1890 One day w hen he was 14, a boy named Slow followed his father and some other warriors on a raid against

the neighbor ing . This was around 1845, in what is now South Dakota. The boy c arried only a stick in his hand, but he rode st raight toward a Crow warrior who was aiming an arrow at him and knocked the warrior to the ground.

For Slow ’s bravery, his father gave him a new name : Tatanka Yotanka, or , after the s olitary buffalo that came to the father one night as a sign. Sitting Bull earned me mbership in the elite Strong Heart Society of warriors before he turned 17. He later beca me the society’s leader.

Ghost Dance at

Wound ed Knee

The massive Indian removals Sitting Bull came of age during a time of the 1830s marked the end of of sweeping change for his people. the first pha se of Indian Gathering on the horizon was an conquest. L ater, as the United enemy much more powerful than the States set it s sights across the Crows. The U.S. government was entire continent, there was no starting to view the as more than just a dumping ground for “outside” la nd to which Indians could be ba nished. Instead, the the eastern Indians. California gold tribes were corralled inside the fever brought herds of fortune-seekers fixed borde rs of reservations— over the grass-lands. Railroads mostly barr en patches of land followed, sprouting supply depots and that the whi tes hadn’t yet found settlements along the way. Now the a use for. While the Civil War Plains tribes saw their worlds shifting and shrinking as the worlds of the was raging over the destiny of the slaves, t he Indian Wars Choctaws and the Cherokees and signaled the fate of another others had two decades before. The people. The contest reached its government’s policy toward the costly clima x in 1890, on a Indians amounted to a war strategy: South Dakot a Sioux Divide and conquer. reservation called Pine Ridge.

Sit ting Bull was determined to resist. In Meanwhile, the government forcibly 1868, he led a group of Sioux who refused “purcha sed” nine million acres from the to sign a treaty confining the to a reserva tion Sioux. reservation. He knew that such treaties had For five more years, Sitting Bull and his often been broken, and he also knew that, people wandered in the wilderness, within such narrow boundaries, his resisting U.S. demands for their surrender. peopl e’s way of life would end. Sitting They sought refuge in Canada but finally, Bul l’s defiance inspired thousands of on the promise of a pardon for their leader, Indi ans from many Plains tribes to join the turned themselves in at Fort Buford, caus e. Dakota Territory, on July 19, 1881. The It wasn’t long before the governm ent agents broke their word and Army, fulfilling the Indian’s The arreste d Sitting Bull. He was held in worst fears, violated the Governm ent military prison for two years before being Sioux treaty to prospect for forcibly released into the custody of Interior gold in the . Lt. “purchased” Depart ment agents at Standing Rock Col. George Armstrong nine mil lion Reserva tion. Custer was the leader of this acres from the expedition. In 1876, reservat ion IN CONTEXT after the Sioux refused to Sioux . sell the Black

Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull Hil ls, the government launched attacks

aga inst Sitting Bull’s branch and declared Like Sit ting Bull, William F. Cody all of the reservation-dwellers prisoners of demonst rated his bravery and skill as a wa r. warrior early in life. He learned to wrangle On June 17 of that year, Sitting Bull, horses a nd fight Indians as a boy in

Cra zy Horse and other fugitive Sioux Kansas. During the Civil War, he served

surprised an Army unit at Rosebud Creek as a teenage scout for the Kansas Cavalry in s outheastern and forced it to in its ca mpaigns against the Comanches retr eat. Not far to the west, along the Little and Kiow as. Bighor n River, the victorious Indians Whe n the Union Pacific Railway began stoppe d to hunt awhile and rest their laying it s tracks across the continent, Cody hor ses. Here Sitting Bull performed the found w ork as a buffalo hunter supplying

