Original subtitles

[narrator] Previously on "Sitting Bull".

In the mid-1800s

on the Great Plains of North America,

the Lakota live largely unaware

of their neighbor to the east,

the United States.

But as a young leader named Sitting Bull

rises to prominence among his people,

everything changes.

[train rumbles]

In one of the great migrations in American history,

people started flooding the west.

White Americans saw themselves as settlers

moving into virgin territory.

Native people see it as invasion from the east.

[guns firing]

[narrator] But Sitting Bull refuses to give in.

[Jeffrey] Sitting Bull was tremendously confident

in his abilities to actually resist the United States.

[narrator] And when the US offers a treaty

restricting the Lakota people to a reservation,

Sitting Bull refuses.

Sitting Bull was not able to accept any alternative

other than complete freedom.

[narrator] With the famed warrior Crazy Horse by his side,

Sitting Bull forms a resistance movement

that soon swells in numbers.

People are flocking to Sitting Bull and to Crazy Horse.

That's the life they want to lead.

[narrator] But as the US continues

its relentless push west,

the Lakota will soon meet their greatest adversary.

[dramatic music builds]

[tools clanging]

[narrator] On the banks of the Yellowstone River

in Eastern Montana,

the US Army's 7th Cavalry is guarding a team of engineers

surveying a railroad line

that will cut across the Great Plains.

Leading the expedition

is Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer,

along with his trusted scout,

Bloody Knife.

[tense music plays]

You. You.

[warrior shouts]

[soldier screams in distance]

[warrior shouts]

[narrator] From the moment Custer enters Lakota Territory,

he realizes he's facing an enemy like no other.

In the nine years since he lost his first major battle

against the United States Army at Killdeer Mountain,

Sitting Bull has learned how to fight the Americans.

And over the next few weeks,

he and his warriors

relentlessly harass Custer's forces.

Lakota warriors chose when to make war

upon Americans very carefully.

They wanted an advantage in numbers.

They wanted the high ground.

It was very helpful if they had the advantage of surprise.

[solder grunts]

[whoops]

[guns firing]

[narrator] Leading the battles

are Sitting Bull's most trusted lieutenants,

Gall and Crow King,

along with the great Oglala warrior, Crazy Horse.

[soldier] Regroup! Regroup!

[narrator] After weeks of fighting,

the Yellowstone expedition ends.

For Custer, who'd hoped to beat back the Lakota

and gain personal glory,

the mission is a failure.

[Megan Kate] Sitting Bull really did get the better of Custer.

He had provided such intense resistance

to the Northern Pacific surveyors

that they were never able to build the line in the 1870s.

[narrator] Sitting Bull's resistance to the railroads

has even greater consequences back east.

When the railroad defaults on its loans,

the bank that issued them collapses,

causing a financial panic across Wall Street.

[Edward] There is no stock in the world

that is more oversold and speculative

than railroad stocks.

So, this great, big investment firm overextends themselves

and when the company goes under,

they pull with them many other banks,

many other investment houses.

So, there's this tremendous implosion of the economy.

It's called the Panic of 1873.

55,000 businesses fold, 5,000 banks fail.

It triggers a five year, five month period

of economic contraction.

And that's the longest in US history.

It was the first really huge economic turndown

in industrial American history

and it led to bankruptcies,

unemployment, and despair.

[narrator] The economic crisis is so severe

that until the 1930s,

this will be known as The Great Depression.

As President Ulysses S Grant begins his second term,

he faces a problem he has no idea how to solve.

Then, news reaches him from the Black Hills

in the Dakota Territory

that could lift the country out of its financial crisis.

[Edward] An expedition head into the Black Hills

in the summer of 1874

and they discover large deposits of gold.

Reporters send news of this strike back to the east,

and within just a matter of days,

the entire nation knows of this great gold strike

that has taken place in the Black Hills.

[narrator] The news triggers a massive gold rush

and thousands of Americans pour into the Black Hills.

[Clay] Suddenly, there was going to be

this great infusion of gold

and that would not only repair the treasury

but provide employment

for thousands and thousands of good Americans.

[narrator] But there's a problem.

The Black Hills are part of the Great Sioux Reservation,

promised to the Lakota

in the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie.

[Shane] The Black Hills' cultural meaning

within the Lakota, it's so sacred.

You know, the Black Hills are considered to be

one of the sources of life, a great resource

for any kind of food, water.

They were just an oasis in the middle of the Great Plains.

[narrator] Grant knows that a crisis is brewing.

Once gold was discovered, there was no stopping

the amount of greed, and prospectors,

and fortune seekers

that descended on the Black Hills.

They weren't going to honor laws

that said that parcel land belonged to a particular tribe.

Forget any treaty, forget any rights.

[Christy] You've got prospectors

intruding on the lands that belong to the Lakota.

Grant is somebody who says you should be a man of your word.

I mean, that was sacred to him.

And the word of the nation's treaty

was stay out of the Black Hills.

[narrator] Desperate to avoid conflict,

Grant sends eight commissioners to meet with tribal leaders

in June of 1875.

His goal, buy the Black Hills from the Lakota

for $6,000.000.

[Shane] From Sitting Bull and his people's perspective,

land like that cannot be bought or sold.

This is beyond the realm of money.

This is a spiritual connection

that can only be held in the heart.

