1/14/2021 Sitting Bull - Chief, Tribe & Death - HISTORY
OCT 23, 2019
Sitting Bull
HISTORY.COM EDITORS
Library of Congress
Sitting Bull (c. 1831-1890) was a Teton
CONTENTS Dakota Native American chief who united
the Sioux tribes of the American Great
1. Sitting Bull’s Early Life Plains against the white settlers taking
their tribal land. The 1868 Fort Laramie
2. Sitting Bull Resists U.S.
Treaty granted the sacred Black Hills of
Government
South Dakota to the Sioux, but when gold
3. Sitting Bull and The Fort was discovered there in 1874, the U.S.
Laramie Treaty government ignored the treaty and
4. The Battle of Little Bighorn began to remove native tribes from their
land by force.
5. Sitting Bull Surrenders
6. Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill The ensuing Great Sioux Wars culminated
Cody’s Wild West Show in the 1876 Battle of Little Bighorn, when
Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse led united
7. Sitting Bull’s Death and Burial
tribes to victory against General George
Site
Armstrong Custer. Sitting Bull was shot
8. Sources: and killed by Indian police officers on
Standing Rock Indian Reservation in
1890, but is remembered for his courage
in defending native lands.
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1/14/2021 Sitting Bull - Chief, Tribe & Death - HISTORY
Sitting Bull’s Early Life
Sitting Bull was born in 1831 near Grand River, Dakota Territory in what is today
South Dakota. He was the son of Returns-Again, a renowned Sioux warrior who
named his son “Jumping Badger” at birth. The young boy killed his first buffalo at age
10 and by 14, joined his father and uncle on a raid of a Crow camp. After the raid, his
father renamed him Tatanka Yotanka, or Sitting Bull, for his bravery.
Sitting Bull soon joined the Strong Heart warrior society and the Silent Eaters, a group
that ensured the welfare of the tribe. He led the expansion of Sioux hunting grounds
into westward territories previously inhabited by the Assiniboine, Crow and
Shoshone, among others.
Sitting Bull Resists U.S. Government
Sitting Bull first battled the U.S. Army in June of 1863, when they came after the
Santee Sioux (not the Dakota) in retaliation for the Minnesota Uprising, sparked when
federal agents withheld food from the Sioux living on reservations along the
Minnesota River. Over 300 Sioux were arrested in the Minnesota Uprising, but
President Abraham Lincoln commuted the sentences of all but 39 of the accused.
Sitting Bull faced the might of the U.S. military again at the Battle of Killdeer
Mountain on July 28, 1864, when U.S. forces under General Alfred Sully surrounded an
Indian trading village, eventually forcing the Sioux to retreat. These face-offs
convinced Sitting Bull to never sign a treaty that would force his people onto a
reservation.
Sitting Bull and The Fort Laramie
Treaty
His resolve was not shared by all. In 1868, Red Cloud, or Mahpiua Luta (1822-1909),
chief of the Oglala Teton Dakota Sioux, signed the Fort Laramie Treaty with 24 other
tribal leaders and representatives of the U.S. government including Lieutenant
General William Tecumseh Sherman. The treaty created the Great Sioux Reservation
and earmarked additional land for the Sioux in parts of South Dakota, Wyoming and
Nebraska.
Sitting Bull’s anti-treaty stance won him many followers, and around 1869, he was
made supreme leader of the autonomous bands of Lakota Sioux—the first person to
ever hold such a title. Members of the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes soon joined him.
The uneasy peace of the Fort Laramie Treaty was short-lived. In 1874, gold was
discovered in the Black Hills, a place sacred to the Sioux and within the boundaries of
the Great Sioux Reservation. White settlers seeking their fortunes rushed to claim the
land as their own. The U.S. government reneged on the treaty, demanding that any
Sioux who dared resist move to the redrawn reservation lines by January 31, 1876 or
be considered an enemy of the United States. Sitting Bull was expected to move
everyone in his village an impossible 240 miles in the bitter cold.
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1/14/2021 Sitting Bull - Chief, Tribe & Death - HISTORY
Defiant, Sitting Bull refused to back down. He mustered a force that included the
Arapaho, Cheyenne and Sioux and faced off against General George Crook on June 17,
1876, winning victory in the Battle of the Rosebud. From there, his forces moved to
the valley of the Little Bighorn River.
