1883: Sitting Bull: Life on the Sioux Reservation U.S. History Resources

1883 Sitting Bull, Life on the Sioux Reservation

The difficulties of "assimilation" into white society were poignantly illustrated in 1883, when the Sioux leader Sitting Bull testified before a committee of the United States that was visiting the Sioux reservation.

The Sioux, like other tribes forced to live under the Dawes Act, had become dependent on a dole of blankets, food, and other necessities. Here, Sitting Bull tells the committee how life had been after he had listened to the "Great Father" (the president) and "came in" to the reservation.

Whatever you wanted of me I have obeyed. The Great Father sent me word that whatever he had against me in the past had been forgiven and thrown aside, and I accepted his promises and came in. And he told me not to step aside from the white man's path, and I am doing my best to travel in that path. I sit here and look around me now, and I see my people starving. We want cattle to butcher. That is the way you live, and we want to live the same way. When the Great Father told me to live like his people, I told him to send me six teams of mules, because that is the way the white people make a living. I asked for a horse and buggy for my children; I was advised to follow the ways of the white man, and that is why I asked for those things.

QUESTIONS

1. Do you suppose that the use of the term "Great Father" for the president of the United States originated with the Native Americans or that they were accepting a white coinage for practical reasons? 2. What elements of Sitting Bull's remarks point out the difficulties of establishing an agricultural economy with nothing but 160 acres of land for a family?

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