[narrator] In response to the offer,

Sitting Bull dispatches some of his warriors

to send a message to the delegation.

From the north, from Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull,

came the so-called northern roamers, by the hundreds.

And they came down

and they just scared the hell out of the commission.

The government officials high-tailed it

back to the east and they said

"Oh, we can't reach a deal with these people."

And so, the move becomes okay, they won't trade,

so we'll have to take it.

[narrator] On November 3rd, 1875,

Grant summons his generals and advisors

for a secret meeting at the White House.

[Mark Lee] President Grant has decided

we've got to crush Sitting Bull, we've got to crush Crazy Horse,

we have to crush all these that are living out here

causing, you know, supposed problems

for the miners and other settlers.

And so, they issue an ultimatum.

[narrator] The ultimatum states that all Native People

not living on reservations

must surrender to US forts

by the end of January 1876

or they'll be considered hostile.

If Sitting Bull refuses to surrender to the reservation,

he'll make every one of his people

a target of the US Army.

But the Lakota leader holds firm.

[water hisses]

The January deadline comes and goes

with no sign of Sitting Bull or his people.

[ominous music plays]

- At that point, Grant takes on the role

he did in the Civil War, which is we're gonna win this.

[Megan Kate] Really what that meant

is that the US Army had full rein

to engage in total war against the Lakota people.

[narrator] In the spring of 1876,

after Sitting Bull and his followers

reject President Grant's ultimatum,

the US Army unleashes a brutal assault

on any Lakota people

living outside the Great Sioux Reservation. -

[Edward] The US military

brings in a new set of rules of war.

In the Civil War, the US Army

did not attack civilian populations directly

in order to annihilate them.

But that is exactly what happened

with Native settlements in the American West.

Women and children became

the direct victim of US aggression.

There were numerous massacres

and mass graves

of majority women and children.

[Megan Kate] This total warfare strategy was brutal.

The US Army did not see Indigenous Peoples

as their equals, they saw them as inferiors,

and really ramped up the violence.

[narrator] But Grant knows the resistance won't end

until Sitting Bull is captured or killed.

So, he dispatches a force

that includes a man who has experience

fighting the Lakota leader,

Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer.

[Edward] Custer has had some significant failures,

but the people in Washington, Sherman and Grant,

know that he is actually an exceptional commander.

He's a great motivator of his troops.

And he's a person that they feel like they can trust.

[narrator] Three years after failing to defeat

the Lakota during the Yellowstone expedition,

Custer leads 600 soldiers from the 7th Cavalry.

Determined to reclaim his Civil War glory.

Custer's mission was not a peacekeeping mission.

It was a seek and destroy mission.

That was plain and simple.

[narrator] To help him track down Sitting Bull,

Custer uses every advantage he has,

including his scout, Bloody Knife,

who has his own score to settle with the Lakota.

[Bill] Bloody Knife lived, in his youth,

in the Hunkpapa tribe.

And he was treated poorly by the young boys,

Sitting Bull, Crow King, Gall, especially,

and there was quite an animosity.

[narrator] But as Custer's troops close in on Sitting Bull,

the Lakotas numbers are growing.

In the aftermath of the army's attacks,

thousands of Native People from all over the Great Plains

flock to Sitting Bull's camp.

[Shane] Sitting Bull's charisma,

combined with Crazy Horse's legendary status

really created a juggernaut of a community

in that spring and summer.

The Northern Cheyenne and the Northern Arapaho

joined the Lakota people

and it was unprecedented to see

that many different types of tribes and cultures

all under the same tent.

[narrator] By June of 1876,

Sitting Bull's camp swells to nearly 7,000,

with over 1,500 warriors.

It's the largest gathering of Plains Tribes in 25 years.

Then, in the early summer of 1876,

Sitting Bull has a vision.

[invigorating whooping]

[Mark Lee] It's a powerful vision.

And what greater moment could there be than a vision

from Sitting Bull of a great victory?

It spreads awe through all the people.

They know that this is a prophecy that will bear fruit.

It's coming from Sitting Bull, who is closer

to the Great Spirit than any of them.

[narrator] With Sitting Bull's people united behind him

and Custer's 7th Cavalry bearing down,

the stage is set

for one of the most pivotal battles

the nation has ever known.

[whooping]

They're close.

[Custer] How many?

Thousands.

[narrator] Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer

and his scout, Bloody Knife,

had been searching for Sitting Bull and his followers

for over a month.

Now, they're within five miles of his massive camp

situated along the banks of the Little Bighorn River

in Montana.

The camp has grown to nearly 7,000 followers

with over 1,500 warriors.

More than twice as many soldiers as the 7th Cavalry.

But Custer is undeterred.

Custer felt that to defeat a Lakota camp,

you had to surprise them.

If we find them and we can surprise them,

the fighting will be a secondary consideration.

The 7th Calvary would have the capability

to deal with any size camp they came up to.

[narrator] Even though he's outnumbered,

he decides to move in.

[Edward] He sees this as a moment to redeem himself,

to add greater glory to his reputation,

to pull him to a new height of fame and possibly fortune.

And so, that's going to influence his decision making.

[narrator] Custer divides his men into three groups.

He orders one column to capture any fleeing villagers.

Then he orders another battalion,

including Bloody Knife,

to attack the village from the south.

Finally, Custer will lead a third unit

to flank the village and charge from the north,

crushing the Lakota camp.

