Sitting Bull

Biography

Sitting Bull, a Hunkpapa Lakota (Sioux) holy man and war chief, was born in 1831 near the Grand River in what is now the Standing Rock Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He was named after his father, who was killed by Crow warriors--the Crow tribe being a longtime enemy of the Lakota--in an ambush. In the mid-1860s, during what became known as Red Cloud's War, Sitting Bull led the Sioux in a series of attacks on US Army posts and civilian wagon trains in the Powder River area of the Dakotas. Although other Indian tribes signed a peace treaty with the US government ending the war in 1868, Sitting Bull refused to and continued his attacks on military and civilian targets into the 1870s. He attacked crews building railroads across the Indian territory and miners who were panning for gold in the Black Hills, an area sacred to the Sioux. His attacks prompted the US government to send federal troops to the area, under the command of Col. George Armstrong Custer, to stop them. In 1875 the US Interior Department ordered all Sioux living outside the area known as The Great Sioux Reservation to move onto it, and any who did not would be declared "hostile" and could be forcibly removed to the reservation. Rather than persuading Indians to follow the Department's orders, this policy resulted in several tribes previously hostile to each other, such as the Cheyenne and Kiowa, to unite in alliance with the Sioux against the army, although many chiefs who had previously fought the army--such as Red Cloud, Gall and Spotted Tail--decided it was in their best interests to take their followers and live on the reservation. In 1875 the Cheyenne and several Sioux clans joined forces to resist the army's attempts to place them on the reservation. They used Sitting Bull's camp as their main assembling point, as did many other Indians who had bolted from the reservation. As more and more Indians arrived the camp expanded in size, until there were an estimated 16,000 Indians living there. It was this camp that Custer stumbled across on June 25, 1876. His attack on the camp, and the subsequent defeat and annihilation of his command, became known as the Battle of the Little Big Horn, named for the river that ran through the camp. Contrary to popular opinion, however, Sitting Bull had nothing to do with the defeat of Custer's forces--his task was to organize a defense of the camp, and it was other chiefs who led the counterattack on Custer. Custer's defeat led the US army to assign thousands of troops to the area to track down and capture Sitting Bull, and over the next year or so many Sioux chiefs surrendered their bands due to the intense pressure from the army. Sitting Bull, however, refused to surrender and in 1877 led his band across the border into Canada, where he knew the US army could not reach him. However, conditions in Canada deteriorated for the Indians, with cold and hunger taking their toll. On July 19, 1881, he crossed back into the US and led his band of nearly 200 Indians to Fort Buford, South Dakota, and surrendered. Initially taken to Fort Yates, near the Standing Rock Reservation, Sitting Bull's band was transferred to Fort Randall, where they were kept for almost two years as prisoners of war. They returned to Standing Rock in 1883. The next year Sitting Bull was given permission to leave the reservation to join the "wild west show" of Buffalo Bill Cody, aka "Buffalo Bill", and he became an audience favorite. He returned to the reservation after only four months with the Cody show, however. By that time he had become somewhat of a celebrity and many whites visited the reservation hoping to see him. He turned a tidy profit charging his "fans" to have their pictures taken with him. In 1890 a movement known as the "Ghost Dance" swept the Standing Rock reservation. Part of the movement's message was to encourage Indians to defy the authorities and leave the reservation. The Indian Agency administrators were concerned that Sitting Bull, who was still considered a leader among the Sioux and wielded great influence over them, was planning on taking as many Indians as he could and flee the reservation. They ordered the tribal police to arrest and jail him to keep that from happening. On December 15, 1890, a force of more than 40 Indian police arrived at Sitting Bull's house. As they prepared to take him away, nearby Indians who had heard what was happening began to gather around the house. Sitting Bull refused to go with the police, and the crowd became angry. Reportedly a Sioux onlooker grabbed a rifle and fired it at the officer in charge, hitting him. The officer then pulled his weapon and shot Sitting Bull in the chest, and another officer fired a round into his head. The crowd then attacked the police, who fought back, and in the ensuing mêlée eight Indian police and seven Indians in the crowd, along with Sitting Bull, were killed.