Original subtitles

[stirring monotonal music]

[fire crackling]

[horses neighing]

[hooves thundering]

[warriors cheering]

[thudding blow]

[soldier screams]

[invigorating whooping]

[Clay] Sitting Bull distinguished himself

as maybe one of the greatest warriors in North America.

Sitting Bull was a grassroots leader.

A heroic freedom fighter.

He was a thinker. He was a visionary.

And he always looked out for his people.

He would never abandon their culture and their way of life.

Sitting Bull grew up in a time that was very prosperous

and powerful for the Lakota people.

But in one of the great migrations in American history,

people started flooding the West.

Sitting Bull said, "These white people,

they keep coming and coming and coming."

Sitting Bull was adamantly opposed

to moving to a reservation.

He said we cannot strike deals.

They are astonishingly greedy

and they are also unrelentingly violent.

[cannon blasts]

So, we will resist to the last person.

[whoops]

And this was his destiny.

Sitting Bull becomes a name known far and wide

in the United States and even the world.

The government's propping him up as like a boogie man.

He said, I have done what I should do to defend my homeland.

In the United States where freedom is the foundation

of our society,

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

Sitting Bull is a symbol of Indigenous strength.

He's not some distant historic figure.

This is a real person

who had a transformative effect in American history.

[dramatic impactful music]

[Narrator] At the dawn of the 19th century,

the continent of North America

is about to experience a massive change.

In the east, the newly formed United States of America

is eager to expand its territory.

But in its path lie hundreds of tribal nations

who've called these lands home for millennia.

[Edward] White Americans in the mid-19th century

who were heading into the west saw themselves

as pioneers, as settlers moving

into what they would call virgin territory.

Native peoples see it as an invasion from the east.

[Narrator] As the US begins its quest for more territory,

settlers displace and decimate these Indigenous populations.

[fire crackling]

[tense music plays]

And by 1840, the US has settled

as far west as the Mississippi River.

But beyond that, a vast stretch of land

remains unaffected by American expansion,

the Great Plains.

Covering more than a million square miles

from the western edge of Iowa to the Rocky Mountains,

the area is home to dozens of tribal nations.

And it's here that one of the greatest leaders

the world has ever known comes of age.

[serene music plays]

The man we now remember as Sitting Bull

grows up with a different name,

Jumping Badger.

[Shane] One of the best aspects of Lakota traditions is naming.

And just because someone has a name

as a child, that doesn't mean it won't change as they get older,

and it could be any number of reasons why they get a new name.

Maybe they have a life experience

that changes the way they see the world.

Or maybe someone just gifts them the new name.

[Mark] Jumping Badger had some interesting traits or qualities

that wasn't necessarily common with his boyhood friends.

[Courtney] He examined every outcome.

He didn't do things recklessly.

[moose grunts]

[twig breaks in distance]

[Jumping Badger chuckles]

[majestic music]

[all whooping]

[Narrator] Growing up alongside Jumping Badger

are his two friends,

the quiet but loyal Crow King,

and the brave and impulsive Gall.

[Terry] They were all one group. They all grew up together.

They learned the same things, they played the same games,

learned how to ride horse together.

[Jeffery] They are gonna be fast friends all through their lives.

They had a bond that was a lifetime bond.

[Narrator] The boys are part of the Hunkpapa tribe,

one of seven bands that make up the Lakota Nation.

Since the 18th century,

the Lakota have inhabited the Northern Plains,

including parts of modern day Nebraska,

Montana, Wyoming, and North and South Dakota.

They're a nation 20,000 strong,

of which the Hunkpapa tribe is a small but important part.

[Megan] Jumping Badger was born in a time

of great prosperity for the Lakota people.

They were growing in population and in power.

They were expanding their territory during this period.

[narrator] The strength and success of the Lakota

is built on the foundation

of its relationship with the buffalo.

[buffalo thundering]

Buffalo herds numbering in the tens of millions

have roamed North America since before humans.

[Jeffrey] For the Lakota,

they saw themselves very much as linked to the bison.

This is the thing that sustains your entire nation.

[Clay] It was food. It was shelter. It was fuel.

They used the sinew as a form of rope or string.

They used the hooves for glue.

They used the stomachs for kettles.

They used the hide for their luggage.

The buffalo embraced all of this in one creature.

[narrator] As the Lakota flourish on the Great Plains,

2,000 miles away,

the United States government

is mounting a new effort to expand west.

By 1845, the US is less than 100 years old

but its population has exploded to 17 million.

Now, newly elected president James K. Polk

wants to gain control of the rest of the continent,

capitalizing on a new philosophy sweeping the country

called "Manifest Destiny".

[Elizabeth] Manifest Destiny holds that European Americans

should expand their territorial base from coast to coast.

[Edward] And this is a phrase that says

it is our manifest destiny to seize the continent

that provenance has provided us.

So, this is not only a national endeavor,

this is an endeavor that's blessed by God,

and we must carry this out, we have no choice.

[narrator] In his first year in office,

Polk brings Texas into the Union,

secures possession of the Oregon Territory,

and prepares for war with Mexico

to seize the vast lands of the southwest and California.

His actions will open up over 1,000,000 square miles of land

to American settlers.

