SITTING BULL: HUNKPAPA LAKOTA RESISTANCE LEADER

Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake

As everybody knows, The Grandma is a great admirer of the Native American. She loves their culture, their style-life, their languages and their History.

One of the most interesting Native American figures is Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake, also known as Sitting Bull, the Lakota leader who was killed by the U.S. Indian Agents, who defensed his people until the last days of his life and who was killed on a day like today in 1890.

Today, The Grandma has wanted to remember this man, symbol of resistance, resilience, love for his people and respect for the land and the culture. Before talking about Sitting Bull, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her Elementary Language Practice manual (Grammar 43).

More information: Plural Nouns

Sitting Bull, in Lakota Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake, also nicknamed Húŋkešni or Slow was a Hunkpapa Lakota leader who led his people during years of resistance to United States government policies. He was killed by Indian agency police on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation during an attempt to arrest him, at a time when authorities feared that he would join the Ghost Dance movement.

Before the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull had a vision in which he saw many soldiers, as thick as grasshoppers, falling upside down into the Lakota camp, which his people took as a foreshadowing of a major victory in which a large number of soldiers would be killed. About three weeks later, the confederated Lakota tribes with the Northern Cheyenne defeated the 7th Cavalry under Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer on June 25, 1876, annihilating Custer's battalion and seeming to bear out Sitting Bull's prophetic vision.

More information: History

Sitting Bull's leadership inspired his people to a major victory. In response, the US government sent thousands more soldiers to the area, forcing many of the Lakotas to surrender over the next year. But Sitting Bull refused to surrender, and in May 1877 he led his band north to Wood Mountain, North-Western Territory, now Saskatchewan. He remained there until 1881, at which time he and most of his band returned to US territory and surrendered to U.S. forces.

Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake aka Sitting Bull

After working as a performer with Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, Sitting Bull returned to the Standing Rock Agency in South Dakota. Because of fears that he would use his influence to support the Ghost Dance movement, Indian Service agent James McLaughlin at Fort Yates ordered his arrest.

During an ensuing struggle between Sitting Bull's followers and the agency police, Sitting Bull was shot in the side and head by Standing Rock policemen Lieutenant Bull Head, in Lakota: Tȟatȟáŋka Pȟá, and Red Tomahawk, Marcelus Chankpidutah, in Lakota Čhaŋȟpí Dúta, after the police were fired upon by Sitting Bull's supporters. His body was taken to nearby Fort Yates for burial. In 1953, his Lakota family exhumed what were believed to be his remains, reburying them near Mobridge, South Dakota, near his birthplace.

Sitting Bull was born on land later included in the Dakota Territory. In 2007, Sitting Bull's great-grandson asserted from family oral tradition that Sitting Bull was born along the Yellowstone River, south of present-day Miles City, Montana. He was named Jumping Badger at birth, and nicknamed Hunkesi, or Slow, said to describe his careful and unhurried nature. When the boy 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.

More information: VOA News

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. 

The name, Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake, which in the Lakota language means Buffalo Bull Who Sits Down, would later be abbreviated to Sitting Bull. Thereafter, Sitting Bull's father was known as Jumping Bull. At this ceremony before the entire band, Sitting Bull's father presented his son with an eagle feather to wear in his hair, a warrior's horse, and a hardened buffalo hide shield to mark his son's passage into manhood as a Lakota warrior.

During the Dakota War of 1862, in which Sitting Bull's people were not involved, several bands of eastern Dakota people killed an estimated 300 to 800 settlers and soldiers in south-central Minnesota in response to poor treatment by the government and in an effort to drive the whites away.

Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake with his community

Despite being embroiled in the American Civil War, the United States Army retaliated in 1863 and 1864, even against bands which had not been involved in the hostilities. In 1864, two brigades of about 2200 soldiers under Brigadier General Alfred Sully attacked a village. The defenders were led by Sitting Bull, Gall and Inkpaduta. The Lakota and Dakota were driven out, but skirmishing continued into August.

