Sitting Bull, Tatanka Iyotake
1831-1890

Sitting Bull (Sioux: Tatanka Iyotake or Tatanka Iyotanka or Ta-Tanka I-Yotank, first named Slon-he, Slow), (c. 1831 – December 15, 1890) was a Hunkpapa Lakota chief and holy man. He is notable in American and Native American history in large part for his major victory at the Battle of Little Big Horn against the 7th Cavalry, where his premonition of defeating them became reality.

Teton Dakota Indian chief under whom the Sioux tribes united in their struggle for survival on the North American Great Plains. He is remembered for his lifelong distrust of white men and his stubborn determination to resist their domination.

Early life

Sitting Bull was born around 1831 near the Grand River in present-day South Dakota; The Teton called his birthplace "Many Caches" because it was used for food storage pits to ensure the tribe's survival throughout winter. He was given the birth name Tatanka-Iyotanka (Sioux language: Thathąka Íyotaka, literally, "buffalo-bull sit-down"), which translates to Sitting Bull. Early on he was known in his tribe for his excellent singing voice.

Sitting Bull was born into the Hunkpapa division of the Teton Sioux. He joined his first war party at age 14 and soon gained a reputation for fearlessness in battle. He became a leader of the powerful Strong Heart warrior society and, later, was a participant in the Silent Eaters, a select group concerned with tribal welfare. As a tribal leader Sitting Bull helped extend the Sioux hunting grounds westward into what had been the territory of the Shoshone, Crow, Assiniboin, and other Indian tribes.

His first skirmish with white soldiers occurred in June 1863 during the U.S. Army's retaliation against the Santee Sioux after the "Minnesota Massacre," in which the Teton Sioux had no part. For the next five years he was in frequent hostile contact with the army, which was invading the Sioux hunting grounds and bringing ruin to the Indian economy.

In 1866 he became principal chief of the northern hunting Sioux, with Crazy Horse, leader of the Oglala Sioux, as his vice-chief. Respected for his courage and wisdom, Sitting Bull was made principal chief of the entire Sioux nation about 1867.

Tribal Leader

The Battle of Killdeer Mountain struck a significant blow against Native American resistance, and many chiefs gave up the fight and went to reservations. Sitting Bull refused to surrender and rose to be a tribal leader, leading his warriors in a siege against the newly-constructed Fort Rice in present-day North Dakota. This action won him respect among the tribe, and he became head chief of the Lakota nation in c. 1868. During this period, white settlers, miners, farmers, missionaries, railroad workers, and military personnel began to expand the United States, and Native Americans were increasingly being forced from their tribal lands. Sitting Bull, who was a medicine man, began to work toward uniting his people against this invasion. Like many tribal leaders, Sitting Bull first attempted to make peace and trade with the whites. However, many of the men the Lakota encountered would trick them into accepting poor deals for their lands and produce, which created resentment amongst the tribes. After the discovery of gold in 1876 in the Black Hills, his people were driven from their reservation in the area, a place that the Sioux considered holy. Sitting Bull took up arms against the whites and refused to be transported to the Indian territory.

Portrait of Tatanka Iyotake (Sitting Bull) taken in 1885 by D. F. Barry

In 1868 the Sioux accepted peace with the U.S. government on the basis of the Second Treaty of Fort Laramie, which guaranteed the Sioux a reservation in what is now southwestern South Dakota. But when gold was discovered in the Black Hills in the mid-1870s, a rush of white prospectors invaded lands guaranteed to the Indians by the treaty. Late in 1875 those Sioux who had been resisting the whites' incursions were ordered to return to their reservations by Jan. 31, 1876, or be considered hostile to the United States. Even had Sitting Bull been willing to comply, he could not possibly have moved his village 240 miles (390 km) in the bitter cold by the specified time.

In March General George Crook took the field against the hostiles, and Sitting Bull responded by summoning the Sioux, Cheyenne, and certain Arapaho to his camp in Montana Territory. There on June 17 Crook's troops were forced to retreat in the Battle of the Rosebud. The Indian chiefs then moved their encampment into the valley of the Little Bighorn River. At this point Sitting Bull performed the Sun Dance, and when he emerged from a trance induced by self-torture, he reported that he had seen soldiers falling into his camp like grasshoppers from the sky.

His prophecy was fulfilled on June 25, when Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer rode into the valley and he and all the men under his immediate command were annihilated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, an ambitious military officer with presidential hopes, had earned considerable fame among Native Americans and whites for a series of controversial battles and early dawn attacks against Indian camps. The battles' results, usually reported to readers on the East Coast as great victories, included the slaughtering of many women and children.

