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Sitting Bull SITTING BULLINMEMORY©by Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner Enter your search terms Webdickshovel.comtolatsga.orgSubmit search form Mrs. Fanny Kelly was taken captive in July 1864 by a war party ofHunkpapa Sioux in Wyoming. During most of the five months she was heldprisoner, Mrs. Kelly stayed in the lodgings of Sitting Bull, the famousleader "as a guest," of his family, "and I was treated asa guest," she wrote. "He was uniformly gentle, and kind to his wife and children andcourteous and considerate in his [interactions] with others. During mystay with them food was scarce more than once, and both Sitting Bull andhis wife often suffered with hunger to supply me with food. They bothhave a very warm place in my heart."This surprising warm friendship with a woman who had every reason tohate and fear him, characterized Sitting Bull's interactions withwhites. A teacher and missionary among Sitting Bull's people, CatherineWeldon, once described him, "As a friend...sincere and true, as a patriot devotedand incorruptible. As a husband and father, affectionate andconsiderate. As a host, courteous and hospitable to the lastdegree." The Ashcroft family, white settlers who lived nearby, valued SittingBull as "one of their oldest friends." They often told thestory of how, on one of his frequent trips to buy produce and chickensfrom Grandmother, he stopped for potatoes. "Grandfather was busy and did not want to take the timeto dig them, so his daughter Ethel, ten years old, slipped away and duga half-sack of potatoes and dragged them up to the house for SittingBull. He was so pleased that he promised her a pony, and soon a littlebay horse was delivered to her. He was named 'Two-John' and she had himuntil she was married to Jack Jacobs in1896."1 Yet when Sitting Bull was killed on December 15, 1890, newspapersthroughout the nation echoed the Minneapolis Tribune whose one regretwas that he "should have been hung higher than Hamar [Hamarshould read Haman. Haman was the villain of the biblical story of Estherwho was hung on a specially prepared gallows 50 cubits (a measure oflength approximately equal to the length of a forearm) high.] andwith less ceremony than is observed by a Texas lynching party towards ahorse thief." 2 As the press whipped-up hatred of theIndians, the fact was lost that Sitting Bull had been residing infriendship and peace with his white neighbors, with his only"crime" taking part in a religious worship, the Ghost Dance,labeled the "Messiah craze" by the press.His greater "crime," of course, was that he was "anobstructionist, a foe to progress." "Progress" wasdefined as white settlement on Indian land, and the previous year theDakota (Sioux) Indians had received enormous pressure to approve thesale of one-half of their remaining land. Not all accepted. According to United States law (as expressed in the Treaty of 1868) thesignatures of 3/4 of the adult males of the Sioux nation were requiredbefore land could be sold. Sitting Bull resisted. He "never signeda treaty to sell any portion of his people's inheritance, and he refusedto acknowledge the right of other Indians to sell his undivided share ofthe tribal lands," according to his friend, Catherine Weldon, whocontended that Sitting Bull was killed in order "to silenceexposures which he could have made." There was enormousdouble-dealing to expose, including the doctoring of census records toreduce the number of Indians required to sign, and the gathering ofsignatures illegally to reach the necessary number. Mrs. Weldon was not alone in her belief that Sitting Bull had beensilenced. In the New York World on December 21, 1890, Rev. W.H.H. Murraycharged, "The land grabbers wanted the Indian lands. The lying,thieving Indian agents wanted silence touching past thefts and immunityto continue their thieving." The World's editor interjected, "Mr. Murray's characterization ofthe killing is sustained by the report sent yesterday by Corporal Gunn,of the Eighth Cavalry. The affair is one which should receive asearching inquiry. As it stands now it was organized butchery, and oneof the most shameful incidents in our 'century of dishonor' towards theIndians."3 Sitting Bull's death was a political assassination by the United Statesgovernment, insisted the head of the Nebraska National Guard, GeneralLeonard Colby, who wrote that there was an "understanding between the officers of the Indian andmilitary departments that it would be impossible to bring Sitting Bullto Standing Rock alive, and even if successfully captured, it would bedifficult to tell what to do with him. It is therefore believed thatthere was a tacit arrangement between the commanding officers and theIndian police, that the death of the famous old Medicine man was muchpreferred to his capture, and that the slightest attempt to rescue himshould be the signal for his destruction."4 To have him killed by Indian police allowed the government to avoidresponsibility in the matter. Sitting Bull, like Martin Luther King, was a man of vision. "Thegreat hope and purpose of his life was to unify the tribes, and bands ofthe Dakotas, (Sioux) and hold the remaining lands of his people as asacred inheritance for their children," wrote his friend CatherineWeldon. "This fact," she maintained, "made him unpopularwith all who saw in his policy and influence obstruction to theirselfish schemes, hence they demanded his removal." There was never an official investigation into Sitting Bull's murder,nor have the assassination charges been disproved. Reverend Murraybelieved that a day would come when Sitting Bull would be revered forthe visionary man of peace that he was: "I read that they have buried his body like a dog's," Rev.Murray wrote, "without funeral rites, without tribal wail, with nosolemn song or act. This is the deed of to-day. That is the best thatthis generation has to give to this noble historic character... Verywell. So let it stand for the present. But there is a generation comingthat shall reverse this judgment of ours. Our children shall buildmonuments to those whom we stoned and the great aboriginals whom wekilled will be counted by the future American as among the historiccharacters of the Continent." 5 Who knows? Perhaps Reverend Murray was right, and as the world growsmore enlightened, we may one day celebrate Sitting Bull Day as we now doMartin Luther King Day. Dr. Sally Roesch Wagner, a Research Affiliate at the University ofCalifornia, Davis, and Aberdeen native, has just completed the thirdvolume of her Daughters of Dakota series: "Stories of Friendship betweenSettlers and the Dakota Indians" with guest editor, Vic Runnels. TheAshcroft story is from that book.Footnotes:1. Sally Roesch Wagner, Daughters of Dakota II:Stories from the Attic. Carmichael, CA: Sky Carrier Press, 1990, p.166.2. Minneapolis Tribune. cited in Robert C. Hollow, "The SiouxGhost Dance of 1890." The Last Years of Sitting Bull. Bismarck: StateHistorical Society of North Dakota, 1985, p. 43.3. Bland, p. 27.4. Colby, "Sioux," p. 151.5. Bland, p. 27.Rescind themedals of dis-HonorDr. Wagner's TestimonyRegarding the Massacre at Wounded Knee Wounded Knee HomePage First NationsIssues This site is maintained by JS Dill. Please provide an opinion as to this article/site... |
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