Sitting Bull Biography Quotes 34 Report mistakes

Early Life and Identity
Sitting Bull, born around 1831 near the Grand River in what is now South Dakota, entered the world as Tatanka Iyotake of the Hunkpapa Lakota. His father, Jumping Bull, and his mother, often recorded as Her Holy Door, raised him within the rhythms of the buffalo hunt and the responsibilities of a kin-centered society. As a youth he was called Slow, a name given in expectation that steady composure, not rashness, would guide him. In adolescence he distinguished himself in a counting coup against a rival, and elders recognized his courage and restraint. The name Sitting Bull, evoking the immovable power of a bull at rest, reflected his growing stature among the Hunkpapa and neighboring bands.

Rise as Leader and Holy Man
By the 1850s and 1860s, Sitting Bull had become both a respected political voice and a wicasa wakan, a holy man whose counsel carried spiritual authority. He developed a reputation for clarity of purpose: defending Lakota sovereignty, guarding hunting grounds, and preserving lifeways grounded in ceremony and kinship. While Red Cloud fought to close new military roads during the Bozeman Trail crisis, Sitting Bull remained outside the agency system and refused to accept the confinement that treaties increasingly demanded. He did not sign the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie, believing that the land itself, not paper promises, secured his peoples future.

Defending the Northern Plains
Pressure intensified after an army expedition led by George Armstrong Custer reached the Black Hills in 1874 and confirmed gold there, unleashing prospectors into a region sacred to the Lakota. When Washington demanded that free-roaming bands report to agencies in 1876, Sitting Bull led those who stayed in the field. He called councils, welcomed allied Oglala and Miniconjou Lakota, Hunkpapa relatives, and Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho visitors, and presided over ceremonies that reaffirmed unity. In a Sun Dance in June 1876, he received a vision of soldiers falling into a village like grasshoppers, a sign many took as foretelling a struggle soon to come.

In the early summer, Crazy Horse and his allies turned back General Crook at the Rosebud. Days later, at the Greasy Grass, the combined village met the Seventh Cavalry under Custer. Sitting Bull did not command the battlefield; war leaders such as Crazy Horse, Gall (Pizi), and Crow King, alongside Northern Cheyenne figures like Two Moon and Lame White Man, organized the fighting. The defeat of Custer, with Major Marcus Reno and Captain Frederick Benteen surviving in separate positions, transformed the conflict. General Alfred Terry and other commanders tightened the campaign that winter, while General Nelson A. Miles pursued the remnant camps through hunger and cold.

Exile in Canada and Return
Resolved not to submit in the wake of Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull crossed into Canada in 1877 with Hunkpapa and allied families, settling near Wood Mountain. There he met North-West Mounted Police officer James Morrow Walsh, who worked to keep peace along the border. The buffalo herds were thinning, and winter hunger tested resolve. As supplies dwindled and relatives suffered, many bands returned to the United States to accept rations. Sitting Bull held out as long as he could, then in 1881 surrendered at Fort Buford. He and his immediate family and followers were confined as prisoners of war, eventually sent to Fort Randall before transfer to the Standing Rock Agency.

Standing Rock Years and Public Role
At Standing Rock, Sitting Bull lived under the supervision of Indian agent James McLaughlin. The new order demanded ration lines, farming allotments, school attendance for children, and permission for travel. Sitting Bull, while adjusting to the routines imposed upon him, continued to assert autonomy and to speak for treaty rights and fair treatment. In 1885 he accepted an offer to travel with William F. Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West show for a season. The journey brought him to large eastern cities, where crowds came to see a man whose name had filled newspapers. The tour gave him a platform to observe the power of the United States firsthand and to present himself to the public as more than an enemy from wartime headlines. He returned to Standing Rock still determined to advocate for his people.

Through the late 1880s federal policy accelerated allotment and the breakup of the Great Sioux Reservation. Sitting Bull urged caution and unity, opposing the cession of more land and the erosion of communal life. He remained an influential counselor among Hunkpapa families and kin networks that included his nephew and adopted son One Bull. He valued continuity with elders such as Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, even when their strategies differed, and he maintained relationships with war leaders like Gall, who had also moved into the constrained world of agency life.

Ghost Dance Crisis and Death
In 1889 and 1890, the Ghost Dance movement spread across the Plains, promising a future of restored lands and the return of the buffalo if believers danced and lived in righteousness. Its prophet, Wovoka, inspired emissaries like Kicking Bear and Short Bull, who carried the message to Lakota communities. At Standing Rock, the movement drew anxious attention from agency authorities. Sitting Bull listened to those who came to him and allowed dancers to gather, but he also measured the risks in a tense atmosphere where ration cuts, disease, and broken promises had heightened despair.

In December 1890, officials ordered Sitting Bull's arrest on suspicion that he would lead unrest. Before dawn on December 15, Indian police surrounded his home on the Grand River. The arrest attempt turned chaotic. Lieutenant Bull Head and other policemen confronted him as supporters crowded in. A scuffle and gunfire followed. Bull Head was mortally wounded; as he fell he shot Sitting Bull. Another policeman, often identified as Red Tomahawk, fired again. Sitting Bull died in the melee, and several of his followers and policemen also lost their lives. Among the slain was his teenage son Crow Foot. The killing stunned Lakota communities and further destabilized the region on the eve of the Wounded Knee tragedy two weeks later.

Legacy
Sitting Bull's life traversed the transformation of the northern plains. He is remembered as a holy man whose vision fortified a village at a decisive moment, a political leader who refused to yield principle for expedience, and a spokesman who saw that survival required both endurance and adaptation. Around him moved figures who, collectively, shaped a generation: Crazy Horse, Gall, and Crow King as battlefield leaders; Red Cloud and Spotted Tail as older chiefs navigating diplomacy; adversaries like George Armstrong Custer, Marcus Reno, and Frederick Benteen; commanders such as Alfred Terry and Nelson A. Miles; intermediaries like James Morrow Walsh; public entertainers such as Buffalo Bill Cody; and agents of policy like James McLaughlin. His death in 1890 closed a chapter but did not end the story he embodied. For many Lakota and for others who study the era, his name stands for persistence, communal responsibility, and the claim that treaties and promises must be honored. His life remains a touchstone for understanding sovereignty, spiritual authority, and the profound costs of conquest on the North American plains.

Our collection contains 34 quotes who is written by Sitting, under the main topics: Justice - Learning - Freedom - Parenting - Nature.

Other people realated to Sitting: Chief Joseph (Leader), Buffalo Bill (Celebrity), Red Cloud (Statesman)

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