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Monday 29 January 2018

Sitting Bull

Sitting Bull was born on land later included in the Dakota Territory in c1831.

In September 1864, Sitting Bull and some of his fellow Hunkpapa Lakota encountered a wagon train commanded by Captain James L. Fisk. He was shot in the hip while leading an attack on the wagon train.

Following the creation of the Great Sioux Reservation in 1868, many traditional Sioux warriors, such as Red Cloud of the Oglala and Spotted Tail of the Brulé, moved to reside permanently on the reservations. Sitting Bull and his fellow Hunkpapa Lakota, however remained on the plains refusing to adopt any dependence on the US government.

Sketch of Sitting Bull; Harper's Weekly, December 8, 1877 issue.

As Native Americans became threatened by the United States, numerous members from various Sioux bands and other tribes, such as the North Cheyenne, came to Sitting Bull's camp along the Little Bighorn River in the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana Territory. By June 1876, Sitting Bull's camp was an extensive village estimated at more than 10,000 people. By this time Sitting Bull had become known as the leader of the Native Indian resistance to the US invasions of the Black Hills,

Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer came across Sitting Bull's large camp on June 25, 1876. Underestimating its size and against orders he attacked the Indian encampment. 2,500 Sioux warriors counter attacked and defeated Custer's 655 men.

Sitting Bull did not take a direct military role in the Battle of the Little Bighorn; instead he acted as a spiritual leader.

Following the death of Custer, soldiers flooded into the Black Hills, intent on capturing Sitting Bull. The Hunkpapa Lakota leader along with family members and followers left the United States for Wood Mountain, North-West Territories (now Saskatchewan), where he remained until 1881.

In 1881, Sitting Bull and most of his band returned to US territory and surrendered to U.S. forces. The government kept Sitting Bull isolated on a reservation, but four years he was allowed to leave  to join Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show.

In 1885 Chief Sitting Bull started playing himself in reconstructions of Custer’s Last Stand for Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. He made $50 per week. Historians are divided as to whether he cursed the audiences in the Lakota language during his performance.

Sitting Bull quit the Wild West Show after four months and returned to his people saying "I would rather die an Indian than live a white man."

Sitting Bull by D F Barry ca 1883 original cabinet card

After leaving Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, Sitting Bull returned to the Standing Rock Agency in South Dakota. In 1890 Indian Service agent James McLaughlin at Fort Yates ordered his arrest as the US government feared he was an instigator of the Ghost Dance, a religious movement among Indians.

During the ensuing struggle on December 15, 1890 between Sitting Bull's followers and the agency police, the Native American leader was shot in the side and head by two Native-American policemen Lieutenant Bull Head and Red Tomahawk. Sitting Bull dropped to the ground and died.

Capture and death of Sitting Bull

Sitting Bull's body was taken to Fort Yates, where it was placed in a coffin and buried.
In 1953 Lakota family members exhumed what they believed to be Sitting Bull's remains, transporting them for reinterment near Mobridge, South Dakota, his birthplace

Source About.com

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