Who Was Sitting Bull?
In 1831, a son was born to an important family of the Hunkpapa Lakota tribe at the Grand River in modern day South Dakota. As the son and nephew of multiple Chiefs of their tribe, this boy was given the name Jumping Badger at birth, with his father being named Sitting Bull. Not much is known about his life before the age of 14, but he was taught and achieved excellent skill in riding horses, hunting, and shooting all before the age of 10, with him killing his first Buffalo at this age. When he was 14, in June of 1845, Jumping Badger joined a war party that fought against the Crow, another Native American group who had sided with the United States military during U.S. expansion. Whilst fighting against the Crow, Jumping Badger was able to knock a member of the Crow off of his horse, which lead to this member of the Crow dying. Due to this, his father believed he had earned the name of Sitting Bull, and from then on Jumping Badger was now known as Sitting Bull, and his father took on the name of Jumping Bull. Now under the name of Sitting Bull, he continued to join multiple warrior groups and advocated against anyone in the Lakota tribes from forming any relationships with the white settlers.
As a young man, Sitting Bull had been recognized as a holy man and a spiritual leader. In his early twenties, Sitting Bull had gone off on a vision quest so he could find an understanding of what his path in life was. Little is known about this quest he went on, and in interviews later on in his life Sitting Bull never spoke about it, saying that he had already known of his destiny while he was still in the womb. It is believed that he engaged in some sort of spiritual ritual, however, because doing so is one of the Seven Sacred Rights of the Lakota Sioux. Furthermore, as a holy man, Sitting Bull would experience having dreams that consisted of sacred content or visions of strong spiritual power, and it was his duty to help others interpret their own dreams. Additionally, Sitting Bull had earned a reputation among the Lakota tribes as having great wisdom and spiritual power, as well as the ability to communicate with animals. He also had an expansive knowledge of plants and herbs that could be used for healing and medicinal use.
As the years went on, threats of settler expansion grew rapidly. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 was signed to allow white settlers to pass through Native American lands, as well as establish tribal boundaries to minimize and eliminate conflict between various tribes and make the area peaceful for white settlers to travel. However, with increasing numbers of white settlers passing through tensions between them and Native Americans continued to rise. The agreements and terms were often broken by everyone, the tribes, settlers, and the United States government, and this led to what is often known as Red Cloud’s War in 1866. At this point, Sitting Bull had become a chief of the Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux, and was highly respected as a war chief. Sitting Bull is often misinterpreted as an active member in this battle alongside Red Cloud, the chief of the Oglala Lakota tribe, however, he was more so leading his own attacks against the white settlers, beginning in 1865, not under the command of Red Cloud. After two years of fighting, the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 was created, which formed reservations for the Sioux tribes to move onto, and many Sioux leaders signed this treaty and them, and their tribes moved onto these lands. However, Sitting Bull was not among those who signed the treaty, and he and his followers remained where they were, creating a divide between those who stayed with Sitting Bull and those who followed Red Cloud onto the reservation. Sitting Bull would continue to stage attacks on white settlers who moved onto his land.
A few years went by of Sitting Bull, and other leaders such as Crazy Horse, remained where they were. Unfortunately for them, gold was discovered in the Black Hills, sacred land that still belonged to the Sioux under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. The U.S. government offered to buy the land from the Sioux, but they refused, and the government still allowed white settlers to move to the Black Hills. Despite this land still belonging to the Sioux, during November of 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant ordered all Sioux to move onto the reservation by January 31, 1876, and those who did not would then be considered hostile and subject to prosecution. Sitting Bull and the other Lakotas who were still living off the reservation did not follow this order, and he welcomed other Native American groups who were resisting settler expansion, such as the Cheyenne and Arapaho, to his camp on Rosebud Creek. Then a few months later, the Battle of Little Bighorn began. On June 25, 1876, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, the US 7th Calvery, with help from the Crow and the Arikara tribes, attacked Sitting Bull and his followers. However, Sitting Bull had been well prepared in advance. Back in March of that year, when military troops had been moving into the area, under the leadership of General George Crook, General Alfred Terry, and Colonel John Gibbon, Sitting Bull had brought together the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho and held a ritual in which he slashed his arm 100 times as a sacrifice for his people, and during his sacrifice Sitting Bull had a vision of soldiers falling into the Lakota camp. After Sitting Bull had his vision, the Oglala Lakota war leader Crazy Horse, who had also refused to sign the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 and had been working under and in cooperation with Sitting Bull, set out with 500 warriors and held a surprising attack on General Crook’s troops on June 17th, causing them to retreat. After this victory, Sitting Bull and the Lakota, as well as 3,000 more Native Americans who left the reservation, moved camp to the Little Bighorn River, where they were attacked approximately a week later. Custer had underestimated the number of Lakota warriors they would be facing, just as in Sitting Bull’s vision. This battle led to the death of Custer, as well as many of his soldiers, and ended in a victory for Sitting Bull and the Lakota.