People started flooding the West

in one of the great migrations in American history,

and they did it, believing the Indigenous people

were simply obstacles to be overcome.

That definitely set the stage for increased conflict

between tribal nations and settlers,

as well as the federal government.

[narrator] But one area that has been left untouched

by Western settlement is the Great Plains.

Where Jumping Badger is developing his connection

to Wakan Tanka,

the Great Spirit of the universe.

You could say the earth,

the universe, was our church.

And that the acknowledgement of every living thing,

every inanimate thing in this universe

are all connected somehow.

[Shane] Jumping Badger had his first vision

when he was a young man,

where this wolf was wounded, and it had two arrows in it.

And the wolf spoke to Jumping Badger and told him

if you take these two arrows out of me,

you know, you'll be known throughout nations.

[wolf growls]

And so he did that.

He came, he took those two arrows out of that wolf,

and the wolf limped off

and he realizes he knows now what his future will hold.

To be known throughout nations.

[narrator] Having seen his destiny,

Jumping Badger now devotes himself to fulfilling it.

To gain respect in the Lakota community,

young men must prove their worth as warriors.

Every Lakota boy was raised to be a warrior.

One Lakota father said,

"I don't want you to grow up to be an old man.

I want you to die in battle. That's the way a Lakota dies."

So, that's how they were instructed from childhood.

[narrator] In 1845,

most young Lakota will get their first taste of battle

against their rivals, the Crow.

[William] In the early 19th century,

there were a lot of skirmishes between the Lakota and the Crow,

and a lot of this had to do with kind of competition

over bison hunting grounds.

[Bill] The Crow were outstanding warriors,

who was a very worthy opponent.

To fight against the Crow was a badge of honor.

[slow rhythmic drumming]

[drumming quickens]

[drumming slows]

[Crow member snoring]

[tense music crescendos]

[narrator] At the age of 14,

Jumping Badger performs an act of bravery

known as counting coup.

Counting coup is a war deed where one warrior

touches another one with their stick

without actually harming or killing them.

To be able to connect with that opponent

and not be injured yourself, but to really shame them,

that really is like the height of prowess for a warrior.

[narrator] To commemorate his courageous feat,

tribal leaders present Jumping Badger

with a single white feather.

He's also given a new name,

the name of his father,

Sitting Bull.

[whooping]

[Jeffrey] Receiving his father's name was a tremendous honor.

This is not something that's universally done

within the Lakota Nation.

He's saying you're my equal.

[narrator] Now marked for greatness,

the young warrior lives up to his promise,

growing into a force on the battlefield

and fighting for control of prime hunting grounds

against the rival Crow.

[Bill] The Lakota were fierce.

They were the predators of the Northern Plains.

And it wasn't ritualistic fighting.

It was all-out fighting.

[shouting]

[thudding blows]

[tomahawks swishing]

[narrator] But while the Lakota's power is growing,

a new threat is making its way west.

One far greater than the Lakota have ever known,

and that could jeopardize their very existence.

[bird squawks]

On the Great Plains of North America,

30 year old Sitting Bull

has emerged as a force on the battlefield.

As he and his Hunkpapa warriors

clash with their fierce rivals,

the Crow,

for control of buffalo hunting grounds.

[grunting]

At his side are childhood friends Crow King.

[warrior grunts]

A fiercely loyal and level-headed warrior.

And Gall.

[warrior grunts]

Who displays an intensity in war

that inspires fear in all his enemies.

[Bill] All three were seen as very successful warriors

and the only way you survive

multiple hunts and war parties

is to be excellent at your craft.

You had to lead by example.

You had to be out in front.

[dramatic tense music builds]

[guns firing]

[narrator] One of the most effective tactics

Sitting Bull employs against the Crow

is a daring strategy

known as riding the brave line.

[William] Riding the brave line was an act of bravery

on the battlefield,

and it was also a strategic move

in order to kind of have the enemy

kind of give away its position.

[arrows swish]

[warrior grunts]

For Lakotas, they might receive eagle feathers

for acts of bravery done in battle.

Sitting Bull earned many of these,

and yet because Sitting Bull demonstrated his humility,

he only wore one white feather over the course of his life.

[narrator] By 1861,

Sitting Bull's skills on the battlefield elevate him

to the position of war leader in his Hunkpapa tribe.

[Jeffery] To be the overall leader for the Hunkpapa

is a tremendous honor.

They are going to look to him for military leadership

in all aspects.

That means he's going to plan raids

and any attack on other Native nations.

[narrator] It's now Sitting Bull's responsibility

to defend his people against any adversaries.

But as he assumes his new role,

a conflict is breaking out over 1,000 miles to the east

that threatens everything the Lakota leader

has sworn to protect.

[cannon blasts]

[soldiers grunting]

[Christy] At the start of the American Civil War,

the United States certainly expected it to be

a short lived affair.

But it is increasingly a bloody war.

By the fall of 1862,

about 300,000 men,

North and South, are already dead.

[narrator] With losses mounting

and the possibility of a Confederate victory growing,

President Abraham Lincoln

realizes the key to winning the war

between North and South

might hinge on who controls the West.

[Douglas] Lincoln was a unifier, not a divider.

But the battles Lincoln faced weren't just North versus South,

but what happens in the West.

And would these be free states or slave states?