In September, Sitting Bull and about one hundred Hunkpapa Lakota encountered a small party near what is now Marmarth, North Dakota. They had been left behind by a wagon train commanded by Captain James L. Fisk to effect some repairs to an overturned wagon. When he led an attack, Sitting Bull was shot in the left hip by a soldier. The bullet exited out through the small of his back, and the wound was not serious.

From 1866 to 1868, Red Cloud as a leader of the Oglala Lakota fought against US forces, attacking their forts in an effort to keep control of the Powder River Country of Montana. In support of him, Sitting Bull led numerous war parties against Fort Berthold, Fort Stevenson, and Fort Buford and their environs from 1865 through 1868. Sitting Bull also made guerrilla attacks on emigrant parties and smaller forts throughout the upper Missouri River region.

 More information: Lakota Mall

By early 1868, the U.S. government desired a peaceful settlement to Red Cloud's War. It agreed to Red Cloud's demands that the US abandon forts Phil Kearny and C.F. Smith. Gall of the Hunkpapa, among other representatives of the Hunkpapa, Blackfeet, and Yankton Dakota, signed a form of the Treaty of Fort Laramie on July 2, 1868 at Fort Rice, near Bismarck, North Dakota.

Sitting Bull did not agree to the treaty. He told the Jesuit missionary, Pierre Jean De Smet, who sought him out on behalf of the government: I wish all to know that I do not propose to sell any part of my country. He continued his hit-and-run attacks on forts in the upper Missouri area throughout the late 1860s and early 1870s.

Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake aka Sitting Bull

The events of 1866–1868 mark a historically debated period of Sitting Bull's life.

According to historian Stanley Vestal, who conducted interviews with surviving Hunkpapa in 1930, Sitting Bull was made Supreme Chief of the whole Sioux Nation at this time. Later historians and ethnologists have refuted this concept of authority, as the Lakota society was highly decentralized. Lakota bands and their elders made individual decisions, including whether to wage war.

Sitting Bull's band of Hunkpapa continued to attack migrating parties and forts in the late 1860s. When in 1871 the Northern Pacific Railway conducted a survey for a route across the northern plains directly through Hunkpapa lands, it encountered stiff Lakota resistance. The same railway people returned the following year accompanied by federal troops.

Sitting Bull and the Hunkpapa attacked the survey party, which was forced to turn back. In 1873, the military accompaniment for the surveyors was increased again, but Sitting Bull's forces resisted the survey most vigorously. The Panic of 1873 forced the Northern Pacific Railway's backers, such as Jay Cooke, into bankruptcy. This halted construction of the railroad through Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota territory.

More information: Legends of America

After the 1848 finding of gold in the Sierra Nevada and dramatic gains in new wealth from it, other men became interested in the potential for gold mining in the Black Hills. In 1874, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer led a military expedition from Fort Abraham Lincoln near Bismarck, to explore the Black Hills for gold and to determine a suitable location for a military fort in the Hills. Custer's announcement of gold in the Black Hills triggered the Black Hills Gold Rush. Tensions increased between the Lakota and whites seeking to move into the Black Hills.

Although Sitting Bull did not attack Custer's expedition in 1874, the US government was increasingly pressured by citizens to open the Black Hills to mining and settlement. Failing in an attempt to negotiate a purchase or lease of the Hills, the government in Washington had to find a way around the promise to protect the Sioux in their land, as specified in the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie. It was alarmed at reports of Sioux depredations, encouraged by Sitting Bull.

Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake and his family, 1881

In November 1875, President Grant ordered all Sioux bands outside the Great Sioux Reservation to move onto the reservation, knowing full well that not all would comply.

As of February 1, 1876, the Interior Department certified as hostile those bands who continued to live off the reservation. This certification allowed the military to pursue Sitting Bull and other Lakota bands as hostiles. Based on tribal oral histories, historian Margot Liberty theorizes many Lakota bands allied with the Cheyenne during the Plains Wars because they thought the other nation was under attack by the US. Given this connection, she suggests the major war should have been called The Great Cheyenne War.