[ominous music]

[hooves thundering in distance]

[gunshot cracks]

[horses neigh]

[soldiers shouting]

[gunshot]

[Paul] Sitting Bull began to rally the young warriors

to put up a defense and to push the soldiers back.

So, he was in the heat of that fight,

of that early part of the battle.

[narrator] On the other side of the village,

Crazy Horse is mobilizing his warriors.

[Bill] Crazy Horse was an unbelievable warrior.

He was an instinctive leader and he is incredibly talented

and charismatic on the battlefield.

And his warriors would follow him anywhere.

[warriors shouting]

[narrator] As the battle unfolds,

Lakota warriors like Gall

look to exploit any advantage.

Gall played a very prominent role

at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

Gall led a group of Lakotas to confront US forces.

[shouting]

[arrow swishes, guns firing]

[Jim] The Lakota used the gullies, the ravines,

to encroach on the soldier position.

They understand the terrain

to a level that these soldiers simply cannot.

[narrator] As US forces battle the Lakota,

Custer's scout Bloody Knife

is determined to get his revenge

on the Lakota tribe that shunned him.

[gun fires]

[indistinct shouting]

[gunshot cracks]

[Jeffery] Looking back on Bloody Knife's life,

he's really kind of a tragic figure.

He could never achieve the peace

or the happiness that he could have had

if the Lakota had just fully adopted him into the nation.

Very tragic figure.

[indistinct shouting]

[whoops]

[Paul] Sitting Bull went up to the bluffs.

From that high position, he could look back

and he could see the dust

and he could see that faint blue in the dust clouds,

and he knew that Custer was coming to attack the village.

[Jeffery] Custer believed that his march through the village

was going to be this glorious charge

that would annihilate his enemy between

the hammer and the anvil.

[guns firing]

[indistinct shouting]

Hold the line!

Hold the line!

[Mark Lee] The critical mistake Custer makes

is dividing his regiment into three battalions,

then striking from different positions.

This allows the Lakotas under Crazy Horse and Gall

to attack those units piecemeal and defeat them.

Hold the line! Hold the line!

[shouting]

[narrator] Custer is outmanned and surrounded.

[foreboding music plays]

[gunshot cracks]

[warriors cheering]

[Courtney] The Calvary came charging.

We charged right back and overwhelmed them.

And there - there lied Pehin Hanska,

the Great Indian Killer,

laying on a hill there, dead.

History will tell us that Custer's ego

and arrogance sealed his fate.

Certainly, he was overconfident,

attacking a village that size.

And it was a cultural bias

against this idea that one regiment

could defeat any number of Native Americans.

Custer did not know the confidence of the Lakota

both as a nation and as warriors.

[whoops]

All of that confidence came to fore

and ended up in Custer's demise.

[narrator] In less than an hour,

Sitting Bull's warriors wipe out Custer's 7th Cavalry.

And celebrate an unprecedented victory

against the United States.

[narrator] On the banks of the Little Bighorn River,

Sitting Bull and his warriors

hand the US Army their largest defeat since the Civil War,

263 soldiers are killed.

[Shane] The Battle of the Little Bighorn

was probably the greatest victory

ever achieved by the Lakota people.

You're talking about wiping out a fighting force

that had really haunted them

and killed many communities over decades.

That victory at the Little Bighorn avenged that.

You know, it was able to really come full circle,

this cycle of trauma

that the US Army had inflicted on these communities.

[narrator] News of Custer's defeat

won't reach the East Coast for a week.

In the meantime, America celebrates its 100th birthday.

Commemorating the moment

with the country's first world's fair.

[Paul] The Centennial celebration in Philadelphia

was a celebration of American greatness.

How we had emerged as a major industrial power.

[narrator] The United States is starting to recover

from the financial panic of 1873,

and it uses the Centennial Exhibition

to proudly highlight its technological advancements.

10 million visitors get the first look

at revolutionary inventions

like the telephone,

the typewriter,

and an early version of a monorail.

Also on display is the arm and torch

that will one day top the Statue of Liberty.

Members of Congress are there. The President is there.

Ultimately, millions of Americans are there.

This great celebration of American greatness,

of American progress, of American strength.

[narrator] But the nation's celebratory mood

is about to be broken.

Just as those great, self-satisfying

national celebrations were beginning,

the news came from the West.

Custer and his 7th Cavalry had been wiped out.

When the country saw this, they were shocked.

[Douglas] Even today, people who don't even know

much about Native American history,

most of them know about the Battle of Little Bighorn,

and that's because it - it shocked the -

the system of Americans.

At the time, nobody expected

that a soldier trained at West Point, like Custer,

could have been given their comeuppance by Sitting Bull.

[Edward] It's greeted in the same way

that Lincoln's assassination shocked the nation.

It has that same kind of wait, what?

How could this possibly be for this ascendant nation

that is finishing the job of conquering the West

to have this major, major setback?

[Paul] Sitting Bull suddenly becomes

the most famous Indian in America.

He's front page news anywhere.

The New York Daily Graphic

had an incredible image of Sitting Bull

as almost a centaur, half man, half beast,

and he's prancing over Custer's fallen corpse,

clutching an American flag.

Now indeed, everyone was for war.

Custer must be avenged.

The country wanted Sitting Bull's scalp.