He has to make sure the West

stays fully in the Union camp.

[narrator] To ensure the land is under his control,

Lincoln needs Northerners to settle the West.

So, in 1862 he signs the Homestead Act,

granting 160 acres of western land

to any loyal American willing to occupy it.

[Edward] It's an astonishing amount of land

for an individual to acquire,

and in all, the Homestead Act will give away

600 million acres of land.

[narrator] But as the government encourages settlers to move in,

another group will inevitably be pushed out.

[Elizabeth] All of that land was contextualized

as untouched land, virgin land, land that was not occupied.

Obviously, this idea

totally overlooked

the Indigenous People of this land.

[narrator] As northerners began heading west

by the hundreds of thousands, conflict erupts.

One area that's overrun with settlers is Minnesota,

home to the Dakota Nation.

A people with close ties to the Lakota.

Along with the Nakota, the Lakota and Dakota

make up a powerful alliance called the Oceti Sakowin,

the "Seven Council Fires".

Known to European settlers as the Sioux.

[William] Each spoke the same kind of Siouan language,

but they had slightly different dialects.

They were allies, even though they may have been

separated by a good distance.

[narrator] Because the Dakota lived furthest east,

they'd been dealing with America's westward

expansion for decades.

[William] The process by which Dakotas become pushed

out of their homelands begins in the mid-1800s

with the Treaty of Mendota.

In this treaty, Dakotas ceded

close to 30 million acres of land to the United States

in exchange for rations and other annuities.

[narrator] The promised supplies are to be distributed

on small, government run plots of land,

called reservations.

[Elizabeth] Reservations became spaces of confinement.

And in many cases, including the Dakota,

forced confinement.

Unable to leave a space

while the rest of their vast homelands

were opened up for settlement.

[narrator] Though the government honors the treaties at first,

as the Civil War rages back east,

most of the money and food they have promised the Dakota

is redirected to the war effort.

The Dakota people had come to rely

on that food and those supplies,

and when they no longer had them,

this created some really dire conditions.

[narrator] Many Dakotas see no option but to fight back.

[Edward] In August of 1862,

four Native American men

kill five white settlers.

[gunshot cracks]

And then the next day, one of the Dakota leaders

launches a much, much larger assault on white settlements,

killing over the next few weeks, hundreds of white settlers,

and this is known as the Dakota War.

It's also known as the Dakota Uprising.

[narrator] Within a month,

American troops crushed the uprising

and imprisoned nearly 2,000 Dakota.

President Lincoln personally orders 38 of them

to be sent to the gallows.

It remains the largest mass execution in American history.

When a lot of us celebrate Abraham Lincoln

as the Great Emancipator,

there are many Native tribes

that see Lincoln as the great betrayer.

Many had done nothing wrong.

They were misidentified

and just simply got tangled up in paperwork.

It was grizzly and ghastly,

and it's deep wound

in the psyche of Indigenous America.

[narrator] But the United States isn't done seeking retribution.

After the executions,

the army pushes west

pursuing and killing thousands of fleeing Dakota.

But one Dakota leader manages to elude capture,

retreating further west into lands occupied by the Lakota.

His name is Inkpaduta.

[Jeffery] Inkpaduta was a well-respected war leader

and warrior of the Dakota Nation

who led many successful combat raids

against the United States in Minnesota.

The United States government

is looking to catch him and hang him.

[narrator] With the US Army in pursuit,

Inkpaduta knows he can't win this fight alone.

So he turns to the one man he believes can protect him.

Sitting Bull.

[Jeffery] You have to remember, Sitting Bull at the time

is a leader in a nation

that has dominated other Native nations

in this region for decades.

So, Inkpaduta is going to meet with Sitting Bull

and he is going to ask for their assistance in this combat.

[narrator] As Sitting Bull welcomes the Dakota

into his village,

thousands of US soldiers are closing in

with orders to take down Inkpaduta.

And anyone who stands in their way.

On the run from the US Army,

Dakota war chief Inkpaduta

comes to Sitting Bull

with a desperate plea for help.

[narrator] Up to this point,

Sitting Bull hasn't engaged

in direct conflict with the US forces.

But Inkpaduta describes a threat

that is closer and more destructive than ever before.

In the West, they considered Indigenous people

as vermin that needed to be eradicated.

And you do that by not only going after warriors or men,

but also making sure that women and children

are either in prison,

relocated, or out-and-out killed.

[narrator] Sitting Bull knows that by harboring Inkpaduta

and the Dakota,

he's putting his own people in the crosshairs of the US Army.

As Sitting Bull prepares his people for war,

over 3,000 US soldiers pour into Lakota territory.

The United States Army decided not only to chase

all Dakota out of the boundaries of Minnesota,

but to carry the war out onto the plains.

To make sure that no insurrection

of the sort occurred again.

[narrator] Leading one regiment

is Brigadier General Alfred Sully.

Privates form up.

[narrator] A Civil War veteran with a notorious reputation.

[Christy] During the Civil War,

Sully is court martialed

because of an uprising among his troops

and they felt like they were done.

They had served their two years.

They did not like the idea that they were being sent elsewhere.

So, his men mutiny.

And the stain is so significant,

they relieve him of duty in the middle of the Civil War

and send him out west.