Since 1860, the Northern Cheyenne had led several battles among the Plains Indians. Before 1876, the U.S. Army had destroyed seven Cheyenne camps, more than those of any other nation.

Other historians, such as Robert M. Utley and Jerome Greene, also use Lakota oral testimony, but they have concluded that the Lakota coalition, of which Sitting Bull was the ostensible head, was the primary target of the federal government's pacification campaign.

More information: Standing Rock

During the period 1868–1876, Sitting Bull developed into the most important of Native American political leaders. After the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) and the creation of the Great Sioux Reservation, many traditional Sioux warriors, such as Red Cloud of the Oglala and Spotted Tail of the Brulé, moved to reside permanently on the reservations. They were largely dependent for subsistence on the US Indian agencies. Many other chiefs, including members of Sitting Bull's Hunkpapa band such as Gall, at times lived temporarily at the agencies. They needed the supplies at a time when white encroachment and the depletion of buffalo herds reduced their resources and challenged Native American independence.

In 1875, the Northern Cheyenne, Hunkpapa, Oglala, Sans Arc, and Minneconjou camped together for a Sun Dance, with both the Cheyenne medicine man White Bull or Ice and Sitting Bull in association. This ceremonial alliance preceded their fighting together in 1876. Sitting Bull had a major revelation.

Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake and Buffalo Bill

In 1885, Sitting Bull was allowed to leave the reservation to go Wild Westing with Buffalo Bill Cody's Buffalo Bill's Wild West.

He earned about $50 a week, equal to $1,364 today, for riding once around the arena, where he was a popular attraction. Historians have reported that Sitting Bull gave speeches about his desire for education for the young, and reconciling relations between the Sioux and whites.

Sitting Bull stayed with the show for four months before returning home. During that time, audiences considered him a celebrity and romanticized him as a warrior. He earned a small fortune by charging for his autograph and picture, although he often gave his money away to the homeless and beggars.

Sitting Bull returned to the Standing Rock Agency after working in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. Tension between Sitting Bull and Agent McLaughlin increased and each became more wary of the other over several issues including division and sale of parts of the Great Sioux Reservation. This was a time of severe conditions of harsh winters and long droughts impacting the Sioux Reservation. It was known as the Ghost Dance Movement, because it called on the Indians to dance and chant for the rising up of deceased relatives and return of the buffalo.

More information: The Vintage News

When the movement reached Standing Rock, Sitting Bull allowed the dancers to gather at his camp. Although he did not appear to participate in the dancing, he was viewed as a key instigator. Alarm spread to nearby white settlements as the Sioux added a new feature to the dance, shirts that were said to stop bullets.

In 1890, James McLaughlin, the U.S. Indian Agent at Fort Yates on Standing Rock Agency, feared that the Lakota leader was about to flee the reservation with the Ghost Dancers, so he ordered the police to arrest him.

On December 14, 1890, McLaughlin drafted a letter to Lt. Henry Bullhead, an Indian agency policeman, that included instructions and a plan to capture Sitting Bull. 

News about the killing of Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake

The plan called for the arrest to take place at dawn on December 15, and advised the use of a light spring wagon to facilitate removal before his followers could rally. Bullhead decided against using the wagon. He intended to have the police officers force Sitting Bull to mount a horse immediately after the arrest.

Around 5:30 a.m. on December 15, 39 police officers and four volunteers approached Sitting Bull's house. They surrounded the house, knocked and entered. Lt. Bull Head told Sitting Bull that he was under arrest and led him outside. Sitting Bull and his wife noisily stalled for time, the camp awakened and men converged at the house. As Lt. Bullhead ordered Sitting Bull to mount a horse, he said the Indian Affairs agent needed to see the chief, and then he could return to his house. When Sitting Bull refused to comply, the police used force on him. The Sioux in the village were enraged. Catch-the-Bear, a Lakota, shouldered his rifle and shot Lt. Bullhead, who reacted by firing his revolver into the chest of Sitting Bull. Another police officer, Red Tomahawk, shot Sitting Bull in the head, and he dropped to the ground. He died between 12 and 1 p.m.