While this was an outstanding victory for Sitting Bull and his men, this brought outrage among the United States government, the Native Americans living off the reservation received constant harassment from the government and stationing an increasing number of cavalrymen in the area. Sitting Bull was seen as a threat, as stated in the NY Herald in 1877:
What the country wants to get rid of are Brigham Young and Sitting Bull
With the increased pressure from the government, Sitting Bull and his followers fled north to Canada. They were only there for four years, with harsh winters and limited food supply making it hard for Sitting Bull to support his people. In 1881, Sitting Bull moved back south and surrendered at Fort Buford. Sitting Bull was sent to live at the Standing Rock Reservation, where he was taught to be a farmer. Sitting Bull did not enjoy his new life living on the reservation and farming, so he began to make money from autographs and photos, due to his fame from his part in the Battle of Little Bighorn. He then became friends with Buffalo Bill Cody, who toured and ran his production of the Wild West Show, and he convinced Sitting Bull to join him in the production and Sitting Bull toured with them for one season. Upon returning to the Standing Rock Reservation, Sitting Bull tried to live a live of farming once again, but he rejected many of the reservation’s rules and refused to convert to Christianity. Sitting Bull soon had another vision, in which he heard a meadowlark tell him “Your own people, Lakotas, will kill you”. About five years later, this vision came true, just as it did with his vision about Custer. The Ghost Dance ceremony, a ceremony that promised to get rid of all the white settlers and restore their previous way of life, began to circulate around multiple reservations. Sitting Bull never participated in this ceremony, but he did not protest it either. Lakota Indian Police were sent to investigate the Ghost Dance, and out of fear of Sitting Bull’s power and the thought he may leave the reservation, they apprehended Sitting Bull from his cabin on the morning of December 15, 1890. In all the commotion, Sitting Bull’s followers gathered to protect him, leading to a gunfight which caused Sitting Bull to be shot in the head by an officer. Sitting Bull’s remains were buried in Fort Yates, North Dakota, without a ceremony or a headstone.
Construction of the Sitting Bull Monument
After Sitting Bull was shot, his remains were not handled with care and there were many rumors about his remains being tampered with, which outraged his family, especially his nephew Grey Eagle, who had witnessed his uncle get dragged out of his home and shot by Lakota Indian Police, when he was only 16. As an adult, Grey Eagle pressured the North Dakota state offices to allow him to move Sitting Bull’s remains to a better burial site and construct a monument. He also had the help of three businessmen, Walter Tuntland, George Walters, and Ray Miles, who had formed the Dakota Memorial Association. Additionally, the three granddaughters of Sitting Bull, Nancy Kicking Bear, Sarah Little Spotted Horse, and Angeline Spotted Horse Lapointe, had given Grey Eagle an attorney to help with his cause.
In the meantime, Nancy Kicking Horse had consulted with the sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski to see if he would construct the monument of Sitting Bull. He was also constructing a monument to Crazy Horse at the time, but he agreed and met with Grey Eagle to select a location for the monument. Once the location was chosen, Ziolkowski began carving the monument out of a piece of granite taken from the mountain where he was constructing the Crazy Horse monument.
Grey Eagle continued to pressure North Dakota state offices to allow him to relocate Sitting Bull’s remains. They eventually told him he could not take his remains since Sitting Bull was a major historical figure, and they would reconsider at a later time. After some research, Grey Eagle and the members of the Dakota Memorial Association determined that North Dakota had no jurisdiction, due to where Sitting Bull was buried. On April 8, 1953, the Bureau of Indian Affairs told Grey Eagle and the Dakota Memorial Association that the descendants of Sitting Bull should determine the new burial site, the descendants being the three granddaughters. That night, Grey Eagle and the Dakota Memorial Association went and dug up Sitting Bull’s remains, with the assistance of the Standing Rock superintendent, Charles Spencer. They brought the remains back to South Dakota, and a gravesite was already prepared for the remains, and Sitting Bull was put in a steel casket that was placed in the grave, that was then covered with concrete, likely to ensure the remains would not be moved or tampered with again. On April 11, 1953, three days after the remains were recovered, a memorial service was held for Sitting Bull, with an attendance of Lakota tribe members, as well as Grey Eagle and Sitting Bull’s granddaughters.
