Sitting Bull Falls: Native Resistance Crushed

Forty-three Indian police officers surrounded Sitting Bull's cabin on the Standing Rock Reservation before dawn, and within minutes the most famous Native American leader in the country was dead. On December 15, 1890, Hunkpapa Lakota chief Sitting Bull was shot and killed during an attempted arrest ordered by federal Indian Agent James McLaughlin, triggering a chain of events that led to the Wounded Knee Massacre two weeks later. Sitting Bull had been the spiritual leader of the Lakota resistance for decades. He had orchestrated the Sun Dance vision that preceded the defeat of George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, making him the most wanted man on the northern plains. After years of exile in Canada, he surrendered in 1881 and was confined to Standing Rock. By late 1890, the Ghost Dance movement was spreading rapidly among the Lakota. The ritual, which promised the return of the buffalo and the disappearance of white settlers, terrified federal authorities. McLaughlin and the military believed Sitting Bull was encouraging the movement and ordered his arrest. Rather than send U.S. Army troops, authorities dispatched Lakota members of the Indian police, hoping to avoid the appearance of military aggression. The arrest went wrong immediately. When police entered Sitting Bull's cabin and told him he was under arrest, supporters gathered outside. As police escorted Sitting Bull from his home, his followers confronted them. A shot was fired, and in the ensuing gunfight, Sitting Bull was hit twice, once by a policeman and once by a follower's stray bullet. Six policemen and eight of Sitting Bull's supporters also died. The killing panicked Ghost Dance followers across the reservations. Hundreds fled toward the Badlands. On December 29, the 7th Cavalry intercepted a band of Miniconjou Lakota at Wounded Knee Creek and massacred between 250 and 300 men, women, and children, effectively ending armed Native resistance on the Great Plains.