(Tatanka Yotanka; in English, Sitting Bull; Grand River., 1834 - Fort Yates, id., 1890) Hunkpapa Lakota leader. As a young man he was part of the akicita (secret society) Brave Hearts, and gained fame for his deeds, which made him one of the most important Lakota leaders, strong defender of the ancient customs during the struggle of his people against American colonialism.

Sitting Bull formed cross-tribal alliances in his efforts to resist the process of colonization. Sitting Bull also steadfastly refused to become dependent on aid from the U.S. government.

On June 25th, 1876, Colonel Custer and his forces were wiped out at the battle of Little Big Horn. Sitting Bull did not take part in the battle, but acted as a kind of spiritual leader to those who did, performing the Sun Dance, in which he fasted and sacrificed over 100 pieces of flesh from his arms, a week prior.

In response, the U.S. government sent thousands more soldiers to the area, forcing many of the Lakota to surrender over the next year. Sitting Bull refused to surrender, and in May 1877, he led his band north to Wood Mountain, North-West Territories (now Saskatchewan). He remained there until 1881, when he and most of his band returned to U.S. territory and surrendered to U.S. forces.

In 1890, due to fears that Sitting Bull would use his influence to support the Ghost Dance movement (a movement of indigenous resistance), Indian Service agent James McLaughlin ordered his arrest. Early in the morning of December 15th, 39 police officers and four volunteers approached Sitting Bull's house. The camp awakened and men began to converge at the scene.

When Sitting Bull refused to comply, the police used force on him, enraging members of the village. Catch-the-Bear, a Lakota, shouldered his rifle and shot one of the Indian agents, who reacted by firing his revolver into the chest of Sitting Bull, killing him.

In 1953, his Lakota family exhumed what were believed to be his remains, reburying them near Mobridge, South Dakota, near his birthplace.

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  • Frank [he/him, he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Oh. Yeah. Uhh. Sorry. Finding out about that sucks.

    Also, the world population was like 2 billion about 70-80 years ago and people owned far less stuff. Now it's like 8 billion or so and we make a lot more stuff. We pretty much literally gained too many abilities and technologies too fast to learn how to use them responsibly, even without evil cartoon villains going "yes, we will deliberately lie to the public about pesticide/lead/global warming/everything".

    It all happened real real fast. We've only had steam engines for like 300 years, cars for like 120, planes for a century, plastics for like 70ish years. Conditions were right for technological inventions and manufacturing processes to compound on themselves, we figured out how to make industrial amounts of nitrogen for explosives then convert it in to fertilizer, genetics lead to better crop yields, medicine meant more people lived longer, and everyone has stuff and needs to live somewhere and so forth. Stability in nature isn't really a thing, it just seems like that from some perspectives. And what we're doing is exploiting new resources and habitats very rapidly, much more rapidly than any other species ever has, bc we've got culture and language and technology and thumbs. But we've only been doing it for a few hundred years and we haven't figured out how to do it sustainably yet.