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Sitting Bull

Remarks made to journalist James Creelman

Originally published in On the Great Highway: The Wanderings and Adventures of a Special Correspondent, 1901

"We have never dreamed of making white men live as we live."

Although conflicts between Native American tribes and white settlers had been common since the 1600s, the number and intensity of battles increased after the mid-1800s. The wars that occurred between 1866 and 1890 are known as the Plains Indian Wars and took place west of the Mississippi River.

Unlike some other tribes, Plains tribes (Native American tribes living in an area extending from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains) were mostly peaceful. As increasingly large numbers of white settlers moved to tribal lands, Native Americans became angry. The settlers slaughtered once-plentiful buffalo herds into near extinction. This was a major threat to Plains tribes' way of life because they depended on the buffalo for food, clothing, and weapons. Historians have recorded fifty-two ways the tribes found to use the buffalo. The Plains Native Americans had built their existence around the mighty buffalo, which has been estimated to have been nearly sixty million strong before settlers arrived. By the end of the nineteenth century, there were fewer than one thousand.

The settlers caused other problems for the Native Americans as well. Railroads interfered with tribal hunting rituals and brought settlers to the West in larger numbers than the U.S. federal government had anticipated. With the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1862, East now connected with West, and the traditional way of life enjoyed by Plains tribes was destroyed.

The federal government's method for dealing with the "Indian problem" was to sign treaties, or agreements. Most of these treaties were signed between 1850 and 1871. At that time, a law was passed forbidding the use of treaties with Native Americans. A total of 339 treaties were signed into law, but because of the unexpected number of settlers wanting to live in the West, the majority of those treaties were eventually broken by the government.

One of the Plains tribes was the Lakota, who arrived in the Black Hills of the Dakotas around 1775. This region of the Great Plains was considered sacred by many tribes and was off-limits to settlement according to the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. When gold was found in the Black Hills, miners and prospectors rushed by the thousands, hoping to strike it rich. The Lakota fought back in an effort to protect their lands. When they refused the federal government's offer to buy the Black Hills, the treaty was set aside. The commissioner of Indian Affairs decreed that any Lakota not settled on reservations (areas of land specified by the government for Native American settlement) by January 31, 1876, would be considered hostile.

Lakota chief Sitting Bull (1831–1890) and his people did not obey the government's orders to evacuate the Black Hills. Sitting Bull had a vision of soldiers dropping into the Lakota camp from the sky. Lakota war chief Crazy Horse (1849–1877) acted on his friend's vision and set out to battle the cavalry with five hundred warriors. Crazy Horse and his men were victorious, and to celebrate, the Lakota moved their camp to the valley of the Little Bighorn River. Here another three thousand Native Americans who left their reservations to follow Sitting Bull joined them. On June 25, General George Armstrong Custer (1839–1876) led the Seventh Cavalry in an attack on the Lakotas. The Battle of Little Bighorn resulted in the death of Custer and all 209 of his troops. The public was outraged.

The cavalry wanted revenge and spent the next couple years pursuing the Lakota, who had split up after the attack at Little Bighorn. Although many chiefs surrendered, Sitting Bull refused. As the years passed, the tribes suffered from starvation and disease. Many Native Americans died. On July 19, 1881, Sitting Bull surrendered. Because of the chief's ability to inspire his people, the government took the precautionary measure of keeping him a prisoner of war for two years at Fort Randall in South Dakota.

Sitting Bull continued to generate interest throughout the country. James Creelman (1859–1915) was a Canadian-born journalist whose sense of adventure took him around the world. He and his family moved to New York in 1872, and it was there he became determined to be a writer. Creelman's willingness to take personal risks to get a good story led him to travel the globe covering wars and political conflicts. One of his most famous interviews was with Sitting Bull in 1882.