[narrator] In July 1876,

just a week after news of Custer's defeat

reaches Washington,

Congress approves 2,500 more troops

to move into Lakota Territory,

to crush Sitting Bull's resistance

once and for all.

[Bill] There was no interest

in hearing about Indian rights anymore.

The army is given a free hand.

They're allowed to do a relentless winter campaign

to eradicate the hunting bands.

[Mark] The US military decides to devote tremendous resources

to bring them to terms.

And they know that the winter months

are the times to go after these bands,

because they're most vulnerable.

[horse neighs]

[Paul] Sitting Bull was cautious.

He knows that it's going to be impossible

to defeat all of these soldiers.

He's taking the long view.

He's trying to do what's best for the people.

[narrator] Sitting Bull knows

he'll have to take his people on the run

to stay away from the US soldiers.

But with the camp nearing close to 7,000, men,

women, and children,

a tough decision needs to be made.

[narrator] Each tribe in a coalition will go its own way.

Crazy Horse will take his people to the south,

while Sitting Bull will lead his followers northeast.

[plaintive music plays]

The Lakota chief leads his followers

toward Killdeer Mountain in the Dakota Territory,

near the site of his first battle

with the US Army 12 years earlier.

For months, they managed to elude the US Army.

But it comes at a cost.

[Bill] They're physically exhausted.

Their horses have nothing to eat.

And if you're in those camps,

you're fearful every night

that there's another attack coming at dawn.

Where will we move to next? How will we eat?

And the army just keeps on coming.

[narrator] To the south, Crazy Horse and his people

are at a breaking point.

[Mark Lee] By the spring of 1877,

the winter campaigns have worked tremendously.

Crazy Horse's people are starving.

They had to have buffalo to survive

and the herds were declining.

[narrator] It's been eight years

since the US began exterminating the buffalo,

and now the Lakota's primary source of food

is on the verge of extinction.

[Megan Kate] It became clear that they were not going to

be able to survive much longer

with the bison herds at their current numbers.

[narrator] As the situation becomes desperate,

a figure from Crazy Horse's past appears,

the Oglala leader he parted ways with, Red Cloud,

offering a way out.

After signing the Treaty of Fort Laramie,

Red Cloud has remained a prominent leader

of the Lakota living on the reservation.

But he's never forgotten those who fought alongside him.

[Paul] Red Cloud was constantly sending out peace feelers,

trying to bring Crazy Horse in.

Either you continue to fight

and the women and children starve to death,

or you come in.

[narrator] On April 27th, 1877,

Crazy Horse surrenders,

vowing to never wage war on the battlefield again.

[narrator] Sitting Bull knows of a place

where the US soldiers can't follow them,

Canada.

[Jeffery] His decision to lead them to Canada

was based upon the idea that there's literally gonna be

no safe place they can go

within the borders of the United States,

that the United States Army won't find them.

[narrator] His people have called the Great Plains home

for generations.

But in order to keep them safe,

they must now leave it behind.

[narrator] A year after their victory

at the Battle of Little Bighorn,

Sitting Bull and his followers

cross the US border into Canada,

where they know the US Army can't reach them.

The Lakota term for the 49th parallel,

the border between the US and Canada,

was the medicine line,

and by medicine they meant something of great power.

This invisible line that actually only exists on maps

has power to prevent

the US military from crossing it.

[narrator] Buffalo, the Lakotas most important food source,

is still found north of the border.

The herds migrate from the US into Canada

when the spring rains bring fresh grass,

allowing the Lakota to continue to hunt them.

[Shane] Sitting Bull led his people to Canada

because he believed that that was the last place

where they could still live the old way of life.

[narrator] But as Sitting Bull settles into Canada,

disturbing news reaches him.

[narrator] After Crazy Horse surrenders to the reservation,

to save his people from starvation,

he is faced with new challenges.

[Mark] The US officials wanted Crazy Horse and some of his men

to go help fight other Native nations.

And Crazy Horse said that's not what we agreed to do.

What he encountered were whites who did not understand him.

They thought he was just being belligerent.

On top of all this,

there were all these rumors swirling

that Crazy Horse was going to kill a famed general.

So, it was decided we're gonna arrest Crazy Horse

and send him away.

A man who had lived free his entire life,

he's going to be confined.

His worst fears are realized and he struggles.

And finally an officer yells to kill the son of a bitch.

[narrator] On September 5th, 1877,

Crazy Horse,

the Lakota's greatest warrior,

is killed.

[Paul] Sitting Bull was, of course, devastated

by the news of the death of Crazy Horse.

It was a very clear sign of the fate that awaited him

if he ever surrendered to the blue coats.

[narrator] Sitting Bull knows that fleeing to Canada

was the best choice for his people.

But even here, he's not safe.

Back east, Ulysses S Grant

is succeeded by the nation's 19th president,

Rutherford B. Hayes,

whose government is still intent on punishing the Lakota

for their victory at Little Bighorn.

[Douglas] Rutherford B Hayes, in many ways,

is a very enlightened president,

but he had the burden of the Battle of Little Bighorn,

and Americans don't like losing.

So, the American people were demanding

that he deal with a firm hand on the Indian problem,

or else he would be seen as weak on national security.

[narrator] President Hayes needs to avenge Custer,

but he can't send troops into Canada

without damaging international relations,

so his government comes up with another solution.