[narrator] Sully's scouts report that Inkpaduta,

and the Lakota leader who is protecting him,

have made camp 10 miles away

at the base of a mountain known as Killdeer.

[hooves thundering]

[tense music plays]

[narrator] The stage is set for the first major battle

between the US Army

and the most formidable warriors on the Great Plains.

[Jeffery] The Lakota Nation is at the height of its power

and Sitting Bull was tremendously confident

in his abilities as a warrior

and a war leader to actually resist the United States.

[whoops]

[narrator] Sitting Bull's 1,500 warriors

are about to come face to face

with Sully's 2,000 soldiers

who are armed with state-of-the-art rifles

plus two artillery batteries.

[William] When the Battle of Killdeer Mountain began,

the Lakotas relied on customary tactics that they had used

against other Indigenous nations,

but it became quickly clear in this battle

that the typical attacks

weren't going to be very effective.

[Bill] In the Sully fight,

the Lakota were mostly armed with bow and arrow and lance.

They had a few old trade muskets, not many,

that had very poor range and accuracy.

They were greatly outclassed.

[narrator] In a matter of hours,

General Sully and his soldiers overwhelmed the tribal warriors,

leaving them with one option.

- The United States' superior firepower forced the Lakotas

and their Dakota allies to withdraw,

and it was a rather hasty withdrawal at that.

They left behind food,

lodges, clothing at their campsite, and fled.

[narrator] But Sully isn't finished.

He orders his men to burn the village to the ground.

[Edward] Plains warriors bring their whole world with them.

They bring their tents, their people,

their women and children, their elderly, all their tools.

Everything is with them

very proximate to the place of battle.

And US military figures understand

that this is a vulnerability.

This is a weak spot.

[narrator] For Sitting Bull,

the Battle of Killdeer Mountain is a devastating defeat.

Thousands of his people have been left without food,

clothing, and shelter.

And he's lost more warriors in a single day of battle

than the tribe has lost in the previous 10 years.

[Clay] The man-to-man combat

that Sitting Bull preferred all of his life,

where an individual stakes his life against another individual,

was not the way of war of modern Europeans.

And it struck the Natives as,

in a sense, a war crime.

And it didn't square with their idea

of what honor and war should mean.

[narrator] Sitting Bull realizes

he is in a fight for his people's survival,

and vows that he won't rest

until they are avenged.

[ominous music]

[indistinct shouting]

[whooping]

[narrator] Less than a month after suffering defeat

at the Battle of Killdeer Mountain,

Sitting Bull finds a way to fight General Sully

and the US Army on his terms,

by luring them into a part of the Great Plains

called the Badlands.

[Edward] The rough terrain of the Badlands,

there are hard ravines, gullies.

It's very, very difficult to traverse this territory.

[Mark Lee] The famed Badlands

is an excellent area for the Lakota

to attack from surprised vantage points.

Pick off stragglers and to harass this column.

[Jeffery] They basically go for guerrilla warfare.

It is a new strategy that Sitting Bull

is going to incorporate into his dossier, if you will.

[Edward] So Sully has his work cut out for him.

All along that journey through the Badlands,

he's being harassed, shot at, ambushed

by the forces of the Lakota.

For Sully and his forces,

the terrain was a huge impediment.

For the Native forces that he was up against,

it was a great asset.

[narrator] Over the next two weeks,

Lakota warriors relentlessly assault Sully's troops.

With the mounting death toll

and his men in constant fear of attack,

General Sully's only goal is to escape the Badlands.

His plan to defeat the Lakota is a failure.

[Mark Lee] Sully did move his column through,

but he did not defeat Sitting Bull's people.

They lived to fight another day.

[narrator] For the moment, Sitting Bull has secured peace

for his people

and shown them that they can hold their own

against this powerful new enemy.

[Edward] Sitting Bull spent most of his life outside of contact

with the white world, but now that's all rapidly changing

on the Northern Plains.

His encounter with US military

at Killdeer Mountain in the Badlands

is a great moment of education for him.

[narrator] But as Sitting Bull begins to learn more

about his new adversary,

massive changes back east

will cause even more Americans to head west.

In April 1865, the Civil War finally ends

with the South's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.

Five days later,

President Lincoln is assassinated.

[somber music]

The nation has just emerged

from four years of its bloodiest war.

Now it has lost the leader

who guided them through that painful period.

The country is in mourning.

But a new reason for optimism emerges

with news of a discovery in the territory of Montana.

Most Americans know about the California Gold Rush of 1849,

and they know a little less about the gold rush to Montana

that brought 10,000 miners into the Northern Rockies.

[narrator] Eager to put the war behind them,

hordes of prospectors head west to claim their fortune.

But the route they travel

crosses right through Sitting Bull's homeland.

[Mark Lee] They went right through the heart

of Lakota country,

the buffalo lands where they lived and hunted.

And anytime there's a road or trail, it's scaring away game.

It's taking their resources.

That becomes a huge bone of contention with the Lakotas.

[narrator] After risking everything

to repel General Sully's forces from Lakota land,

Sitting Bull now faces a much bigger invasion.

[narrator] It's 1865,

less than a year since Sitting Bull

pushed the US Army out of Hunkpapa territory.

[whoops]

But now the Lakota leader faces a new invasion...