Things to remember while reading
Sitting Bull's remarks:

• The job of any Native American chief is to protect his tribe and see that it remains healthy. Sitting Bull was completely unable to do his job, which must have been a great source of shame and regret.
• Sitting Bull's courage was legendary throughout the country. During a confrontation with soldiers in 1872, he led four fellow warriors into the middle of battle, sat down, and shared a pipe while bullets tore through the air around them. When they were done, the five men casually stood up and walked back to their battle lines.
• The dramatic events of the Battle of Little Bighorn brought General George Custer everlasting fame. Custer's "last stand" became the subject of songs, paintings, and stories. He was glorified in the minds of millions of Americans, and the fact that he died at the hands of "savages" only elevated his status more. For many Americans, Sitting Bull represented all Native Americans; he was as hated by them as Custer was loved.

Sitting Bull's remarks

I have lived a long time, and I have seen a great deal, and I have always had a reason for everything I have done. Every act of my life has had an object in view, and no man can say that I have neglected facts or failed to think.

I am one of the last chiefs of the independent Sioux nation, and the place I hold among my people was held by my ancestors before me. If I had no place in the world, I would not be here, and the fact of my existence entitles me to exercise any influence I possess. I am satisfied that I was brought into this life for a purpose; otherwise, why am I here?

This land belongs to us, for the Great Spirit gave it to us when he put us here. We were free to come and go, and to live in our own way. But white men, who belong to another land, have come upon us, and are forcing us to live according to their ideas. That is an injustice; we have never dreamed of making white men live as we live.

White men like to dig in the ground for their food. My people prefer to hunt the buffalo as their fathers did. White men like to stay in one place. My people want to move their tepees here and there to the different hunting grounds. The life of white men is slavery. They are prisoners in towns or farms. The life my people want is a life of freedom. I have seen nothing that a white man has, houses or railways or clothing or food, that is as good as the right to move in the open country, and live in our own fashion. Why has our blood been shed by your soldiers?

There! Your soldiers made a mark like that in our country, and said that we must live there. They fed us well, and sent their doctors to heal our sick. They said that we should live without having to work. But they told us that we must go only so far in this direction, and only so far in that direction. They gave us meat, but they took away our liberty. The white men had many things that we wanted, but we could see that they did not have the one thing we liked best—freedom. I would rather live in a tepee and go without meat when game is scarce than give up my privileges as a free Indian, even though I could have all that white men have. We marched across the lines of our reservation, and the soldiers followed us. They attacked our village, and we killed them all. What would you do if your home was attacked? You would stand up like a brave man and defend it. That is our story. I have spoken.

What happened next …

Sitting Bull lived for another eight years before he was accidentally shot in the head by a Lakota policeman. The remainder of the decade saw the birth of the Indian Rights movement. Well-meaning activists organized to take over where reservations had failed Native Americans. They believed education, U.S. citizenship, and a piece of land for each individual would help Native Americans assimilate into (adopt the lifestyle of and fit into) white American culture.

The government continued to create programs designed to change the attitudes, experiences, beliefs, and lifestyle choices of Native Americans. Many of these experimental reforms were in education. Whites believed the best method for changing tribal members was to send young children away to school and prohibit them from seeing or spending time with their parents. In the minds of the government authorities, Native American parents were savages, unfit to raise their children. Native Americans, however, placed great value on their children: They were the center of tribal culture. With the reforms, Native American families were split apart at a time when they needed each other the most.

The educational reforms did little for young Native Americans, who, for the most part, returned to reservation life after completing school. There, they found little opportunity to use their newfound knowledge. They quickly reverted to their traditional lifestyle when it became clear there were few options. Those who did pursue a career were forced to take low-paying government jobs. Given that the purpose of the school reforms was to convert Native Americans into Christians and make them self-sufficient, the experiments could not be considered successful in any way.

