Sitting Bull
Sitting Bull, Indian name Tatanka Iyotake (c. 1834-90). Native American warrior, chief of the Dakota Sioux. Born near Grand River in South Dakota, Sitting Bull became a leader of the Sioux resistance to White expansion in the 1870s. In 1876 he led the massacre of General Custer and his men at Little Big Horn. He escaped across the Canadian border but later surrendered (1881) and settled on a reservation. In 1885 he was exhibited in Buffalo Bill’s touring Wild West show. He was killed in a further Native American uprising.
“When I was a boy the Sioux owned the world; the sun rose and set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle. Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands?
Who owns them? What white man can say I ever stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet, they say I am a thief. What white woman, however lonely, was ever… insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian. What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and unfed? Who has ever seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am a Sioux; because I was born where my father lived; because I would die for my people and my country? Sitting Bull in T. C. McLuhan, Touch the Earth”