Waves of settlers surging across the Great Plains

on their way to the gold fields of Montana.

[Megan Kate] The Montana Gold Rush brought miners

and wagon trains into the Northern Rockies

just west of the Lakota homelands.

And these actions really provoked

the Lakota people and particularly Sitting Bull

and the Hunkpapa who objected

to the presence of white migrants on their lands.

[narrator] But only a small number of miners

are following the trail through Sitting Bull's land.

The vast majority are taking a route

that lies 300 miles to the south,

known as the Bozeman Trail.

The Bozeman Trail cuts through land

occupied by another band of the Lakota Nation,

the Oglala.

Now the Hunkpapa were one of the smallest bands.

The largest were the Oglalas.

[narrator] In just one year, over 2,000 miners

protected by an army escort

traveled through Oglala territory

causing destruction along the way.

[Shane] They were chopping down these trees,

killing bison, and destroying the most important habitat

of the Native people of the region.

[narrator] One Oglala war chief

is determined to drive these intruders from his land.

His name is Red Cloud.

[Megan Kate] Red Cloud was quite resistant

to the US government and all of their attempts

to take Lakota land.

It was really Red Cloud who marshalled

a lot of the Lakota people to fight US Army officials.

[narrator] Red Cloud knows that to take on the US Army,

he's going to need help.

So, he turns to the one Lakota leader

who has the experience and success

he'll need to defeat the Americans.

Sitting Bull.

It's an alliance made even stronger

by one of the fiercest warriors

on the Great Plains, Crazy Horse.

[indistinct shouting]

Sitting Bull and Red Cloud

had achieved tremendous military success,

but Crazy Horse was in another level.

He had over 200 feathers in his war bonnet.

Crazy Horse was probably

the best warrior that the Lakota had ever produced.

[narrator] Together, Sitting Bull and Red Cloud

come up with a plan unlike any in Lakota history.

A coordinated military operation against the United States Army.

[speaking Indigenous language]

[Clay] There's a deeply decentralized structure

to the Lakota world.

And very seldom do they ever come together as one.

But when push came to shove,

the Native People were able to come together

with enough consensus and coordination

to fight a united front against the white people, the Wasi'chu.

[dramatic tense music]

[calling out]

[gunshots crack in distance]

[soldier grunts]

[narrator] In the north, Sitting Bull and 300 warriors

attacked military supply lines along the Missouri River.

To the south, Red Cloud and Crazy Horse

fight troops defending the Bozeman Trail.

[gunshot whizzes]

Killing 29 US soldiers in one battle alone.

As hostilities escalate,

the United States sends in one of its most ruthless generals

to bring the area under control,

William Tecumseh Sherman.

By the end of the Civil War, Sherman was known as the man

who burned Atlanta,

who did the scorched earth policy in the South.

He was considered the most brutal

of all the Union generals.

He knows how to win a modern war,

which is to relentlessly attack the enemy,

wear them down,

continuously pursue them until the war is over.

[narrator] Sherman takes control of all US forces

between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains.

His first show of force

is the construction of three imposing forts

to guard the Bozeman Trail.

And prevent the Lakota from disrupting the flow of gold.

[Shane] The establishment of the forts there along the trail

was really an affront to Native people of the region

because there was an incredible amount

of resources that were being extracted.

Imagine two football fields' size worth of trees

cut down just to create the boundary around this fort.

It was clear to the Plains Indians at that point

that this was going to be a permanent and very damaging

arrival of the colonizers.

[narrator] Sitting Bull and Red Cloud know

that in order to push these foreign invaders off their land,

they'll need to find a way to break

the Americans' imposing defenses.

[narrator] In 1866,

Sitting Bull and Red Cloud's efforts

to drive gold prospectors from their land

has hit a roadblock, a trio of new, well-defended

US forts.

Now the Lakota leaders must devise a plan

to destroy the army's overwhelming advantage.

Their strategy stretched the US defenses to the limit.

Sitting Bull launches attacks to pin down US forces

on the Upper Missouri River.

While Red Cloud and Crazy Horse focused their efforts

on attacking the army's forts along the Bozeman trail.

There was great success with Sitting Bull and his warriors.

Crazy Horse, Red Cloud and his warriors.

The US government could not devote enough resources

to maintain the forts

and to fight the Lakotas harassing them on a daily basis.

[narrator] On December 21st, 1866,

Sitting Bull and Red Cloud's campaign comes to a head.

Several allied bands of Lakotas came together

and planned a massive assault on Fort Phil Kearny.

The Lakotas had learned you can't do a direct assault

on a fort, the fort has cannons.

One of the tactics was to try to decoy

a small group to a place where they could be ambushed.

This is the kind of thing that is in Sun Tzu's "Art of War".

It was practiced by Alexander the Great,

Genghis Khan, and that's the feigned retreat,

where you go into fight

and then you act like you're running away

because you're scared and they're winning.

To draw them in to where you want them.

[guns firing]

Crazy Horse and his decoys would attack,

and then the fort would send out reinforcements

to drive the Lakotas away.

This reinforcement party detachment

was led by a man named Fetterman.

He had 81 men, both cavalry and infantry.

And of course, once Fetterman gets over that ridge,

there are 2,000 warriors waiting for them.

