Sitting Bull was born near the Grand River in present-day South Dakota. His Sioux name was Tatanka Iyotake. Early in life he earned a reputation in his Teton Sioux tribe as a strong and fearless warrior. During the 1860s Sitting Bull participated in many fights with U.S. military forces to keep Sioux lands from white settlers. About 1867 he was made principal chief of the entire Sioux nation. When gold was discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota in the mid-1870s, white settlers flooded the area and ordered the Sioux to leave. Sitting Bull organized a military resistance. In 1876, Indian forces, including Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho, destroyed Lieutenant Colonel George Custer’s forces at the Battle of Little Big Horn. Sitting Bull fled to Canada, where he lived for four years. He returned to the United States and surrendered in 1881. He was sent to live on the Standing Rock Reservation. In 1885 he was allowed to travel with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show. In 1889 and 1890 the Ghost Dance religion spread on the reservation. Sitting Bull refused to stop its spread. When reservation police went to arrest Sitting Bull, he was killed.
