Sitting Bull Biography

Native American Leader

Sitting Bull (also known as Tatanka-Iyotanka) was a Hunkpapa Lakota tribal leader in the mid-western plains during the westward expansion of American settlers in the 1800s. In the 1860s he fought efforts by U.S. troops to move the Lakota tribes west onto reservations. He earned a reputation as a fearless warrior and by 1868 was the chief of a united Lakota Nation. He fought U.S. general George Armstrong Custer in a battle at Little Big Horn on 25 June 1876. Sitting Bull led thousands of warriors from different tribes to a resounding victory over Custer, and the desperate battle was dubbed "Custer's Last Stand." Pursued by U.S. troops, Sitting Bull fled to Canada, but he returned to Montana in 1881 and surrendered. After two years in prison, he joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show as a public attraction, but left after a few months to live on a reservation in South Dakota. Lakota policemen were sent to arrest him in 1890 to head off another uprising, and he ended up getting shot and killed in a struggle between the tribal police and his supporters.

Sitting Bull joins Jesse James and Oliver Cromwell in our loop Exhumation Celebration.