A close-quarters fight erupted, and within minutes several men were dead. The Lakota killed six policemen immediately and two more died shortly after the fight, including Lt. Bullhead. The police killed Sitting Bull and seven of his supporters at the site, along with two horses.

Sitting Bull's body was taken to Fort Yates, where it was placed in a coffin, made by the Army carpenter, and buried. A monument was installed to mark his burial site after his remains were reportedly taken to South Dakota.

In 1953 Lakota family members exhumed what they believed to be Sitting Bull's remains, transporting them for reinterment near Mobridge, South Dakota, his birthplace. A monument to him was erected there.

More information: Welch Dakota Papers

Each man is good in his sight. 

It is not necessary for eagles to be crows.

Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake / Sitting Bull

THE PONY EXPRESS: BUFFALO BILL & THE POSTAL SERVICE

Buffalo Bill

Today, The Grandma is having an intensive and bureaucratic day. She's sending lots of mails, attending her whatsapp groups, revising her Twitter account and improving her Instagram one. It's a hard work to keep your 2.0 tools a day.

While she was doing these tasks, The Grandma has been thinking about the importance of the Social Networks in our days and about how they were and how they were used two centuries ago. She has thought in a wonderful history, the origin of Pony Express, an American Postal Service that officially ceased operations on a day like today in 1861 and about one of its most memorable members, Buffalo Bill.

More information: English Revealed

The Pony Express was a mail service delivering messages, newspapers, and mail. Officially operating as the Leavenworth and Pike's Peak Express Company of 1859, in 1860 it became the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company; this firm was founded by William H. Russell, Alexander Majors, and William B. Waddell, all of whom were notable in the freighting business.

During its 18 months of operation, it reduced the time for messages to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to about 10 days. From April 3, 1860 to October 1861, it became the West's most direct means of east–west communication before the transcontinental telegraph was established in October 24, 1861, and was vital for tying the new state of California with the rest of the United States.

More information: National Pony Express

The idea of a fast mail route to the Pacific coast was prompted largely by California's newfound prominence and its rapidly growing population.

The Pony Express

After gold was discovered there in 1848, thousands of prospectors, investors and businessmen made their way to California, at that time a new territory of the U.S. By 1850, California entered the Union as a free state. By 1860, the population had grown to 380,000. The demand for a faster way to get mail and other communications to and from this westernmost state became even greater as the American Civil War approached.

In the late 1850s, William Russell, Alexander Majors, and William Waddell were the three founders of the Pony Express. They were already in the freighting and drayage business. At the peak of the operations, they employed 6,000 men, owned 75,000 oxen, thousands of wagons, and warehouses plus a sawmill, a meatpacking plant, a bank and an insurance company.

Russell was a prominent businessman, well respected among his peers and the community. Waddell was co-owner of the firm Morehead, Waddell & Co. After Morehead was bought out and retired, Waddell merged his company with Russell's, changing the name to Waddell & Russell.

More information: Smithsonian

In 1855 they took on a new partner, Alexander Majors, and founded the company of Russell, Majors & Waddell. They held government contracts for delivering army supplies to the western frontier, and Russell had a similar idea for contracts with the U.S. Government for fast mail delivery.

By utilizing a short route and using mounted riders rather than traditional stagecoaches, they proposed to establish a fast mail service between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, with letters delivered in 10 days, a duration many said was impossible. The initial price was set at $5 per 14 g, then $2.50, and by July 1861 to $1. The founders of the Pony Express hoped to win an exclusive government mail contract, but that did not come about.