[ominous music plays]

[fire crackling in distance]

The US Army actually begins to burn large swaths of grassland

on the Canadian border

in order to prevent buffalo,

that normally would migrate up into that area from doing so,

so that there would be less buffalo for the Natives

who were living in Canada to hunt.

[narrator] While Canada seemed like the ideal new home

for Sitting Bull and his followers,

now it's only a matter of time

before they starve there.

[narrator] In the fall of 1880,

Sitting Bull sees his peoples' situation

take a turn for the worse.

Canada was cold

and the buffalo had been exterminated,

and Sitting Bull was having a hard time

feeding his own people.

[narrator] Throughout the winter,

sickness and starvation threatened the entire village.

But Sitting Bull refuses to surrender.

[Paul] Dissension starts building.

And people start talking about maybe we should go back.

[narrator] Even Sitting Bull's closest ally, Gall,

begins to question his judgment.

Gall saw that this was a problem

that wasn't going to go away.

Sitting Bull was still of the mindset of resistance.

He wanted to be the last Indian fighting.

[narrator] Since they were children,

Gall has always been by Sitting Bull's side,

a loyal brother and warrior.

But now he realizes he must take a stand.

[William] Gall did not think that Sitting Bull

was acting in the best interests of all Lakotas.

He recognized that their people were starving

and he was faced with a difficult choice.

Would he remain kind of fighting against the United States,

or would he think about those people who were starving

and - and how to best provide for others?

[somber music plays]

[narrator] In November 1880,

Gall parts ways with Sitting Bull

and returns to the US to surrender.

Over 300 people follow him.

The exodus continues over the next several months

as hundreds more Lakota choose to surrender.

[Clay] During that time, one after another

of his principal colleagues and their people spin off

and go down across the border and surrender.

The numbers of the resistance keep dropping precipitously,

and from Sitting Bull's point of view,

there are lots of betrayals.

[Edward] One by one, sometimes in large groups,

sometimes as individuals,

they cross back into the United States,

surrender and take up residence on reservations.

[narrator] Now, in the village that was once home

to over 1,000, fewer than 400 remain.

[Edward] Sitting Bull is out of options.

His people are literally starving to death,

they are dying of sickness,

and he has to make a tough moral calculation.

Do I hold out on principle and we all die,

or do we head back and some of us survive,

and maybe we can find some way

to create a new life that is at least somewhat noble

and sustaining for us under new circumstances?

[narrator] On July 20th, 1881,

after four years in Canada,

Sitting Bull makes the hardest decision of his life.

[somber music plays]

[narrator] With his people facing starvation,

Sitting Bull finally surrenders to US authorities.

[Clay] It took months for him to finally decide

that the situation was hopeless

and that he had no choice but to come in.

He's essentially been reduced to this

and so, this is a period of sadness and loss.

[William] The Lakota people were starving.

There were few of them remaining in Canada

and so, it made sense at this time to kind of finally

surrender and come back to the United States.

In order to survive.

[narrator] The Lakota leader

and close to 170 of his followers

are transported south to Fort Randall

near the Nebraska-Dakota border

and held as prisoners of war.

[Edward] Many US officials are vengeful.

They see him as the slayer of Custer.

They also see him as the great resistor,

the person who has inspired sustained levels of resistance

among all Native peoples on the Great Plains.

And so, they want to punish him.

[narrator] But while the government views Sitting Bull

as a dangerous enemy,

the American public is starting to feel differently.

[Paul] While Sitting Bull's at Fort Randall,

he suddenly discovers that he's something of a celebrity.

His surrender has made headlines.

And all the country's talking about him

and people are seeking him out.

Of course, reporters are coming in.

Everyone wants to interview him.

[Jeffery] For the people on the East Coast

that were absolutely under no threat of Sitting Bull,

he becomes kind of a folk hero.

In the United States, where freedom

is the foundation of our society,

here is this man who fought for freedom for his people.

[Edward] He's gone from being public enemy number one

to an object of great fascination, even admiration,

and Sitting Bull becomes quite aware of that.

[narrator] As Sitting Bull's celebrity grows,

many began petitioning for his pardon.

In May 1883, federal officials release Sitting Bull

and his followers from captivity,

to join the Lakota people on the Great Sioux Reservation.

He's transferred to the Standing Rock Agency.

Established in 1873 as part of the Great Sioux Reservation,

Standing Rock straddles the border

of modern day North and South Dakota.

When Sitting Bull arrives, there are more than 4,000 Lakota

living on the reservation,

all of whom depend on the US government

to provide shelter, clothing, and food rations.

The man appointed by the government to oversee it

is James McLaughlin.

[William] Indian agents like McLaughlin saw themselves

at the top of a leadership pyramid

that other people should be following.

He wanted to assimilate Indigenous peoples

into American society.

Teach Indigenous men how to farm,

teach Indigenous women how to take care of households,

and then to convert them to Christianity.

I believe in two things, God and discipline.

I find if you nurture your faith,

you'll find that a hard day's work

can help the soul.

Everyone here farms the land they are assigned.

You eat when you grow. There are no free rides.

Could you translate that for him, dear?

[speaking Indigenous language]

[Jeffrey] When Sitting Bull comes to Standing Rock,

he realizes the chiefs no longer have any real power

or influence over the people that follow them

because the Indian agent has all of that power.

