Sitting Bull was a leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota and led his people through years of resistance to United States government policies. He was killed by Indian police on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation when they tried to arrest him, because at the time the authorities feared he would join the Ghost Dance movement.
Before the Battle of Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull had a vision in which he saw many soldiers, “fat as grasshoppers”, falling headlong into the Lakota camp, which his people took as a harbinger of a great victory in which many soldiers would be killed. About three weeks later, the Lakota (fighting on the Confederate side) and the Northern Cheyenne defeated Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry on June 25, 1876, destroying Custer's battalion and seemingly confirming Sitting Bull's prophetic vision.
His courage and leadership inspired his men to even greater victory. In response, the U.S. government sent thousands more troops to the area, forcing many of the Lakota to surrender the following year. Sitting Bull refused to surrender and in May 1877 led his band north to Wood Mountain, Northwest Territory (now Saskatchewan). He remained there until 1881, before returning to the United States with most of his band and surrendering to American forces.
After working as a performer in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, Sitting Bull returned to Standing Rock, South Dakota. Concerned that he would use his influence to support the Ghost Dance movement, Indian Service Agent James McLaughlin at Fort Yates ordered his arrest. During the ensuing struggle between Sitting Bull's followers and the agency police, he was shot in the body and head by Standing Rock police officers Lieutenant Bullhead and Red Tomahawk, after Sitting Bull's supporters fired on the police. His body was taken to nearby Fort Yates, where he was buried. In 1953 His Lakota family exhumed what are believed to be his remains and buried them near Mobridge, South Dakota, near his birthplace.
Sitting Bull was born in what was later incorporated into the Dakota Territory. In 2007, Sitting Bull's great-grandson recounted a family story that Sitting Bull was born along the Yellowstone River, south of present-day Miles City, Montana. He was named Jumping Badger at birth and was given the nickname Slow, which is said to describe his careful and calm nature. When he was 14, he accompanied a group of Lakota warriors (including his father and his uncle Four Horns) on a raid to steal horses from a Crow camp.
He showed courage by riding ahead of the group on his horse and fighting off one of the surprised Crow members, which was witnessed by other Lakota horsemen. Upon his return to camp, his father gave a feast at which he gave his son his own name. The name, which in the Lakota language roughly means "a buffalo that has set itself to watch over the herd", was simplified to "Sitting Bull". From that point on, Sitting Bull's father was known as Jumping Bull. At this ceremony, in front of the entire group, Sitting Bull's father also gave his son an eagle feather to wear in his hair, a warrior's horse, and a hardened buffalo shield to mark his son's transition from boy to man, as well as a Lakota warrior.
During the Dakota War of 1862, in which Sitting Bull's people did not participate, several bands of East Dakota people massacred an estimated 300 to 800 settlers and soldiers in south-central Minnesota in response to government mistreatment and in an effort to drive out whites. Although engaged in the American Civil War, the United States Army retaliated in 1863 and 1864, even against groups not participating in the fighting. In 1864, two brigades of about 2,200 soldiers under Brigadier General Alfred Sully attacked a village. The defenders are led by Sitting Bull, Gall, and Inkpaduta.
Source: chr.bg