The Pony Express Route

Russell, Majors, and Waddell organized and put together the Pony Express in two months in the winter of 1860. The undertaking assembled 120 riders, 184 stations, 400 horses, and several hundred personnel during January and February 1861. Majors was a religious man and resolved by the help of God to overcome all difficulties. He presented each rider with a special edition Bible and required this oath, which they were also required to sign.

The Pony Express demonstrated that a unified transcontinental system of communications could be established and operated year-round. When replaced by the telegraph, the Pony Express quickly became romanticized and became part of the lore of the American West. Its reliance on the ability and endurance of individual young, hardy riders and fast horses was seen as evidence of rugged American individualism of the Frontier times.

More information: History

From 1866 until 1889, the Pony Express logo was used by stagecoach and freight company Wells Fargo, which provided secure mail service. The United States Postal Service (USPS) used Pony Express as a trademark for postal services in the US. Freight Link international courier services, based in Russia, adopted the Pony Express trademark and a logo similar to that of the USPS.

In 1860, there were about 186 Pony Express stations that were about 16 km apart along the Pony Express route. At each station stop the express rider would change to a fresh horse, taking only the mail pouch called a mochila, from the Spanish for pouch or backpack, with him.

The National Pony Express Association, INC

The employers stressed the importance of the pouch. They often said that, if it came to be, the horse and rider should perish before the mochila did. The mochila was thrown over the saddle and held in place by the weight of the rider sitting on it. Each corner had a cantina, or pocket. Bundles of mail were placed in these cantinas, which were padlocked for safety.

The mochila could hold 9 kg of mail along with the 9 kg of material carried on the horse. Eventually, everything except one revolver and a water sack was removed, allowing for a total of 75 kg on the horse's back. Riders, who could not weigh over 57 kg, changed about every 120–160 km, and rode day and night. In emergencies, a given rider might ride two stages back to back, over 20 hours on a quickly moving horse.

It is unknown if riders tried crossing the Sierra Nevada in winter, but they certainly crossed central Nevada. By 1860 there was a telegraph station in Carson City, Nevada. The riders received $100 a month as pay. A comparable wage for unskilled labor at the time was about $0.43–$1 per day.

More information: Mental Floss

Alexander Majors, one of the founders of the Pony Express, had acquired more than 400 horses for the project. He selected horses from around the west, paying an average of $200. These averaged about 147 cm high and averaged 410 kg each; thus, the name pony was appropriate, even if not strictly correct in all cases.

The approximately 3,100 km route roughly followed the Oregon and California Trails to Fort Bridger in Wyoming, and then the Mormon Trail, known as the Hastings Cutoff, to Salt Lake City, Utah. From there it followed the Central Nevada Route to Carson City, Nevada before passing over the Sierra into Sacramento, California.

The route started at St. Joseph, Missouri on the Missouri River, it then followed what is modern-day U.S. Highway 36, US 36 the Pony Express Highway, to Marysville, Kansas, where it turned northwest following Little Blue River to Fort Kearny in Nebraska. Through Nebraska it followed the Great Platte River Road, cutting through Gothenburg, Nebraska, clipping the edge of Colorado at Julesburg, Colorado, and passing Courthouse Rock, Chimney Rock, and Scotts Bluff, before arriving at Fort Laramie in Wyoming.

The Pony Express statue, Julesburg

From there it followed the Sweetwater River, passing Independence Rock, Devil's Gate, and Split Rock, to Fort Caspar, through South Pass to Fort Bridger and then down to Salt Lake City.

From Salt Lake City it generally followed the Central Nevada Route blazed by Captain James H. Simpson of the Corps of Topographical Engineers in 1859. This route roughly follows today's US 50 across Nevada and Utah. It crossed the Great Basin, the Utah-Nevada Desert, and the Sierra Nevada near Lake Tahoe before arriving in Sacramento. Mail was then sent via steamer down the Sacramento River to San Francisco. On a few instances when the steamer was missed, riders took the mail via horseback to Oakland, California.