[Mark Lee] After Custer,

Sitting Bull's greatest adversary in the white world

was James McLaughlin.

He refused to respect who Sitting Bull was

and the reverence in which he was held by his followers.

James McLaughlin made it very clear,

you're just another Lakota as far as I'm concerned,

and you'll do everything else that the Lakotas do.

[narrator] Once the leader of a proud and free people,

Sitting Bull struggles to accept how much has changed

in the time he was in exile.

[Clay] In 1883,

he's been gone from his home country for six years now.

When he gets back,

the Northern Pacific Railroad isn't complete,

but it's soon going to make its way through Montana.

It's just a matter of completing the track.

And of course, once gold had been discovered

in the Black Hills, it was inevitable

that white America would simply push anyone out of the way

who prevented us from getting at those minerals.

And that's exactly what happened.

[Bill] The changes must have been so dramatic

and so disheartening to such a proud leader of the Lakota.

I can only imagine that's what Sitting Bull

is feeling in this new reality that he has to confront.

[narrator] Even greater changes are taking place

among Sitting Bull's people

as they increasingly adopt white culture.

[melancholy music plays]

[gunshot cracks]

[whoops]

[Mark Lee] Gall starts out

as a lieutenant under Sitting Bull

and he's a very prominent warrior, a brave warrior,

but they diverge.

Gall sees a different path.

He sees that maybe it's better to accommodate

and to work with the white man.

He becomes a real favorite of Agent McLaughlin.

[narrator] As he sees assimilation

destroying the traditions he fought so hard to preserve,

Sitting Bull is determined to remind his people

what it means to be Lakota.

[narrator] Sitting Bull has now lived at Standing Rock

for three years,

but for the legendary chief,

a man who led the Lakota's fierce resistance

against the US for decades,

the adjustment has been a struggle.

Sitting Bull represents in his soul, in his fiber,

in his whole being, the old way of life.

And he was horrified to see that folks were, in fact,

becoming assimilated into the white world.

[Clay] Many are dressed now in white man's clothing.

Their diet has changed. There's no hunting.

They have to get release forms to leave the reservation at all.

[narrator] Many at Standing Rock

have never known true freedom on the Great Plains,

so Sitting Bull begins sharing his stories,

hoping to keep the history of the Lakota alive.

Sitting Bull had such a reputation as a great warrior,

as a great spiritual leader.

And more and more young people began to flock

to hear his stories, to embrace the oral tradition.

Just as Sitting Bull had heard the stories

of the past glories of the Lakota before he was born,

now he began to tell these stories.

[narrator] For James McLaughlin,

the Indian agent at Standing Rock,

Sitting Bull's actions are a direct threat

to his plan to fully assimilate the Lakota.

[Jeffery] Sitting Bull is talking about a time

when the Lakota were free and sovereign,

and that is exactly the opposite

of what McLaughlin wants the message to be.

[Paul] Sitting Bull worried McLaughlin.

He worried him because he was holding on to the old ways,

and most importantly, because he was so influential.

And that was tough for McLaughlin to battle.

Somehow he had to shut Sitting Bull down.

Thank you.

[narrator] In May of 1885,

McLaughlin receives a message from Buffalo Bill Cody.

[Paul] Buffalo Bill Cody lived two very distinct lives.

He was a frontiersman and a buffalo hunter.

He lived the Wild West,

and then he reinvented it and he took it on the road.

[Edward] Buffalo Bill realizes

that there's an insatiable appetite in the east

for stories, for lore,

for legends coming out of the west,

and in 1883 he puts together

what is effectively a circus about the West,

and he calls it Buffalo Bill's Wild West.

He is going to present

authentic vignettes, authentic stories,

authentic reenactments of things in the west.

[narrator] By the mid-1880s, Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show

is a worldwide phenomenon, with crowds as big as 20,000.

People are turning out to see sharpshooting displays,

rodeo performances,

and reenactments of famous battles of the west.

[William] There was this notion that the viewers were seeing

kind of an authentic version of what had happened.

So, if you're a person attending a Wild West show

in New York City, the odds are pretty good

that actual Lakotas

who had participated in the Battle of Little Bighorn

would be on stage performing the battle for you.

[narrator] Now, Buffalo Bill wants to bring on

the most famous Native leader in America.

[Edward] Given the tensions

between Sitting Bull and McLaughlin,

you would think that McLaughlin would block such a request.

But he has it in his mind

that sending Sitting Bull on this tour

will expose him to the greater, wider white world

and he will see the virtues

and the astonishing accomplishments

of white civilization.

And this will somehow hasten his acceptance of white ways.

And that will then trickle down

to the rest of his - his people.

[door slams shut]

Please have a seat.

I've received a letter

directing you to go on tour across the United States,

with a man named Buffalo Bill Cody.

It's a Wild West tour.

In it, you'll be able to travel the country.

Tell your story.

Dear.

[speaking Indigenous language]

[narrator] While McLaughlin sees this as a way

to get Sitting Bull to assimilate...

[speaking Lakota]

He wants to know when he leaves.

[narrator] Sitting Bull sees an opportunity.

[train rumbling]

On June 6th, 1885,

Sitting Bull leaves the reservation,

joining the Wild West show for a four-month tour.

