Moccasin Musings remembers the great Sioux Chief Sitting Bull
A great tragedy occurred on this day in history, 1890.
After many years of resisting white efforts to destroy the Sioux people, the great Sioux chief and holy man Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake) is killed by Indian police at the Standing Rock reserve in South Dakota.
Deeply devoted holy man and Chief, Sitting Bull, and his tribe resisted association with the whites, rejected Christianity, wishing only to be left alone to pursue their traditional ways. His refusal to follow an 1875 order to bring his people to the Sioux reservation directly led to the famous Battle of the Little Bighorn during which the Sioux and Cheyenne wiped out five troops of Custer's 7th Cavalry.
After the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull and his followers fled to Canada for four years. Faced with starvation (their traditional staple of buffalo already wiped out) they returned to the United States in 1883 and surrendered to the Standing Rock reservation.
When a spiritual revival movement known as the Ghost Dance began to gain popularity among the Sioux the Lakota Indian agents feared it might lead to an uprising. Wrongly believing that Sitting Bull was the driving force behind the Ghost Dance, the Lakota Indian police were sent to arrest him at his small cabin on the Grand River. When the fifty-nine-year-old chief refused to go quietly, a crowd gathered. Someone fired a shot and the great chief was killed instantly. Before the ensuing gunfight ended, twelve other Indians were dead and three wounded.
Tatanka Iyotake (Chief Sitting Bull), the man who had nobly resisted the encroachment of whites and their culture for nearly three decades was dead.
Two weeks later, under the same flag of Ghost Dance movement suppression, the massacre at Wounded Knee took place. It was the final act in the long and tragic history of the American Army's war against the Plains Indians.
Indeed, today, December 15th, was a sad day in history in 1890...Moccasins stomp up a storm of dust in respect of the noble leader and holy man, Chief Sitting Bull.
Gene Sanderson is owner, with his wife, Shirley, of Marie Shoes.com. Marie Shoes.com has been selling quality moccasins, mukluks and slippers around the world since 2006.
Gene Sanderson is owner, with his wife, Shirley, of Marie Shoes.com. Marie Shoes.com has been selling quality moccasins, mukluks and slippers around the world since 2006.