Sun Dance, a special ritual for bringing on the huge construction crews with meat. He vis ions. Afterwards he described what he earned hi s nickname by reportedly killing had seen: government soldiers dropping 4,280 of the animals in an eight-month out of the sky like grasshoppers. th stretch. The following week, Custer’s 7 Cavalry At the time the Civil War ended, the appr oached the sprawling riverside camp. buffalo on the Plains numbered around 12 No one knows why the commander million. To the 31 Indian tribes of the

orde red his men to charge the Indians region, these animals were a sacred gift of bef ore the expected reinforcements arrived. food, clot hing and shelter. The white man Of more than 200 U.S. troops and their saw them differently. mount s, only one horse, named Comanche, Profe ssional marksmen like sur vived the resulting slaughter. The were fol lowed by tourists who fired on inc ident lent a bitter flavor to the nation’s grazing herds for the sport. The discovery

cent ennial celebrations on July 4. of a commercial process for making

Sitting Bull’s legions knew that they buffalo leather spurred the slaughter of woul d pay for the blow they had dealt the more tha n 9 million head in the early Arm y. The gathered tribes went their 1870s. By the turn of the century, the sepa rate ways, some onto the open plains, entire buf falo population of the U.S. would othe rs onto reservations. Sitting Bull kept be slashe d to fewer than 50. his faith that the Indians could hold out against the white man’s greed.

Through vivid, often exaggerated miserable. Diseases swept thr ough the newspaper account s, Sitting Bull’s reservations like winds of dea th. Carrots DOCUMENT exploits had brought him international and potatoes withered in the ha rd ground. How the West fame. The gove rnment arranged public Around this same time, a new religious appearances for the captive chief in 15 movement was spreading among Indian Was Lost U.S. cities during 1884. The following tribes all across the west. Far away in year, he joined Buffalo Bill Cody’s Nevada a Paiute Indian farmer named A writer named John L. traveling Wild West. Wovoka was telling his people about a O’Sullivan predicted in vision he’d had in which all the ancestors 1845 “the fulfillment of Sitting Bull returned to the reservation our to and buffalo rose from the dead, restoring in 1887. The gove rnment was trying to overspread the continent force the Sioux to sell more land, so the the old Indian way of life fore ver. In a allotted by Providence.” chief took up hi s old cause of resistance. time of increasing pressure from whites, He sensed, as many other Within a coupl e of years, the Indians listened eagerly to this message did, the government had won again and divided of deliverance. They began pe rforming a unfolding of a divine plan the reduced rese rvation into six parts. Life dance that Wovoka said would make the for the country’s for the Sioux gr ew more and more vision come true. expansion. Just four years

later, the discovery of gold in California turned “manifest destiny” into a IN CONTEXT… stampede. Forty-niners

(men seeking their Between Indian fights, Cody had often performed in stage plays about th e West. fortunes in the gold fields After his decisive triumph over Y ellow Hair, in 1849) flocked west by re-enactments of the encounter bec ame the the thousands. San centerpiece of a nationwide theat rical tour. Francisco was their The buffalo hunter and Indian fig hter had boomtown. Calls for become America’s most popular showman. statehood came swift and In 1883, Cody organized a comb ination loud. circus, rodeo and traveling museu m called With the admission of Wild West Show, which became an California to the Union in overnight sensation. In 1885, he had little 1850, the border trouble persuading the reservation agents to of the U.S. leaped from let him take Sitting Bull off their hands. Iowa and Missouri and This arrangement was conduct ed at least Texas to the Pacific in a partially on Sitting Bull’s terms. He asked single bound. In more

for and received $50 a month payment and than just a political sense,

the full proceeds from posing for the Indians in between were surrounded. The photographs. Other theatrical agen ts had U.S. Senate imposed the used captured Indians as objects o f mockery, following conditions in its but Cody treated Sitting Bull with dignity. Instead of leading other Indians into staged treaty with the Western While Sitting Bu ll (named for a buffalo) defeats, the Sioux chief rode his horse Shoshoni in 1863. was fighting fo r the rights of his people to silently and alone into the arena. Although The telegraph and live as they alw ays had, Buffalo Bill Cody audiences hissed and booed, new spapers overland stage lines having and others were helping to make that around the country and in Canada reported been established and impossible. With the herds depleted, life that the image of the solitary lead er inspired operated by companies as the Sioux and the and the a general sense of awe. Behind t he scenes, under the authority of the and the Pawnee and their Sitting Bull enjoyed the company of the through a neighbors knew it came to an end. other performers, especially the s ure-shot part of the Shoshonee On July 17, 1876, just a few weeks after , whom he offered t o adopt. country, it is expressly Custer’s Last Stand at Little Bighorn, The respect that Cody showed Sitting agreed that the same may Buffalo Bill gave white Bull during his two years in the W ild West be continued without Americans a taste of revenge against the Show helped to forge a surprising friendship hindrance, molestation, or Indians by taki ng the scalp of Yellow between the two former enemies. After injury from the people of Hair, the son o f a Cheyenne chief. This Sitting Bull’s death, many chiefs followed said bands…And further, it deed was not o nly a brazen act of warfare his lead and took advantage of the relative being understood that but also a cann y business maneuver. freedom the Wild West Show offered. provision