And just as Buffalo Bill had hoped,

ticket sales skyrocket,

as curious audiences turn out to see

the legendary warrior who took Custer down.

Bill Cody knew

of the popularity of Sitting Bull

because of the defeat of Custer.

He was a draw to the show.

[narrator] Free from the constraints

of the reservation, Sitting Bull seizes the moment.

[Jeffrey] For Sitting Bull, it's an opportunity

not only to get paid

and send this money back to the reservation,

but it's also a chance to get out from McLaughlin's control.

[narrator] Most importantly,

it offers him the chance to tell the story of his life

and his people to the American public.

[Edward] Sitting Bull thinks that he might have

some positive impact to maybe tamp down the hostility

of the US military and US officials

on the reservations.

He wasn't simply going along for the show.

He was clearly trying to accomplish something.

[crowd cheers]

[narrator] Sitting Bull's appearances

catapult him into the worldwide spotlight.

Here he was in the center of things.

[Shane] Even after losing the war,

even after having been confined to the reservation,

he was able to reinvent himself again.

The Wild West show

really helped his vision come to fruition

that he would be known throughout the world

amongst all nations as a leader, as a man of great pride,

of great dignity, of great vision.

And that he could never really be defeated.

[crowd cheers]

[train whistle bellows]

[narrator] But the Wild West Tour doesn't just raise

Sitting Bull's profile.

It opens his eyes.

[Edward] He was traveling through an incredibly wealthy,

advanced society,

and yet, when he was in New York City,

the city has hundreds of people begging on the streets.

Homeless people,

people shuffling around looking for handouts.

[Courtney] Sitting Bull didn't understand

the wealth that the Americans had,

that there would be homeless people begging for food.

And he had compassion not only for his - his own people,

but compassion for people in general,

that he gave his money away.

He gave it to these people that are begging for food.

[Jeffery] Because of the things that he's seen,

Sitting Bull has become more and more entrenched

in the belief that the Lakota need to live

by their traditional values in order to survive successfully

on the reservation.

[narrator] As he ends his tour with Buffalo Bill,

Sitting Bull is more determined than ever

to ensure Lakota culture survives.

[narrator] In January of 1887,

Sitting Bull is 56 years old.

He's now lived at Standing Rock for nearly four years.

[Jeffery] Agent McLaughlin's hope

that Sitting Bull's travels east

would actually soften him for the United States

does not come to fruition.

[narrator] Sitting Bull is more determined than ever

to preserve traditional Lakota values on the reservation.

But developments back east

are about to change the landscape once more.

[hammers clanging]

By 1887,

the American Industrial Revolution is in full swing.

Fueled by the nation's oil and steel industries,

the surge in manufacturing

attracts a wave of new immigrants,

creating an even greater hunger for land

in the American West.

But with over 100 million acres allotted to reservations,

the US government looks for a way to open up that land

to American settlement.

In February of 1887,

President Grover Cleveland signs the Dawes Act into law.

Proposed as a way to further assimilate tribal people

to American ways,

the law offers them US citizenship

and an opportunity to personally own

their own private plot of land within the reservation.

[Clay] The Dawes Act said that Native Americans

would be encouraged heavily to choose plots

for individual family ownership,

and that whatever lands then were left over,

that land would be declared surplus

and would be available to white homesteaders,

and that was going to break up the reservation.

[Douglas] All the Dawes Act was, in the end, was a land grab.

It was how do you take land that was legally owned

by Native Americans and give it to white settlers?

It's another disingenuous act

by the US government towards Native American people.

[narrator] On the Great Sioux Reservation,

the Lakota alone lose 9 million acres of land,

nearly two-thirds of their allotted territory.

In total, tribes across the west

will lose more than 90 million acres

as a result of the Dawes Act.

By 1890,

tribal people across the West

are desperate for any sign of hope.

In the midst of this despair,

a new movement starts,

based around a spiritual ceremony

called the Ghost Dance.

[Shane] The Ghost dance was actually envisioned

by a Paiute medicine man named Wovoka.

Wovoka believed if people participated in this dance

that the bison would come back

and the white people would all disappear from the land,

and that the Native people could return to their old ways again.

It offered a new sense of hope and aspiration

for Indigenous communities,

that they would succeed

and that they would outlast

these really devastating acts of colonization,

and violence, warfare, starvation.

[narrator] As the Ghost Dance movement spreads

through reservations across the country,

American officials see a looming threat.

The Ghost Dance is most troubling

to Americans living near a reservation.

Their fear is always that there's going to be an outbreak.

The Native Americans will rise up

and come out and kill them all.

And for many American citizens,

this fear is going to be visceral and real.

[narrator] Newspapers everywhere run stories

calling the Ghost Dance a reign of terror.

[Paul] The white people went berserk.

This seemed completely insidious.

This was the forecast of another Indian rebellion.

[narrator] Soon the Ghost Dance movement

makes its way to the Lakota at Standing Rock.

[Paul] At first, Sitting Bull didn't care for it.

And in fact, he didn't like it at all

because it was not Lakota spiritualism.

[Lakota singing]

But he saw the power it was having over the people,

and being a smart politician, and that's what he was,

he began to slowly embrace it.

He started to give more and more support to the Ghost Dance,

and this infuriated and worried McLaughlin.