[guns firing]

[soldiers shouting]

And they never crossed that ridge again.

[narrator] The Lakota warriors ambush and kill 81 US soldiers.

To that point, it's America's worst military defeat

on the Great Plains.

[Shane] The Fetterman fight, the Fetterman massacre,

as it's also known as, was an electrifying event

that really caused the whole nation to gasp.

They could not believe that

80 troops had been killed

in really, probably less than 15 minutes.

[Mark Lee] This defeat brought about national headlines,

created shock and anger.

You had an army that had defeated the Confederacy

in the Civil War just the year before.

How can these, that they called savages,

how could they defeat 81 men?

How could that happen? So, it was a complete shock.

[narrator] Back East, the commander of the army,

Ulysses S. Grant, faces criticism over mounting losses.

'Cause this was going to become too costly

in terms of lives,

in terms of all of the equipment

that it was going to take to fight.

You have to think about in Fort Phil Kearny,

they had incredible quarters for the captains.

There were chandeliers, grand pianos.

They brought their wives and their children.

So, they just weren't willing and able

to continue that investment

after the tremendous defeat that they suffered.

[narrator] Grant is left with one option...

to pull the troops and seek a peace treaty with the Lakota.

[Clay] This great and stunning victory

wasn't against a group of extras.

You know, the B team.

Some of the great figures of the American army were involved

in this war.

Sherman, the A team of the American military,

looked on in horror to see

these Natives best them in every way.

[narrator] But while Red Cloud sees the victory

as an opportunity to make a deal with the United States,

Sitting Bull remembers how Inkpaduta and the Dakota

were treated by the US six years earlier.

He knows that the Americans can't be trusted,

and that the bloodshed is far from over.

[narrator] In the wake of the Fetterman fight,

where 81 US soldiers are killed at Fort Phil Kearny

in December 1866,

the Lakota have forced the United States

to the bargaining table.

But Oglala war chief Red Cloud

will only meet with the Americans

under one condition.

[Mark Lee] Red Cloud demanded

before signing any treaty

that these military posts on the Bozeman cutoff

would be abandoned by the US government.

[Megan Kate] This was in fact a great victory.

They had forced US soldiers to abandon their forts

and demonstrated to the federal government

that they had no place in Lakota homelands.

After all of the troops and everyone

abandoned the forts,

the Lakota people came in and burned them to the ground.

I think that was a great celebratory moment for them

to say that we have kicked the people out of our homeland.

We have the force, we have the power,

we have the medicine to win this war.

[narrator] In the spring of 1868,

a government commission meets with Plains tribal leaders

to begin peace negotiations.

[Shane] It's an amazing moment that's been captured

by photographs,

tribal leaders sitting down with General Sherman

at the treaty negotiations at Fort Laramie.

When you look at that photograph,

all the Native People were sitting on the ground

and the US Army was sitting in chairs.

And I think that that really kinda symbolizes

how these two parties saw this agreement.

For Native People, sitting down on the ground in a circle

was a show of humility on the part of everyone.

But the US Army wasn't interested in showing humility.

[narrator] The United States Army may have been beaten

by the Lakota on the battlefield,

but government officials eye an even bigger victory

at the bargaining table.

[Douglas] You never want to suppose that General Sherman

at the Treaty of Fort Laramie was operating in good faith.

The US government wasn't interested in Native rights.

Nothing was going to stop the capitalist

expansion of America.

[narrator] As part of its peace terms,

the US agrees to set aside almost 100,000 square miles

to serve exclusively as Lakota land.

They call it the Great Sioux Reservation.

[Megan Kate] The core of it was in what we now know of

as South Dakota,

extended from the Missouri River to the Black Hills.

The Black Hills was a sacred site to the Lakota people.

The federal government recognized the Lakota right

to this most sacred space in their homeland.

[narrator] In addition, the government promises

to provide food rations,

supplies, even farming tools and livestock.

Everything needed to sustain a basic standard of living.

[Bill] There was a lot of purposes

for the reservation system.

On the well-meaning side,

they thought bring civilization to the tribes,

as if white civilization was what the tribes wanted,

which we obviously know is not.

On the other side, a little bit more sinister.

Bring them together. Make them dependent.

Get them out of the prime lands that the whites wanted.

[narrator] Red Cloud weighs what the treaty will mean

for his people.

And ultimately recognizes it as an opportunity for peace.

[Douglas] Red Cloud was starting to see

the real power of the enemy,

the industrial might of the East,

and that that is what's also making its march to the West.

It was going to be very hard to do military strategy

against that amount of overwhelming force

that the United States represented.

Red Cloud is going to sign it.

He believes he's doing so for the best of the nation.

And he promised at that time that he would never fight

against the United States again.

And because he keeps his word, he actually never will

fight against the United States again.

[narrator] On February 16th, 1869,

the Fort Laramie Treaty takes effect.

[Mark Lee] Lakota leaders and other Native leaders

on the Great Plains,

they didn't know how to sign their names in English,

but they would have to make their mark.

And so, this came to be known amongst Native nations

as touching the pen.

That was a finality.

And that made it a binding document.

[narrator] With the treaty in place,

the Great Sioux Reservation is established,

officially confining the Lakota

to only 100,000 square miles of land.

Close to half what they once considered theirs.