Wovoka’s movement, which whites called the Ghost Dance, combined earlier Indian prophecies with elements of Christianity tha t How the We st Was Lost Wovoka had picked up from missionaries had been made by the and white neighbors. From the Mormons, government of the United for example, he may have borrowed the ide a States for the co nstruction of of sacred garments that protect the wearer a railway from the plains from harm. Stories circulated that Wovoka west to the Paci fic ocean, it himself was the new Messiah, Jesus Christ is stipulated by the said returned to save the Indian people. bands that the said railway When Sitting Bull heard about the ener gy or its branches may be and excitement that the Ghost Dance was located, constru cted, and stirring among other tribes, he thought about operated, and without molestation from them, his own desperate people. They were through any portion of practically starving on government rations, and the government had told them that they country claimed or occupied by them. could no longer supplement their diets by It is further agreed by the hunting game. The winter ahead promised to parties hereto, that the be a grim one on the carved-up Sioux Shoshonee cou ntry may be reservations. explored and p rospected for gold and silver, or other Sitting Bull felt the new religion migh t minerals; and w hen mines at least give his people something to hope are discovered , they may be for. In October 1890, he invited some Sioux worked, and mi ning and from another area to come teach the Ghost Sitting Bull hoped his fame agricultural set tlements would call attention to the Dance. The religion quickly attracted many plight of his people. formed, and ranches followers with its promise of Indian victory established wh enever they and glory. Sioux men, women and children may be required . were soon so busy dancing in the snow tha t

The said bands agree that no work was getting done. Houses, schools whenever the President of and stores stood empty. The dancers claimed that the special shirts they wore would repe l the United Stat es shall deem it expedient fo r them to the white man’s bullets. abandon the ro aming life, which they now lead, and The whites had laws to protect their ow n become herdsmen or freedom of religion, but the Ghost Dance agriculturalists , he is hereby frightened them. The religious frenzy authorized to mak e such seemed a portent of rebellion than a broken reservations fo r their use as he may deem n ecessary culture’s desperate attempt to make sense of within the coun try above its collapsing world. Newspapers across the described; and they do also country fanned the flames of suspicion. In hereby agree to remove their mid-November, Pres. Benjamin Harrison camps to such reservations directed the Secretary of War to suppress as he may indi cate, and to “any threatened out-break among the reside and remai n therein. Indians.” The Indian Bureau in Washington

ordered its reservation agents to telegraph the names of suspected troublemakers. One of the names on this list was Sitting Bull’s.

Because of his celebrated history, the government knew it had to carry out Sitting Bull’s arres t with extreme caution. The general in charge enl isted the aid of Buffalo Bill Cody, who agreed to use his friendship, along with a few gifts, to coax Sitting Bull’s surrender. Cody

traveled to the reservation, but at the last minute a nervous a gent telegraphed the President and convinced hi m to cancel the plan. The Ghos t Dancers had been assembling in the Badlands on Pine Ridge Reservation. On December 11, Sitting Bull asked for permission

to go there. Now the government believed it could justif y having him arrested. Forty-thr ee armed reservation police surrounded his cabin before dawn on December 15. A crow d of Ghost Dancers gathered in the cold. When Sitting Bull came out, they tried to prevent his capture, but in the scuffle a

policeman shot Sitting Bull through the brain. Ration day at Pine Ridge brought hundreds of Sioux News of Sitting Bull’s death shook the Sioux women to stand in line for bacon, cornmeal, flour, like a lightni ng bolt. Part of his band turned to coffee and sugar. In 1890, the government cut rations by 20 percent. Chief Big Foot for guidance. Big Foot was another Sioux resistance leader who had been hiding out w ith some supporters in the Badlands. He believed that Chief at Pine Ridge,

who was expe rienced in dealing with whites, offered the best chance for protection from the government . So he set out to take his followers there. The refuge es had little food. Many of them walked bare foot on the frozen ground, while

