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Abstract
On Aug. 23, 1898, Tah-toy-tsee (Daylight), a full-blooded Shoshone Indian, killed his wife, Sleep, who was nearly his age. Tah-toy-tsee stated that he killed her because she "…broke (his) gun and he couldn't go hunting." The couple had seven children, who lived on the Wind River Reservation in Fremont County. After fleeing to Ross Fork, Idaho, he was captured and sent to the Territorial Prison in Laramie, Wyoming. The U.S. District Court in Cheyenne, WY, sentenced him to 10 years at "hard labor" during the preliminary hearing, which was to be served in the Wyoming State Penitentiary in Laramie, Wyoming.
Examining racism throughout federal Indian policies and court and prison systems this analysis illustrated the difficulties American Indians had adapting to a white dominated world. By examining this murder case, readers understand what it was like to be an American Indian in the late nineteenth century.
