Bull, Sitting (1831-1890)

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Sitting Bull (1831-1890)

Lakota tribal leader

Returns-Again. Some of the myths about Sitting Bull describe him as a white man in disguise, a West Point graduate, and a Freemason; the facts of his life, however, need no embellishment. He was born in 1831 near the Grand River, in what is now South Dakota. His father, Returns-Again, was a mystic and warrior of the Hunkpapa clan of the Sioux, or Lakota, tribe. (The name Sioux came from the Ojibway term nadouessioux used to describe the Lakota people; it means “snake” or “enemy.”) Initially, Returns-Again called his son “Slow,” because he was deliberate in his actions. One night, after a long day of hunting, Returns-Again and three other warriors heard strange sounds as they sat near the campfire. The noise came nearer and the four men saw that it emanated from a lone buffalo bull. As a mystic, Returns-Again could communicate with animals, and he soon realized that the buffalo was repeating a name: Ta-tan-ka I-yo-ta-ke, or Sitting Bull.

Young Warrior. Slow grew up like any other Lakota boy, listening to the men repeat their stories of battle and dreaming of the day in which he would meet an enemy in hand-to-hand combat. He also inherited his father’s ability to communicate with the spirit world through animals and dreams. When Slow turned fourteen, his father presented him with a coup stick, a slender pole with which he could gain prestige by striking an enemy. He quickly proved himself by “counting coup” against the Crow, the traditional enemy of the Lakota. His father was so proud of him that he changed his son’s name to Sitting Bull. In time, Sitting Bull would count coup more than sixty times and claim the deference of every warrior in the Hunkpapa band.

Leader. By the age of twenty-five Sitting Bull was made a leader of the Strong Hearts, an elite warrior society. He became chief of the Hunkpapas in the 1860s, at a time of severe white encroachment on tribal lands. In 1868 he refused to sign the Treaty of Laramie, which designated the entire western half of present-day South Dakota as a reservation for the Lakota, northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho. Over the next few years Sitting Bull led his warriors on sporadic raids against railroad workers and settlers along the Yellowstone River.

Greasy Grass River. In 1874 geologists accompanying an army expedition discovered traces of gold in western South Dakota. Within a year, nearly one thousand prospectors were illegally camped in the Black Hills, which the Lakota regarded as a sacred dwelling place of the spirits. When government officials offered to purchase the region, tribal leaders balked. As a result, the commissioner of Indian Affairs in November 1875 ordered all Lakota to report to the reservation. Sitting Bull and his followers ignored the order, even after the arrival of U.S. Army troops. In June 1876 Sitting Bull and the Oglala war chief Crazy Horse summoned Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho bands to a large council on Rosebud Creek, Montana. After a six-hour battle on 17 June, the Native Americans temporarily halted an army column under Gen. George Crook. Eight days later, in the best-known battle of the Indian wars, they wiped out a detachment of the Seventh Cavalry under Lt. Col. George A. Custer on the Greasy Grass, or Little Bighorn River, Montana.

End. Contrary to popular belief, Sitting Bull did not lead his warriors into battle on either occasion, preferring to stay in his tepee and “make medicine” or pray. He had predicted a victory for his people, but at a heavy price. The U.S. government reacted swiftly to the “massacre” of Custer and his men. They hounded the various Indian bands until they surrendered one by one. Sitting Bull took his followers to Canada in May 1877. When U.S. peace commissioners offered him a full pardon in October, Sitting Bull retorted: “We did not give our country to you; you stole it. You come here to tell lies; when you go home, take them with you.” By 1881, however, the proud Hunkpapa leader had only a few followers left, and he returned to the United States. After a brief imprisonment, he toured for a year (1885) with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, becoming a celebrity to the many whites who wanted to see “the Slayer of General Custer.” He became good friends with the show’s owner, William Cody, who paid the Hunkpapa leader fifty dollars a week and treated him with the utmost respect. Rumored to be an instigator of the Ghost Dance movement, Sitting Bull was killed in a scuffle with Indian police in South Dakota on 15 December 1890. Although there were chiefs, such as Crazy Horse, whose credentials as warriors were greater, Sitting Bull represented something more to his people. His powers to communicate with the spirits made him, in the words of a fellow tribesman, “big medicine.”