others used torn strips of blankets to bind their feet. Sleet covered their clothes and gave them a glassy shine . Big Foot developed a deep rattling cough. His nose bled frequently, and he refused to eat. On December 25, he directed his men to kill the younge st horses and ration the meat. When ca valry troops intercepted the party

three days l ater, the exhausted Indians raised tattered flour sacks as truce flags. Big Foot formally sur rendered and received an ambulance wagon to ri de in. The troops then herded their captives—120 men and 230 women and children—t oward the Army camp at Wounded Knee Creek. The shoes on the soldiers’ horses

rang out aga inst the earth, which was hard as iron.

DO CUMENT Although the Indians had “A Su perior and surrendered and were Civiliz ed Nation” clearly in no position to

put up a fight, the In 1913, members of the situation at the camp was Pueblo group challenged the tense. Two cavalry units degree of cont rol that Congress guarded the Sioux tepees, exercised ove r tribal affairs. and Hotchkiss machine The U.S. Supr eme Court issued guns (with a range of two the following statements in its miles) sat atop a nearby decision (Uni ted States v. rise. By morning, more Sandoval). guns had been added.

After a breakfast of Army rat ions, the Indians were ordered to Always living in separate and give up all weapons they were hi ding. A few rifles were handed isolated com munities, adhering over, but not enough to satisfy t he officers. Soldiers herded the to primitive m odes of life, Sioux into a cluster and searched the tepees, collecting any knives, largely influe nced by tools or guns they could find. T hey searched the women and made superstition and fetishism, and them unwrap their babes in the cold. chiefly gover ned according to At the edge of the crowd, a m edicine man named Yellow Bird crude custom s inherited from lifted his arms and started a Ghos t Dance. As he danced, he their ancestor s, (the Pueblos) sang—about strong Sioux hearts and about soldiers bullets falling are essentiall y a simple, harmless on the prairie. The peopl e listened. Yellow Bird’s uninformed a nd inferior strange chant worried and anger ed the officers. A quick search of people… As a superior and some Indians turned up two mor e rifles. An attempt to seize a third civilized nation, (the U.S. one caused it to fire. government ha s both) the The single gunshot set the sol diers in motion. They raised their power and the duty of rifles, took aim and began firing. Some of the Indians grabbed exercising a fostering care and hatchets and knives from the sur rendered pile. Many fell dead. protection ove r all dependent Others, including Big Foot, died where they had been sitting under Indian comm unities within its blankets to keep warm. A few s tray Army bullets killed soldiers. borders.

ABOVE. Big Foot, wounded in the first round of gunfire on December 29, 1890, was shot dead later in the morning.

LEFT. On January 1 and 2, 1891, the frozen corpses were buried in a mass grave.

Then the hell-bursts of the Hotchkiss guns When the guns went silent, the soldiers removed tore holes in the tepees. Thunder echoed. their own 25 dead. A blizzard that night laid a The blood of women and children strained clean blanket over the corpses of 290 Sioux. the ground. Soldiers cried, “Remember Custer!” and kept firing. The Hotchkiss guns now fixed their aim on a ravine where some Indians hid. Most of those who fled were hunted down and shot.

IN CONTEXT

Wounded Knee Revisited government implement changes In response to this and other in tribal leadership and review protests by Native In 1973, Pine Ridge all Indian treaties as well as the Americans, Congress in Reservation again became a treatment of native people in 1975 passed the Indian Self- site of confrontation between general. Determination and Native Americans and the Federal marshals immediately Education Assistance Act, U.S. government. On surrounded the hamlet. In the which paid tribes to take February 27, armed members nine-day siege that followed, two over certain services from of the American Indian Oglala Sioux were killed and a the federal government. Movement (AIM), federal marshal was wounded. Some groups, charging that numbering around 200, On May 8, the government the act had little substance, seized control of the town of promised to negotiate on the predicted a much longer Wounded Knee. group’s demands. AIM struggle to overcome the They proclaimed themselves members surrendered their government’s former policy the “Independent Oglala weapons and ended the standoff. of Indian “termination.” Sioux Nation” and demanded that the

LEFT. Sacred Heart Catholic Church was one of several buildings seized during the Oglala Sioux occupation of Wounded Knee in February 1973.