Sitting Bull

[Akecheta]

Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill, 1885.

[Akecheta]

In 1885, Sitting Bull was allowed to leave the reservation to join Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show. He earned about $50 a week for riding once around the arena, where he was a popular attraction. Although it is rumored that he often cursed his audiences in his native tongue to the wild applause of his listeners, some historians argue that he did not, and there have been reports that Sitting Bull in fact gave speeches relaying his desire for education for the young and the normalization of relations between the Sioux and whites. Sitting Bull also was reported to have cursed his audience during an opening address celebrating the completion of the Northern Pacific Railway in 1884.

Sitting Bull only stayed with the show for four months before returning home. However, 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. It is rumored that Sitting Bull also once shook hands with President Grover Cleveland.

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 Sioux would be overwhelmed if they continued to fight.

[Akecheta]

Sitting Bull shortly before his death.

[Akecheta]

Back at Standing Rock, Sitting Bull became associated with the Ghost Dance movement. Although it has not been proven that he joined, he allowed others in the tribe to do so. The movement's followers believed performing the ghost dance would sweep away all evil in the world, including the white man and his society, bring back the deceased reuniting them with the living, and hasten a time of love and prosperity.

Indian Affairs authorities feared that 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 at his cabin on December 15, 1890, at the Standing Rock Agency. Initially, Sitting Bull did not resist the arrest; however, some of his followers fought to prevent it, fearing that the army meant to kill him. As Sitting Bull exited his cabin, about 150 of these followers had assembled.

One of Sitting Bull's followers, Catch-the-Bear, fired a shot at one of the police officers standing next to Sitting Bull, Lt. Bull Head, who then shot Sitting Bull in the side. Another police office, Sgt. Red Tomahawk, then shot Sitting Bull in the head, killing him. Another officer, Sgt. Shave Head, also was shot by Sitting Bull's followers, and fell with Sitting Bull and Bull Head. Shortly after, Catch-the-Bear was killed by another Indian police officer.

In the end, six police officers were killed, and one other wounded, while seven of Sitting Bull's followers were killed in the fighting, including his 17-year-old son Crow Foot.

Sitting Bull's body was taken by the Indian police to Fort Yates, North Dakota, and buried outside the military cemetery there. His surviving wives, Four Robes and Seen-By-Her-Nation along with their children fled to the community of Red Shirt Table in the Badlands, South Dakota after being detained at Fort Yates.

Some Lakota claim that his remains were transported on the night of April 8, 1953 to an open field near Mobridge, South Dakota, and a granite shaft and a bust by sculptor Korczak Ziółkowski mark the location. However, the actual location of Sitting Bull's body was and still is disputed.

[Akecheta]

Sitting Bull's grave at Fort Yates, c. 1906.

[Akecheta]

Following his death, his cabin on the Grand River was taken to Chicago to become part of the 1893 Columbian Exhibition. The cabin was exhibited along with Native American dances and a sign that said "War Dance Given Daily." Later, Sitting Bull became the subject of or a character in several Hollywood motion pictures, such as Sitting Bull: The Hostile Sioux Indian Chief (1914), Sitting Bull at the Spirit Lake Massacre (1927), Sitting Bull (1954), and Buffalo Bill and the Indians, or Sitting Bull's History Lesson (1976).

As time passed, Sitting Bull's legacy became a product of the public's lasting perception of him as an archetype of Native American resistance movements. Legoland Billund, the first Legoland park, contains a Lego sculpture of Sitting Bull, which is the largest sculpture in the park. On September 14, 1989, the United States Postal Service released a postage stamp featuring a likeness of Sitting Bull with a denomination of 28¢. On March 6, 1996, the Standing Rock Sioux tribal council voted to rename Standing Rock College (formerly Standing Rock Community College) as Sitting Bull College in honor of Sitting Bull.

[Bianca]

Welcome to the Forum, Akecheta!!!

Thank you for the Sitting Bull's biography.  We need more like it.....

I took a look at the ceramics, they are truly beautiful.

Are they YOUR creations?

Love and Peace,
b

[Akecheta]

Thanks for the welcome, Bianca, I have been reading your stuff, too, when I get the chance and you do good work.

No, the ceramics aren't mine (I wish).  I have made clay pots on a wheel, but my own work lacks a professional finesse.  I am glad that the forum has a Native American section as it gives me the chance to acquaint people with the history of my people.  European Americans tend to get a sanitized version of their history in school.