Sitting Bull: Leader Of The Lakota

Everyone among the different tribes helped each other out and kept peace throughout centuries. He described it as the most beautifully worked out relations there could be in the entire world.

The Lakota and Northern Cheyenne Indians along with a few other defiant tribes, joined forces under the Lakota holy man, Sitting Bull, in an active resistance to U.S. expansion (Gregory, 2016). In 1876, federal troops were dispatched to force the noncompliant Indians onto their reservations and to pacify the Great Plains (Powers, 2010).

The European settlement of North America met its fiercest opponent, the Lakota also known as the Western Sioux, who inhabited most of the Great Plains. The Oglala tribe, a branch of the Sioux nation were key in the resistance against the white man. At the heart of their resistance stood crazy horse, a warrior that had no equal. Crazy Horse fought for the traditions of his people, until those same people wearied of war and in some cases, turned against him. Chief Crazy Horse led an extraordinary life and will always be remembered.

This sentiment of racial inferiority by the white American was further demonstrated by their treatment of Native American society. As European settlements continued to expand across the continent, Indians were forcibly removed from their land to make room for the “more civilized” white American. The Native American population was practically eradicated with only a handful of survivors remaining on small, segregated reservations in Oklahoma. The genocide of their people-- and their culture-- left most Native Americans with extreme resentment towards the white man. Ironically, just as the white man saw the Native American people as uncivilized savages, Native Americans saw firsthand how barbaric the white man actually was. This further supports the theory that race is not a physical characteristic, but something that is constructed by different societies to establish each ones perception of how the other is viewed or perceived. In Mary C. Waters “Social Construction of Race and Ethnicity,” she explains this theory in the

The Lakota, an Indian group of the Great Plains, established their community in the Black Hills in the late eighteenth century (9). This group is an example of an Indian community that got severely oppressed through imperialistic American actions and policy, as the Americans failed to recognize the Lakota’s sovereignty and ownership of the Black Hills. Jeffrey Ostler, author of The Lakotas and the Black Hills: The Struggle for Sacred Ground, shows that the Lakota exemplified the trends and subsequent challenges that Indians faced in America. These challenges included the plurality of groups, a shared colonial experience, dynamic change, external structural forces, and historical agency.

Black Elk explains the Lakota ideology and what it means to be native. Black Elk falls very ill. While ill, Black Elk has a vision known as “The Great Vision”(Neihardt 17 footnote 1). The Wasichus, a name for white people, start building the iron road, and the start of treaties being made. “Wherever we went the soldiers came to kill us”(Neihardt pg 105), this quote was spoken by Black Elk at the beginning of destruction of the Lakota Nation. Black Elk and his tribe leave for Grandmother’s land (Canada). While in Canada, the Lakota perform the Horse Dance. Cuts-to-pieces’ son was the first human to be healed by Black Elk, and after this miraculous deed happens his tribe performs the Heyoka ceremony. After the Heyoka ceremony, Black Elk performs the final part of his Great Vision. Black Elk travels over the big water and when Black Elk recovers from being sick, he then returns home to find his people dying from starvation and sickness. The messiah is introduced, and rumors are spreading that this man promises a new “better” world is coming, where all their loved-ones are alive and buffalo still roam. Historically known as the Massacre of Wounded Knee, Wasichus came into the native camp, at this time there were so few native tribes left that multiple tribes banded together and slaughter men women and children. This is when the Lakota Nation has one final battle against the U.S. Army. “Brothers, this is a very hard winter. The women and children are starving and

Sitting bull was born in 1831 in the Dakota Territory. It was common for people of the Lakota tribe to have many names throughout their life. Sitting Bull’s first name given to him was Jumping Badger. Later his name was changed “Tatanka-Iyotanka.” This is a term that describes a buffalo bull sitting on its back haunches showing aggression and its reluctance to back down. Throughout his life he would live up to this name. Sitting Bull was only 14 years old when he experienced his first battle. This battle was a raid on the Crow, another Indian tribe that was enemies with the Sioux. He was appointed chief of the Lakota in 1857. His first encounter with American soldiers was in

Sitting Bull was born in Dakota Territory. He was named Jumping Badger at birth, when he was fourteen years old he accompanied a group of Lakota warriors (which included his father and his uncle Four Horns) in a raiding party to take horses from a camp of Crow warriors. Jumping Badger displayed bravery by riding forward and counting coup on one of the surprised Crow, which was witnessed by the other mounted Lakota. Upon returning to camp his father gave a celebratory feast at which he conferred his own name upon his son.

Black Elk plays a major role in retelling the history of the Lakota Native Americans. Having witnessed the Battle of Little Bighorn and living through the transfer of Native Americans to the Pine Ridge Reservation, Black Elk can attest to the treatment endured by Native Americans. Black Elk tells the story of a people injured in war and subject to sufferings for the years to follow.

Sitting Bull was a Lakota Sioux chief known for opposing the expansion of the American colonies onto Native American land. In 1874, the discovery of gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota had led to an increased interest in the Sioux territories, which Lakota people were reluctant to sell or otherwise depart with. During this time Sitting Bull led numerous attacks against federal troops that seeked to remove the Native Americans from their land, resulting in the Great Sioux Wars. In showing bravery and resistance towards an oppressive force, Sitting Bull took a stand that is remembered to this day.

With the whites moving in on the Black Hills in search for gold, they wanted to buy it from the Lakota people. Crazy Horse moved and set up camp around the area and led raids on the miners. With these attacks, the whites decided to build more forts in the Lakota area, and force all of the Lakota people into agencies. Crazy Horse and the people who had followed him believed that they had to drive out the whites, and that the buffalo would return.

A Hunkpapa Lakota chief named Sitting Bull and the history of the Lakota nationhood was the chosen subject of Gary C. Anderson to write a biography on. Although most of the history about Sitting Bull took place back in the eighteen hundreds, Anderson did not come out with his book tell around 1995. Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers published the book in 1996. The book follows the history of Sitting Bull and the native Indians fight with the "white man" over land.

     In Conclusion the author, Leslie Silko, displays the poverty and hopelessness that the Native Americans faced because of the white man. The Author elaborates this feeling of hopelessness in the Indians myth explaining the origin of the white man. As a result

In 1831 an indian child was born, of the Sioux Nation and the Hunkpapa Tribe. His father, Sitting Bull, and mother, Her-holy-door, did not name him Sitting Bull, he was named Jumping Badger. He was never called Jumping Badger, he was called Slow because of his willful and deliberate ways.

Erik Homberger Erikson was born on June 15, 1902 in Frankfort, Germany. Erikson was born to his Jewish mother Karla Abrahamsen, and his biological father who was an unnamed Danish man who abandoned him before he was born. During his school years, he studied art and different languages instead of chemistry and biology. When he graduated he was interested in becoming an artist. During the 1920’s he decided to travel Europe, where he had to sleep under bridges. After traveling around Europe for a year, he decided to enroll in an art school back in Germany. He stayed at the art school for several years. Then he began to teach art and other subjects to American children who came to Vienna for Freudian training. Erikson was admitted to the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. In 1933 he moved to Boston, where he filled a position at Harvard medical school as America’s first child analyst. While he taught at Yale and Berkley, he did his famous studies on the modern life of the Lakota and the Yurok. Erikson is known for being a prolific writer. He has wrote many books and essays such as Childhood and Society (1950), Youngman Luther (1958), Youth: change and challenge (1963), Etc. Erikson went on to teach at a clinic in Massachusetts then back to Harvard before he retired in 1970. In 1994 Erikson passed away at the age of 92.