2025-12-15

Death of Sitting Bull in 1890

    Sitting Bull
Today in 1890 Lakota Chief Sitting Bull was killed by tribal police who were sent to take him into custody for his involvement in the Ghost Dance Movement.

The Ghost Dance was a late 19th-century Native American spiritual movement. It began with Paiute prophet Wovoka and offered hope for cultural renewal and driving out white settlers through sacred dances and rituals.

It envisioned a new earth with buffalo and ancestors returning.

US officials saw it as a militant threat. It ended tragically at the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, where US troops fired on unarmed Ghost Dancers. This is pretty unseemly given the fact that The Republic missed no opportunity to walk all over the native Americans otherwise.

The tribal police encountered his supporters which turned into a violent gun fight at his cabin at Standing Rock Reservation.

As usual the US Authorities believed they owned the lands because though they were actually intrusive interlopers fearing rebellion. They ordered his arrest. A gunfight ensued. During the gunfight Sitting Bull was struck in the chest by a bullet and died as the result. He was 59 years old.

Sitting Bull was killed, along with several others, including his son, Kangis Siha (Crow Foot).

Sitting Bull has two official burial sites. He has his original grave at Fort Yates, North Dakota. There is a second site where his remains were moved by his family to Mobridge, South Dakota which is near his birth place. Singularly, the US Government was the absolute worst thing to ever happen to the Native Americans who actually owned the lands that were confiscated.