstrong Custer. Mo-nah-se-tah was among the 53 Cheyenne women and children taken captive by the 7th Cavalry after the battle.  

Allegedly, according to Captain Frederick Benteen, chief of scouts Ben Clark, and Cheyenne oral history, Custer had a sexual relationship with the 17 year old Mo-nah-se-tah during the winter and early spring of 1868-1869.[4][5] Mo-nah-se-tah gave birth to a child in January 1869, two months after the Washita battle; Cheyenne oral history alleges that she later bore a second child, fathered by Custer, in late 1869.[5]

Comments from http://www.geni.com/discussions/107995

• The notion that Custer had one Indian child, let alone two, is pure speculation and not backed up with any factual information whatsoever. First, it is documented that Custer was treated for syphilis while at West Point and believed to be sterile. Second, Monaseetah was pregnant when first encountered by Custer at the Battle of the Washita and did not deliver for several months afterward. Thus, even if Custer had fathered one child with her they were not together long enough for there to have been a second.
• see this discussion consistent with this information: http://truewest.ning.com/xn/detail/2518161:Comment:172344 Based to the first-hand accounts of George Custer and Elizabeth Custer and the second-hand account of Kate Bighead, a relative of Monasetah, Custer appears to have kept Monasetah as a sort of concubine or spare wife for several months after the Washita. None of the three closest sources mentions a mixed-blood child, and, as Jeffrey Wert pointed out and several readers have mentioned, Custer had contracted gonorrhea at West Point of 1857 and was almost certainly sterile. Mixed-blood Indian-white children generally have dark hair so the story is suspect. Monasetah married a white man after the Little Bighorn and had a full-blood Indian baby by a former husband, but the odds that she had a child with Custer are near zero.  John Koster

More from Wikipedia:

In 1938, Joseph White Cow Bull, an Oglala Lakota veteran of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, went with David Humphreys Miller to the Little Bighorn battlefield and recounted to him his recollections of the battle. Among his recollections:

While we were together in this village [on the Little Bighorn River], I spent most of my time with the Shahiyela [Cheyenne] since I knew their tongue and their ways almost as well as my own. In all those years I had never taken a wife, although I had had many women. One woman I wanted was a pretty young Shahiyela named Monahseetah, or Meotxi as I called her. She was in her middle twenties but had never married any man of her tribe. Some of my Shahiyela friends said she was from the southern branch of their tribe, just visiting up north, and they said no Shahiyela could marry her because she had a seven-year-old son born out of wedlock and that tribal law forbade her getting married. They said the boy’s father had been a white soldier chief named Long Hair; he had killed her father, Chief Black Kettle [sic], in a battle in the south [Battle of the Washita] eight winters before, they said, and captured her. He had told her he wanted to make her his second wife, and so he had her. But after a while his first wife, a white woman, found her out and made him let her go.[9]

Miller asked White Cow Bull, "Was this boy still with her here?" and White Cow Bull answered: Yes, I saw him often around the Shahiyela camp. He was named Yellow Bird and he had light streaks in his hair. He was always with his mother in the daytime, so I would have to wait until night to try to talk to her alone. She knew I wanted to walk with her under a courting blanket and make her my wife. But she would only talk with me through the tepee cover and never came outside.

During the long winter trek officers commanding the victorious troops forced the younger prettier Cheyenne women, married and single, to come each night to their tents. Among the most attractive of all, Monahseetah (Meotzi) was picked to bed down with the soldier-chief, regardless of the fact that she was in deep mourning for her dead father, Chief Black Kettle. Strict Cheyenne morals counted for little with this soldier-chief, Brave Bear decided, for after they reached Camp Supply his white wife joined him and Monahseetah was discarded. Violated as she had been, no Cheyenne; man now would take her as his wife.

"She was a proud woman," Brave Bear told Lame White Man. "For long months she kept silent as the child of the soldier-chief grew within her womb. At last, when the Cheyennes were all together again and the soldier-chief was talking peace with us, Monahseetah told him she was happy to bear his child. After that, he shunned her as though she had the white man's dreaded spotted sickness (smallpox).

"It was then that we chiefs met with this soldier-chief and smoked the pipe with him, for by now we were all ready for peace. The soldier-chief solemnly promised he would never attack us or fight us again. Someone explained to him that our smoking with him made the peace promise binding on us as well. The pipe was in my charge that day. It was my honor to light it first and smoke it last. Looking about me, I saw from their faces that the hearts of the Southern Cheyenne leaders were warm with hope. For a moment I, too, felt warm toward the soldier-chief and all white men. Then my mind darkened with thoughts of Monahseetah's disgrace. I took the dead ashes from the pipe and spilled them on the boots of the soldier-chief, placing upon him the endless curse of the Everywhere Spirit."

Brave Bear broke off suddenly as a gangling boy of seven with light streaks showing in his lank hair crept through the oval flap of the big tepee and stood blinking in the morning sun. A moment later a young woman whose face was still fair to look upon followed. At the woman's silent touch, the boy turned away to accompany her toward the river, where they went each day to gather kindling for the breakfast cookfire. Lame White Man waited until they were out of earshot before he spoke.

"The boy with Monahseetah now -- the lad called Yellow Bird -- he is the son of the soldier-chief who killed Black Kettle?"

Brave Bear signed yes. "He goes with her everywhere, not caring to be around full-blooded children. Yet only his hair shows pale streaks, the light color such as white men often have. Otherwise, he could well be one of us."

Lame White Man signed agreement. For a while he remained quiet, for he wondered how his own wife might react if he told he was thinking of taking a second wife-and that he was considering Monahseetah, whose name was darkened by a cloud of white conquest eight years ago. At last he asked a question of Brave Bear. "Yellow Bird was fathered by the white soldier-chief ?"

"It is so," Brave Bear answered. "The soldier-chief who had yellow locks hanging to his shoulders, the one we all called Long Hair."

Then I found this.... Although Brave Bear asserted that George Custer fathered Monaseetah's child, Yellow Bird, it is more likely that the actual father was George's brother, Thomas Custer, due to the fact that the gonorrhea that George A. purportedly contracted at West Point apparently left him sterile and therefore incapable of fathering child. "He was shooting blanks," cackled one old soldier.

https://www.ancestry.com/mediaui-viewer/collection/1030/tree/175812...

About UsGAIL KELLY-CUSTER IS THE great great granddaughter of General George  Armstrong Custer and Monahsetah, the daughter of Cheyenne Chief Little Rock.   After General Custer died, his sister Margaret Calhoun, acquainted herself with  Monahsetah.  This was brought about due to the fact that Monahsetah was the  mother of her beloved Autie's only child, Yellow Hair, whose name was later  changed to Josiah Custer. Margaret and Monahsetah continued their friendship  throught out their lives.  Margaret continued a friendship with Elizabeth Custer  as well.  Upon numerous occasions, various politicians and military officers,  including General Terry and General Sheridan, confided in Margaret and  Elizabeth, of conversations and events concerning General Custer.  Margaret in  turn passed the same information on to Monahsetah, for the benefit of Josiah, so  he would know the truth about his father.  For gossip was not always truthful.  After Gail's aunts passed on to her, the true story of the lives of General  George Armstrong Custer and Monahsetah, and of their love for each other, Gail  wrote this tribute to her ancestors.

https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/17581230/person/28...