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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Sitting Bull Biography SITTING BULL (Tatanka Yotanka) (1837-1890) A chief of the Sioux tribe of North American Indians, born in Willow Creek in the region later Dakota Territory, the son of Chief Jumping Bull. He became the leader of the most unruly and warlike band of bucks in the tribe. During the Civil War he led raids and engaged in attacks upon white settlements in Iowa and Minnesota and in 1864 was driven by General Sully into the Yellowstone and Big Horn valleys. He was on the warpath almost continuously from 1869 to 1876, raiding the frontier posts and settlements or making war on the Crows and other tribes. His refusal to return to his reservation in 1876 led General Sheridan to begin against him the campaign in which Gen. G. A. Custer (q.v.) and his force were surprised and massacred on the Little Big Horn in June of that year. Sitting Bull and his braves escaped over the Canadian border, remaining there until 1881, when he received from General Miles a promise of amnesty and returned. He continued to wield great power among the Northwestern Indians, and in 1888 he influenced the Sioux to refuse to sell their lands. In 1890 during the prevalence of the Messiah craze among the Indians of the West he was considered the principal instigator of the threatened uprising. His arrest in his camp on the Grand River in North Dakota on Dec. 15, 1890, was followed by an attempt at rescue, during which he was killed. See Sioux. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XXI (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 144-145. |