On August 26th of that same year, Ziolkowski had finished the carving of Sitting Bull and brought it to the gravesite, and supervised the carving being placed on top of the granite pedestal that had an inscription dedicated to Sitting Bull. The monument and gravesite are located in a peaceful and empty area along the Missouri River, near the Standing Rock Reservation, where Sitting Bull spent many of the final years of his life. On September 2, 1953, the relatives and descendants of Sitting Bull helped to dedicate the monument to Sitting Bull.
Messages of the Monument
The Sitting Bull monument holds great significance and showcases the importance of Sitting Bull and all he did for the Native American tribes during United States expansion. His power and sacrifices he made to protect his people from exploitation are forever memorialized in a secluded area near where he took his final breath. The inscription states his name in the Lakota Language, his native language, above the English translation of “Sitting Bull”. I believe this design choice was made to represent Sitting Bull’s strong dislike for the white settlers, which can be seen in his famous quote:
I hate all white people. You are thieves and liars. You have taken away our land and made us outcasts.
Furthermore, having his name in native language above the English version symbolizes his accomplishments and victories in fighting against U.S. expansion into Native American lands. The choice of location of the Sitting Bull monument, a quiet location overlooking the land, represents Sitting Bull’s connection with nature and his title as a spiritual and holy man, and the monument overlooking the land has similarities to how Sitting Bull looked over the Lakota tribes and protected them.
Reactions to the Sitting Bull Monument after Construction
Once Sitting Bull’s remains were finally relocated to a proper burial site and the monument was constructed, his descendants and other family members, especially Grey Eagle, were thrilled to finally have a monument to properly honor Sitting Bull and everything he did for the Lakota people, as well as other Native American tribes. However, a dedication ceremony held by Governor Sigurd Anderson did cause a bit of controversy. The sculptor of the monument, Korczak Ziolkowski boycotted this ceremony because he felt the governor was exploiting the monument, as well as the dedication ceremony, for political and economic gain, which went against the wishes of the descendants of Sitting Bull.
Controversy also pursued after Grey Eagle and the Dakota Memorial Association went and retrieved the remains of Sitting Bull from the original burial site. Word spread of them taking the remains around North Dakota, sparking outrage. They claimed they wanted the remains back but also stated that Grey Eagle and the Dakota Memorial Association took the wrong remains, which they did not. North Dakota would try to get them back for years, but were ultimately unsuccessful. Grey Eagle did not care about the protest of North Dakota, claiming they did nothing to honor Sitting Bull and were keeping him away from his own people. Present day, there is now a marker where the original burial site of Sitting Bull was.
In 1962, not even a decade after the monument was constructed, the Oahe reservoir was created by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, causing stability problems for the bridge that connects the area housing the Sitting Bull monument and Mobridge, South Dakota, which isolated the monument. This caused the site of the monument to deteriorate, due to people inflicting damage on the monument that caused the nose of the carved Sitting Bull to chip, the inscription was scratched up, and a pipe was broken, and the surrounding area was littered with trash. In response to this mistreatment of the Sitting Bull monument, two men, both South Dakota residents, by the names of Bryan Defender and Rhett Albers purchased the property that holds the monument and Sitting Bull’s remains in 2005. After acquiring the land, they formed the Sitting Bull Monument Foundation, a nonprofit that raises funds to restore the site. Following this, they installed an electricity system to provide lighting at night and have also brought in the daughter of the original sculptor, Monique Ziolkowski, to restore the monument. Furthermore, the Sioux on the Standing Rock reservation planned to construct a Lakota cultural center near the monument, as well as increase accessibility. All in all, the Sitting Bull monument was greatly embraced as a symbol of the great Lakota Chief and his successes, and much has been done to preserve its message.
Present Day Views
To this day, the Sitting Bull monument, along with the original burial site of Sitting Bull’s remains, holds a great significance. It still represents the accomplishments of Sitting Bull, as well as the exploitation of Native Americans across the country. Especially considering the way Sitting Bull’s remains were handled in the past, a vow has been made to not commercialize or exploit the monument for financial gain has been made, and I believe this aligns with what Sitting Bull would have wanted. The Sitting Bull monument is free to visit and has earned a spot on the National Register of Historic Places by the federal government. There is no controversy surrounding this monument, and views about Sitting Bull have not changed, he is still an important historical figure and will forever be remembered as one of the greatest Chiefs of the Lakota, and of the Sioux people as a whole.
References
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