On June 25, 1876, Custer’s 7th Cavalry advance party of General Alfred Howe Terry’s column attacked Indian tribes at their camp on the Little Big Horn River expecting a similar victory. The U.S. army did not realize that before the battle began, more than 3,000 Native Americans had left their reservations to follow Sitting Bull. The attacking Sioux, inspired by a vision of Sitting Bull’s, in which he saw U.S. soldiers being killed as they entered the tribe’s camp, fought back.

Custer's badly-outnumbered troops lost ground quickly and were forced to retreat, as they began to realize the true numbers of the Native American force. The tribes then led a counter-attack against the soldiers on a nearby ridge, ultimately annihilating the soldiers.

The victory placed Sitting Bull among the great Native American leaders such as fellow Little Big Horn veteran Crazy Horse and Apache freedom fighter Geronimo. But the Native Americans' celebrations were short lived, as public outrage at the military catastrophe and Custer's death brought thousands more cavalrymen to the area. Over the next year, the new forces relentlessly pursued the Lakota, forcing many of the Indians to surrender. Sitting Bull refused to surrender and in May 1877 led his band across the border into Canada, where he remained in exile for many years, refusing a pardon and the chance to return.

Strong public reaction among whites to the Battle of the Little Bighorn resulted in stepped-up military action. The Sioux emerged the victors in their battles with U.S. troops, but though they might win battle after battle, they could never win the war. They depended on the buffalo for their livelihood, and the buffalo, under the steady encroachment of whites, were rapidly becoming extinct. Hunger led more and more Sioux to surrender, and in May 1877 Sitting Bull led his remaining followers across the border into Canada. But the Canadian government could not acknowledge responsibility for feeding a people whose reservation was south of the border, and after four years, during which his following dwindled steadily, famine forced Sitting Bull to surrender.

Surrender

Hunger and cold eventually forced Sitting Bull, his family, and a few remaining warriors to surrender on July 19, 1881. Sitting Bull had his son hand his rifle to the commanding officer of Fort Buford, telling the soldiers they had come to regard them and the white race as friends. He hoped to return to the Standing Rock Agency reservation but was imprisoned for two years by the army, which was fearful of Sitting Bull's influence and notoriety among his own people and, increasingly, among whites on the East, especially in Boston and New York. He was eventually allowed to return to the reservation and his own people.

Fame

[above: A handbill for Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World, from 1899, long after Sitting Bull had quit the show]

In 1885, Sitting Bull was allowed to leave the reservation to join Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show. He was rumored to earn about US$50 a week for riding once around the arena, where he was a popular attraction. Often asked to address the audience, he frequently cursed them in his native tongue to the wild applause of his listeners. Sitting Bull only stayed with the show for four months before returning home. During that time, he had become somewhat of a celebrity and a romanticized freedom fighter. He earned a small fortune by charging for his autograph and picture. Sitting Bull also once shook hands with President Grover Cleveland, which the Native American took as evidence that he was still regarded as a great chief.

In his trips throughout the country, Sitting Bull realized that his former enemies were not limited to the small military and settler communities he had encountered in his homelands, but were in fact a large and highly-advanced society. He realized that the Native Americans would be overwhelmed if they continued to fight.

Final Years

Back at Standing Rock, Sitting Bull became interested in the Ghost Dance movement which prophesied the advent of an Indian messiah who would sweep away the whites and restore the Indians' former traditions. Although it has never been proven that he joined, he allowed others in the tribe to do so. The movement's followers believed performing the ghost dance would make them impervious to the bullets fired by white soldiers.

The authorities feared Sitting Bull, as a popular spiritual leader, would give more credibility to the movement and decided to arrest him. Pre-empting the army, 43 Indian police attempted to arrest him on December 15, 1890, at the Standing Rock Agency. However, his followers were still loyal and fought to prevent the arrest, fearing that the army meant to kill Sitting Bull. Shots were fired and Sitting Bull, who was hit in the head, and his son Crow Foot, were both killed.

Sitting Bull's body was taken by the Indian police to Fort Yates, North Dakota, and buried in the military cemetery. The Lakota claim that his remains were transported in 1953 to Mobridge, South Dakota, where a granite shaft marks his grave. Sitting Bull is still remembered among the Lakota not only as an inspirational leader and fearless warrior, but as a loving father, a gifted singer, and as a man always affable and friendly toward others, whose deep religious faith gave him prophetic insight and lent special power to his prayers.

Following his death, his cabin on the Grand River was taken to Chicago to become part of the 1893 Columbian Exhibition.

TOP