His body painted yellow, the 14-year-old boy galloped after an escaping enemy warrior. The boy overtook and struck his foe. That day, the boy’s father gave him the name Tatanka Iyotake—which means Sitting Bull, suggesting that he could not be moved once he had made up his mind. When the young boy grew up, he embodied the virtues prized by his tribe, such as bravery, generosity, and wisdom. At a time when his people’s way of life was threatened by white settlers, Sitting Bull led the struggle to preserve his tribe’s traditions.
It is thought Sitting Bull was born in 1831. His father was a wealthy and respected member of the Hunkpapa, one of the many Sioux tribes of the North American plains. He taught his son the skills needed to hunt buffalo and to become a warrior. The athletic youngster practiced shooting birds from trees and throwing lances with other boys in games and competitions—and usually won. Sitting Bull showed his potential by killing his first buffalo at age ten and sharing the meat with the members of his tribe who could not hunt for themselves.
In his teens and early twenties, Sitting Bull proved his bravery and skills in both the hunt and in war. When he was 21, he was chosen to be a member of the Strong Hearts, a respected warrior society, and became their leader within a few years. In 1857, he became the war chief of the Hunkpapa—protecting the tribe’s hunting grounds and directing raids on competing tribes. He also became a holy man, someone who experienced and interpreted visions and led the tribe in spiritual celebrations. His people respected him as an insightful friend and leader.
By the 1850s, the Sioux’s traditional way of life had been disrupted. For centuries, the tribes had lived by following the buffalo. But westbound settlers and gold prospectors built homes on Sioux hunting grounds and interfered with the buffalo migrations, leading to clashes between whites and Sioux. The U.S. Army sent soldiers to protect the settlers, but the protection soon turned into attacks on the Sioux. Sitting Bull first fought the soldiers in 1863, when they assaulted the Sioux in his area as revenge for a rebellion in Minnesota. Attacks by both sides continued until the government proposed the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, which created the Great Sioux Reservation. The Native Americans who chose to live there would have to give up their way of life—the government would feed, clothe, and "civilize" them. The area west of the reservation, from the Black Hills to the Bighorn Mountains, was left as hunting ground for Native Americans, but whites would be allowed to settle everywhere else.
Sitting Bull refused to sign the treaty. He wished to have peace but felt his people should not give up their traditional way of life—they were meant to roam the plains, free. He continued to lead raids on the settlers and forts and to hunt the buffalo. Some Sioux tribes chose to follow his example and live outside the reservation, and he became their supreme chief.
The whites and Native Americans lived in relative peace until 1874, when gold was discovered in the Black Hills. Gold prospectors poured onto Sioux land, destroying the buffalo’s habitat on the way and shooting the animals for their skins. Instead of enforcing the treaty by expelling the settlers, the U.S. government declared war on the Sioux in February 1876 to force them onto the reservation. Many Native Americans once again looked to Sitting Bull for leadership as well as protection. His camp grew to more than ten thousand people, including about two thousand warriors. United under Sitting Bull, they moved from place to place—following the buffalo, searching for fresh grass for their horses, but keeping a wary eye on the soldiers.
In June of that year, Sitting Bull held a sun dance ceremony—an offering to the sun for good fortune and guidance. He danced until he fell, exhausted, and had a vision in which many soldiers—so many they resembled grasshoppers—fell upside down into the Sioux camp. The vision predicted victory, and it came true at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. On June 25, 1876, more than six hundred soldiers led by George Armstrong Custer attacked Sitting Bull’s village. Sioux warriors achieved a stunning victory, killing Custer and about two hundred of his men. Even though Custer had been the attacker, whites saw the battle as an atrocity and a massacre. Soldiers now harassed and attacked the Sioux at every opportunity, setting fire to their villages and encouraging the killing of buffalo to starve the tribes and force them onto the reservation.
Although many Native Americans gave up their freedom in exchange for peace, Sitting Bull still rejected life on a reservation. He took what was left of his followers to Canada, where the soldiers could not pursue them. They lived there until 1881, when, with the buffalo nearly extinct, Sitting Bull realized he must return to the United States to save his people from starvation. He was the last Native American chief to surrender to the U.S. government. Upon his return, Sitting Bull was treated as a prisoner of war for two years. Then, he was sent to Standing Rock Reservation, where he tried to adapt to white ways—farming the land and sending his children to school so they could learn to survive in the quickly changing world. He traveled throughout America, and for a few months, he even became part of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, where he rode in parades, signed autographs, and posed for pictures.
But life for Native Americans on the reservation was terrible. In the late 1880s, the government cut the amount of food and supplies provided to the Sioux and formed a plan to sell nearly half of the Great Sioux Reservation, as well as the hunting ground west of it, to white settlers. It was around this time that the Ghost Dance movement surfaced. Believers thought that Native Americans could regain their land, buffalo, and old way of life by performing the Ghost Dance. Sitting Bull embraced the movement as a ray of hope for his people, but the U.S. government saw the dances as preparations for rebellion. On December 15, 1888, policemen who were Sioux but worked for the U.S. government were sent to arrest Sitting Bull. When his friends tried to intervene, shooting began. Sitting Bull was killed by one of the policemen—fulfilling a vision he had seen earlier, that he would be killed by his own people.
Sitting Bull’s determination, courage, and wisdom allowed the Sioux to resist the U.S. government longer than most thought possible, and his behavior served as an example for Native Americans and many other people across the globe. The last chief to surrender to the U.S. government remains an inspiration to Native Americans who, more than a century later, still struggle to preserve their culture and traditional way of life.