More information: Wells Fargo

There were 184 stations along the long and arduous route used by the Pony Express. The stations and station keepers were essential to the successful, timely and smooth operation of the Pony Express mail system. The stations were often fashioned out of existing structures, several of them located in military forts, while others were built anew in remote areas where living conditions were very basic.

The route was divided up into five divisions. To maintain the rigid schedule, 157 relay stations were located from 8 to 40 km apart as the terrain would allow for. At each swing station, riders would exchange their tired mounts for fresh ones, while home stations provided room and board for the riders between runs. This technique allowed the mail to be whisked across the continent in record time. Each rider rode about 120 km per day.

More information: National Geographic

 Excitement was plentiful during 

my two years' service as a Pony Express rider.

Buffalo Bill

William Frederick Buffalo Bill Cody (February 26, 1846-January 10, 1917) was an American scout, bison hunter, and showman. He was born in Le Claire, Iowa Territory, now the U.S. state of Iowa, but he lived for several years in his father's hometown in Toronto Township, Ontario, Canada, before the family returned to the Midwest and settled in the Kansas Territory.

William Frederick Cody aka Buffalo Bill

Buffalo Bill started working at the age of eleven, after his father's death, and became a rider for the Pony Express at age 14. During the American Civil War, he served the Union from 1863 to the end of the war in 1865. Later he served as a civilian scout for the US Army during the Indian Wars, receiving the Medal of Honor in 1872.

One of the most colorful figures of the American Old West, Buffalo Bill's legend began to spread when he was only twenty-three. Shortly thereafter he started performing in shows that displayed cowboy themes and episodes from the frontier and Indian Wars. He founded Buffalo Bill's Wild West in 1883, taking his large company on tours in the United States and, beginning in 1887, in Great Britain and continental Europe.

More information: Buffalo Bill

Probably more than any other rider in the Pony Express, William Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill, epitomizes the legend and the folklore, be it fact or fiction, of the Pony Express. Numerous stories have been told of young Cody's adventures as a Pony Express rider.

At the age of 15 Cody was on his way west to California when he met Pony Express agents along the way and signed on with the company. Cody helped in the construction of several way-stations. Thereafter, he was employed as a rider and was given a short 72 km delivery run from the township of Julesburg which lay to the west.

More information: Wyoming History

After some months he was transferred to Slade's Division in Wyoming where he made the longest non-stop ride from Red Buttes Station to Rocky Ridge Station and back when he found that his relief rider had been killed.

Buffalo Bill

The distance of 518 km over one of the most dangerous sections of the entire trail was completed in 21 hours and 40 minutes, and 21 horses were required to complete this section. On one occasion when carrying mail he unintentionally ran into an Indian war party but managed to escape.

Cody was present for many significant chapters in early western history, including the gold rush, the building of the railroads and cattle herding on the Great Plains. A career as a scout for the Army under General Phillip Sheridan following the Civil War earned him his nickname and established his notoriety as a frontiersman.

In 1869, the twenty-three year-old Cody met Ned Buntline, who later published a story based on Cody's adventures, largely invented by the writer, in Street and Smith's New York Weekly and then published a highly successful novel, Buffalo Bill, King of the Bordermen, which was first serialized on the front page of the Chicago Tribune, beginning that December 15.

Many other sequels followed by Buntline, Prentiss Ingraham and others from the 1870s through the early part of the twentieth century. Cody later became world-famous for Buffalo Bill's Wild West, a touring show which traveled around the United States, Great Britain, and Continental Europe. Audiences were enthusiastic about seeing a piece of the American West.

Emilio Salgari, a noted Italian writer of adventure stories, met Buffalo Bill when he came to Italy and saw his show; Salgari later featured Cody as a hero in some of his novels.

More information: Buffalo Bill-Center of the West

 

But the West of the old times, with its strong characters, 

its stern battles and its tremendous stretches of loneliness, 

can never be blotted from my mind.

Buffalo Bill