The Battle of Little Bighorn
It was in a camp at Little Bighorn River that Sitting Bull, then a revered leader and
holy man, or “Wichasa Wakan,” participated in a Sun Dance ceremony where he
famously danced for 36 hours straight, making 50 sacrificial cuts on each arm before
falling into a trance. When he awoke, he revealed that he had a vision of U.S. soldiers
falling like grasshoppers from the sky, which he interpreted as an omen that the army
would soon be defeated.
On June 25, 600 men under the leadership of General George Custer, a West Point
graduate, entered the valley. Sitting Bull ensured the women and children of the tribe
were safe while Crazy Horse (c.1840-77) led over 3,000 Native Americans to victory in
the Battle of the Little Bighorn, overwhelming Custer’s smaller force of 300. Custer
and every single one of his men were killed in what came to be known as Custer’s Last
Stand.
Sitting Bull Surrenders
In the wake of The Battle of Little Bighorn, the incensed U.S. government redoubled
their efforts to hunt down the Sioux. At the same time, the encroachment of white
settlers on traditionally Indian lands greatly reduced the buffalo population that the
Sioux depended on for survival. In May 1877, Sitting Bull led his people to safety in
Canada.
With food and resources scarce, Sitting Bull surrendered to the U.S. Army on July 20,
1881 in exchange for amnesty for his people. He was a prisoner of war in South
Dakota’s Fort Randall for two years before being moved to Standing Rock Reservation.
Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild
West Show
Sitting Bull was occasionally permitted to travel, and it was on one of his trips outside
the reservation that he struck up a friendship with sharpshooter Annie Oakley, whom
he affectionately nicknamed “Little Sure Shot” after seeing her perform in St. Paul,
Minnesota in 1884.
In 1885, Sitting Bull joined Oakley in performing in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show.
Buffalo Bill was by then a celebrity with a storied past straight out of a Western: He’d
rode horses for the Pony Express, fought in the American Civil War and served as a
scout for the Army.
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1/14/2021 Sitting Bull - Chief, Tribe & Death - HISTORY
Sitting Bull rode in the show’s opening act, signed autographs and even met President
Grover Cleveland, though he could also be mocked and booed onstage. He left the
show in October at age 54 and never returned.
Sitting Bull’s Death and Burial Site
Standing Rock Reservation soon became the center of controversy when the Ghost
Dance Movement started gaining traction. Followers believed that deceased tribe
members would rise from the dead along with killed buffalo while all white people
would disappear. Worried that the influential Sitting Bull would join the movement
and incite rebellion, Indian police advanced on his cabin to arrest him.
On December 15, 1890, Indian police woke the sleeping Sitting Bull in his bed at 6
a.m. When he refused to go quietly, a crowd gathered. A young man shot a member
of the Indian police, who retaliated by shooting Sitting Bull in the head and chest.
Sitting Bull died instantly from the gunshot wounds. Two weeks after his death, the
army massacred 150 Sioux at Wounded Knee, the final fight between federal troops
and the Sioux.
Sitting Bull was buried at Fort Yates Military Cemetery in North Dakota by the army. In
1953, family members exhumed what they thought was Sitting Bull’s grave and
reburied the bones they found near Mobridge, South Dakota, overlooking the
Missouri River.
Sources:
Sitting Bull. Biography.com.
New Perspectives on The West: Sitting Bull. PBS.
Sitting Bull. NPS.gov.
Sitting Bull, Buffalo Bill And The Circus of Lies. The Independent .
The Native American Ghost Dance, A Symbol of Defiance. ThoughtCo.
Last Stand to Save Grave of Sitting Bull. The Telegraph .
Citation Information
Article Title
Sitting Bull
Author
History.com Editors
Website Name
HISTORY
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1/14/2021 Sitting Bull - Chief, Tribe & Death - HISTORY
URL
https://www.history.com/topics/native-american-history/sitting-bull
Access Date
January 14, 2021
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
October 23, 2019
Original Published Date
November 9, 2009
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