[somber music]

While Red Cloud believes

he's secured a lasting peace for the Lakota,

his chief ally during the war refuses to sign.

For Sitting Bull, moving on to a reservation

goes against everything it means to be Lakota.

[Mark Lee] The entire Lakota existence

was based on mobility, freedom of movement, free will.

And this idea of a line

that you could not cross was totally foreign

and totally against everything

that they lived for.

In the eyes of Sitting Bull, everything changes

once Red Cloud touches the pen.

That was the worst possible thing you could do

because you're giving away Lakota land.

[narrator] But after years of bloodshed,

many Lakota agree with Red Cloud

and are willing to sacrifice freedom for safety.

Almost 10,000 tribal members,

two-thirds of the Lakota Nation,

move on to the reservation,

including half of Sitting Bull's Hunkpapa tribe.

Sitting Bull convinces his remaining followers

to join him outside the boundaries

of the reservation.

He leads them further west into the Wyoming territory,

where they can continue their traditional lifestyle.

[Shane] Sitting Bull was not able to accept any alternative

other than complete freedom

to hunt bison, traverse the land,

move camps during the seasons,

to live as God intended Lakota people to live.

He was not going to change his way of life.

[narrator] By defying the government's attempts

to control his people,

Sitting Bull has created a resistance movement

that will define the rest of his life.

[narrator] After refusing to be confined

on the Great Sioux Reservation,

Sitting Bull severs his alliance

with the Oglala war chief, Red Cloud,

and leads his followers west.

Determined to carry on the Lakota's traditional way of life

in the Wyoming Territory.

But with his village numbering just a few hundred,

he knows it isn't much of a movement.

But soon, an unexpected visitor arrives.

[heartfelt music plays]

[narrator] Crazy Horse has chosen to split with Red Cloud,

to join Sitting Bull.

Crazy Horse was not about to settle for reservation life.

He was not going to settle for living in one place

all the time and collecting some kind of rations.

He wanted to live the old way. He wanted to be independent.

[narrator] Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse quickly become known

as symbols of resistance for all of the tribes.

Their example inspires thousands of Lakota

to leave the reservation

and join their growing community.

[Mark Lee] That alliance was critical

because others that feel the same way are drawn to them.

People are flocking to Sitting Bull and to Crazy Horse.

They're going to live in those lands

in the territory, off the reservation.

They're going to continue to go where they want to go.

They're going to follow the buffalo.

That's the life they want to lead.

And they see people like Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull

as the men that can help them maintain their traditions.

[narrator] By 1869,

Sitting Bull's coalition of Hunkpapa, Oglala,

and other bands has swelled in size

to close to 3,000 members.

Establishing an unprecedented independent Lakota Nation.

[Mark Lee] In Lakota society, it wasn't set up

to where you have one leader

or political leader or military leader.

You have lots of equal chiefs or leaders.

But in 1869, the anti-treaty bands

realize that the threat of Euro-American encroachment

is so great that they have to kind of change

the way they operate.

[gentle majestic music]

[narrator] In the summer of 1869,

Sitting Bull is elected unanimously

by an inter tribal council of elders

as the first ever leader of all Lakota.

[Shane] It took all those years to build

that trust amongst his community.

You have to show day in and day out

your integrity, your wisdom.

And that's what Sitting Bull did.

He was a grassroots leader

and that is the hallmark of the Lakota leadership style.

[narrator] But as Sitting Bull rises to prominence

on the Great Plains,

he starts gaining the attention of people back east

and throughout America.

[Megan] It was really in the late 1860s,

after the Treaty of Fort Laramie

that Sitting Bull becomes

a louder and louder voice for noncompliance and resistance.

His name begins to crop up in local newspapers,

in US Army reports.

And the federal government comes to know him specifically,

and Crazy Horse, as these symbols of resistance.

[narrator] To the US Government, Sitting Bull's growing movement

poses a threat to the nation's expansion.

So, officials enact a drastic plan to stop it.

[narrator] By 1869,

thousands of Lakota living on the Great Sioux Reservation

have joined Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse

in their free and independent Lakota Nation,

continuing their traditional way of life

on the open plains.

Far from the reach of the US government.

[guns firing]

[Shane] The push west with Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull

was to be able to still hunt bison.

[narrator] But the US government

views Sitting Bull's growing movement as a threat

to the American settlement of the West.

And now General William Tecumseh Sherman

believes he has a way to break the Lakota's will.

[melancholy music plays]

General Sherman devises a ruthless strategy

to force the Lakota onto the reservation

by cutting off their food supply.

[Jeffery] United States government had a policy

of eliminating the buffalo population

on the Great Plains as a way

to starve Native Americans into submission.

Army officials urged Americans to hunt down and kill

as many bison as they possibly could.

[narrator] Newspapers across the country

encouraged thousands of Americans to head west

to take part in buffalo hunting parties.

Using state-of-the-art rifles and ammunition

supplied by the army,

the hunters leave a trail of carnage.

[Edward] People are just out there to simply kill a buffalo

and cut off its tail as a trophy,

or maybe cut off its head, and leave the rest

of the carcass rotting on the ground.

And in some cases people shooting from trains

would pick off buffalo

and leave the entire buffalo to rot.