[Edward] So, as the Ghost Dance movement is gaining momentum,

James McLaughlin is convinced

that this is a seditious, rebellious movement

that is very dangerous,

and he's also convinced Sitting Bull is going to

support the Ghost Dance movement on his reservation,

and it's going to be a prelude to a great big uprising.

[narrator] Determined to stop any potential rebellion

dead in its tracks,

McLaughlin calls in the reservation police,

made up of Lakota,

and issues an order to arrest Sitting Bull.

[Guy] The relationship between Gall and Sitting Bull

was very strained.

For a long time, they did not talk to each other,

but once Gall heard of the intent,

Gall knew they weren't going there just to arrest him,

they were going there to shut him up.

[McLaughlin] That'll be all, gentlemen.

Have a seat.

Let me speak to Sitting Bull.

No need. It's being handled.

[Gall] I think I should talk to Sitting Bull.

I'm the only one he trusts.

I said it's being taken care of.

You're dismissed.

Gall understood this perfectly.

He knew that McLaughlin was setting up

a very volatile situation.

He warned against it. McLaughlin dismissed it.

[horse whinnies]

[narrator] On December 15th, 1890,

McLaughlin mobilizes his men

to bring Sitting Bull in by force.

[narrator] On the morning of December 15th, 1890,

at Standing Rock,

Indian agent James McLaughlin

mobilizes the reservation police.

Their orders, arrest Sitting Bull

for supporting the Ghost Dance movement.

The Indian police force is made up of Native Americans

who are set out to enforce assimilationist policies.

And there's absolutely no proof that the Ghost Dance

was any kind of a threat to Americans,

and Sitting Bull really has no active role in it.

Yet McLaughlin wants him arrested.

So, you can see how difficult this is.

[tense music plays]

[narrator] As the tribal police close in,

word spreads among Sitting Bull's supporters.

[Lakota shouting]

A crowd had assembled

and there was a lot of tension at that moment,

and the anxiety was high.

[door crashes open]

[police and Sitting Bull speaking Lakota]

[gunshot cracks]

[whoops]

[whoops]

[gunshot cracks]

[narrator] In one horrifying instant,

Sitting Bull is dead.

[William] There's a tense confrontation

between members of the Indian Police

and Sitting Bull's followers.

A gunfight ensues

and Sitting Bull dies in this skirmish.

[Mark Lee] Sitting Bull is murdered in front of his people.

It's a despicable killing.

It didn't have to happen, and it had its roots

in hatred for tradition and in hatred for Sitting Bull.

[Courtney] That was a resistance period,

the time of Sitting Bull.

So, when Sitting Bull was murdered,

what once was a great fire

of our people was now reduced to embers.

[narrator] But the violence isn't over.

A gunfight ensues.

Several members of the Indian police are killed.

Several members

of Sitting Bull's followers are killed.

It causes chaos and panic.

[narrator] Fearing they would be killed

if they remained at Standing Rock,

close to 400 Ghost Dance supporters flee

to seek refuge nearly 200 miles to the south,

on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

As they set out on their journey,

US troops flood into the area.

On their trip south, they were intercepted

by the 7th Cavalry

as kind of historical irony has it, right,

Custer's old regiment.

[narrator] The army orders the Lakota

to halt their march to Pine Ridge

and to camp along a nearby creek called Wounded Knee.

[Edward] The 7th Cavalry announced

that they're going to disarm the Native Americans

gathered there, and in the process,

a gun goes off.

It's still disputed whose gun went off,

but what we do know for certain

is that from that moment forward,

the 7th Cavalry goes berserk.

[narrator] On December 29th, 1890,

one of American history's most tragic events,

unfolds at Wounded Knee Creek.

290 Lakota men, women, and children

are massacred by the US Army.

To kill women, children, to kill them,

just to gun them down.

Wounded Knee was the ultimate evil.

They're left out in the cold for several days,

just out in the open,

exhibiting the kind of disregard for their humanity.

And then eventually buried in mass graves.

[Frank] To massacre hundreds of Lakota in cold blood,

still, to this day, makes me emotional thinking about it,

that such a thing could be done to people

who were in such a state of survival.

[Jeffrey] The Wounded Knee massacre is what many consider

the end of Native American history.

It's a tragedy that's just so unfortunate,

so unnecessary.

But it's not the end of Native culture.

[narrator] Today,

over a century after the events at Wounded Knee,

the Lakota people and their culture live on

thanks to the legacy of Sitting Bull.

[Elizabeth] Sitting Bull really exists

as a symbol of Indigenous strength, hope, and inspiration.

This is not some distant historic figure.

This is a real person who had a transformative effect,

not only in Native American history,

but in American history as a whole.

-The thread that I see in Sitting Bull's life is that

he was consistently and adamantly

always in support of protecting Lakota land

from the intrusion of the United States.

[Paul] He's seen as a heroic freedom fighter.

Someone who stood against the American onslaught

and who defended the rights of his people.

[Frank] For me, as a young Lakota person,

Sitting Bull represents resistance.

He never stopped being Lakota.

He said, I just wanted to be known in history.

I was the last warrior to give up his gun.

[whoops]

Sitting Bull is an inspiration to keep fighting

for what you believe in.

And I think all Native people try to emulate him

in some way, shape, or form.

To live a life without fear, to inspire others.

[Courtney] He showed all these virtues that made a warrior,

but also a leader.

He was a man, definitely that stood above the rest.

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