The government passed the Dawes Severalty Act in 1887 (see Chapter 4), a law designed to give each Native American his own land, thereby destroying the power of tribal unity. The Dawes Act was a miserable failure. It gave each individual or family their own plot of land, but not the training necessary to learn to farm it. Without the skills or knowledge to make a life as an individual or family, and without dependence on the tribe, Native Americans had little chance of success. When the Act was finally overturned by Congress in 1934 because Native Americans as a group were no closer to becoming Americanized than they were nearly fifty years prior, Native American independence on the federal government had increased. They had lost their way of life, but nothing had replaced it. Their resistance to giving up their lifestyles to embrace values they did not share kept them from assimilating into white American society.

The Indian Wars ended with a brutal bloodbath known as the Wounded Knee Massacre. In the early morning hours of December 29, 1890, American troops attacked a peaceful camp of Lakotas in South Dakota. When the firearm of a warrior chief accidentally discharged, soldiers opened fire on the camp. Within the hour, more than three hundred Lakota tribal members had been slaughtered, most of them women and children. Their corpses were found as far as three miles from camp. Three officers and fifteen soldiers were awarded Medals of Honor for their actions in the Wounded Knee Massacre.

The government announced the closing of the frontier (wilderness areas open to settlers on a first come, first serve basis) that same year. The line between wilderness and settlement was no longer clear.

The Buffalo Nickel

The federal government had forced Native Americans off their land, herded them on to reservations, infringed upon their way of life, and slaughtered the respected buffalo. Ironically enough, it began printing a nickel in 1913 that featured a buffalo on one side and the head of a Native American on the other.

The nickel, known as the Buffalo nickel or the Indian Head nickel, was popular among the general public. It was designed by artist James Earle Fraser (1876–1953) and continued to be minted each year until 1938 (except during the years of 1922, 1932, and 1933), when it was replaced with a coin featuring the head of former president Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826; served 1801–9). More than one billion Buffalo nickels were coined.

Did you know …

• Sitting Bull's Native American name was Tatanka-Iyotanka, which describes a buffalo sitting on its haunches, refusing to move.
• Just as he had experienced a vision telling him of Custer's defeat at Little Bighorn, so Sitting Bull had a vision of his own death. He knew he would be killed by his own people.
• In the twenty-first century, there are 304 federally recognized Native American reservations in the United States.

Consider the following …

• Imagine a completely unfamiliar group of people takes over the city or region where you live. They try to force you to adapt to their lifestyle in every way. How would you respond?
• What would be the hardest part of your lifestyle to give up: traditions such as celebrations, rituals, and holidays; general freedom to make choices; or ability to relocate and live where you please? Why?
• How is the discrimination against Native Americans in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries similar to that against African Americans during the same time period? How is it different?

For More Information

BOOKS

Blaisdell, Bob, ed. Great Speeches by Native Americans. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2000.

Creelman, James. On the Great Highway: The Wanderings and Adventures of a Special Correspondent. Boston: Lothrop, 1901.

Gibbon, Guy E. The Sioux: The Dakota and Lakota Nations. Boston: Blackwell Publishers, 2003.

Haugen, Brenda. Geronimo: Apache Warrior. Minneapolis: Compass Point Books, 2005.

Hermann, Spring. Geronimo: Apache Freedom Fighter. Springfield, NJ: Enslow, 1997.

Marrin, Albert. Sitting Bull and His World. New York: Dutton Children's Books, 2000.

Roop, Connie, and Peter Roop. Sitting Bull. New York: Scholastic Paperbacks, 2002.

WEB SITES

"Chief Sitting Bull." The History Channel.http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/sioux/sittingbull.html (accessed on July 17, 2006).

"Chief Sitting Bull." SittingBull.org.http://www.sittingbull.org/ (accessed on August 9, 2006).

"Native Americans: Indian Wars Time Table." U-S-History.com.http://www.u-shistory.com/pages/h1008.html (accessed on July 17, 2006).

PBS. "Sitting Bull." New Perspectives on the West.http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/sittingbull.htm (accessed on July 17, 2006).

PBS. "Transcontinental Railroad: Native Americans." American Experience.http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/tcrr/sfeature/sf_interview.html#c (accessed on July 17, 2006).

Fashion:

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