[narrator] At the peak of the slaughter,

over 5,000 buffalo per day are killed.

One hunter named William Cody

becomes famous for killing more than 4,000 buffalo himself

in just 18 months,

earning him the nickname Buffalo Bill.

[Paul] Buffalo Bill, he was the most famous

buffalo killer in the nation.

He hunted them on horseback with a single shot rifle,

just like the Native Americans did.

He was the real deal.

[narrator] By the early 1870s,

millions of buffalo had been slaughtered.

In the early 1800s, the buffalo population,

or the American bison population,

was somewhere between 25 and 30 million.

That population goes radically into decline by the 1870s.

You go from 30 million bison

to about 1,000 in 1890.

[narrator] The buffalo slaughtering campaign

puts incredible pressure on the Lakota

living off the reservation.

Sitting Bull knows this is a direct threat

to his tribe's traditional existence.

And as a leader,

his people are relying on him

to keep them safe, strong, and unified.

When we have the mass destruction

and mass devastation of the buffalo

by the United States government deliberately,

that not only represents the destruction

of a food source and a resource,

but it also fundamentally disrupts

an Indigenous way of life.

[Frank] For the Lakota Nation,

the buffalo was the center of our culture in so many ways.

It was not only our food source

and our source of clothing and weapons,

but also the root of our cultural identity.

So when you remove that center and you remove that root,

it disconnected us from a lot of what it meant to be Lakota.

[narrator] Though the buffalo slaughter forces many

onto the reservation,

Sitting Bull refuses to give in,

leading his people further north and west

away from American settlements

in search of more herds.

[Clay] Sitting Bull was a steward of the community.

He was very much interested

in taking care of the women and children

and making sure that the lifeway

of the Lakota was healthy and that it would continue.

So, he was able to convince people to stay with him.

[narrator] Hundreds of miles to the west

in Montana's Yellowstone River Valley,

Sitting Bull's people were finally able

to locate buffalo herds large enough to sustain them.

[Shane] The focus became Montana

because Montana is the place with the bison.

[narrator] But their peace and prosperity

will be short lived

as the move west puts them directly into the path

of a new threat.

[train horn bellows]

[narrator] Faced with a government sponsored

extermination campaign,

Sitting Bull has taken his followers further north

and west in search of more buffalo.

But when they reach the Yellowstone River Valley

in the Montana Territory,

the Lakota leader encounters a new problem.

Teams of surveyors and soldiers

roaming the land with one purpose...

To plot the course of a railroad line.

[train roars by]

Back east, the United States

is experiencing an economic boom,

fueled in large part by the growth of the railroads.

[Paul] The railroads were crisscrossing the nation,

pushing all through the west.

A lot of financing went into this

and it was seen, especially by the government

and the military,

as absolutely essential

to bringing, as they saw it, civilization to the west.

The railroad has just an enormous impact

in transforming the American west.

And bringing all of the things of the east.

All the technology,

lots of people, and the industries.

[narrator] Just three years earlier,

the first transcontinental railroad was completed,

linking both coasts of America.

Cross-country travel that had taken months by wagon train...

Takes only days by rail.

And trains can finally connect the mines of the west

with the factories of the east.

Now the new President of the United States,

Ulysses S Grant wants to build another cross-country rail line

running through the northern Great Plains.

[Megan Kate] The Northern Pacific Railroad

was meant to be the second transcontinental line

to connect the Great Lakes to the Pacific Coast.

It would take settlers and move products

back and forth through a region of the country

known as the Great Northwest,

much of which was Lakota country.

[narrator] For Sitting Bull,

it appears no matter how far away

he tries to lead his people,

the relentless expansion of the United States

is inescapable.

[Paul] Sitting Bull's people didn't want

these settlers coming in

and they didn't want miners coming in.

And they didn't want more soldiers coming in.

The railroad was going to bring all of those.

Sitting Bull was absolutely certain that they must prevent

the Northern Pacific Railroad from going through

this prime buffalo country or all would be lost.

[dramatic music building]

[narrator] Sitting Bull's warriors

launched dozens of guerrilla ambushes on the railroad teams.

But during one attack, they killed the wrong man.

Among the casualties was the cousin

of the First Lady of the United States,

Julia Dent, President Grant's wife.

And so, this wasn't just

an economic problem because of the need for the railroad.

It wasn't just a military problem.

Now it's becoming a family problem.

[narrator] When he ran for president,

Grant promised to maintain peace with western tribes.

But the brutal murder of his wife's cousin

is impossible to ignore.

In July of 1873,

Grant sends thousands of soldiers

into Montana Territory,

including the 7th Cavalry Regiment

led by a civil war legend,

33-year-old Lieutenant Colonel

George Armstrong Custer.

He's flamboyant, he's a bit of a self-promoter.

He's very ambitious.

[Edward] But Custer is, in fact, the real deal.

Along with all that flashiness,

he brings authentic military genius,

physical courage.

So, he has this real sense of himself

as someone destined for greatness.

[Paul] Custer was a two star general at 25

during the Civil War.

Widely admired, an incredible hero.

The "Boy General", they called him,

who always led from the front.

[narrator] By this point,

Custer has already earned a reputation on the Great Plains

after launching a campaign

against the Cheyenne in Oklahoma

that turned into a massacre.

Killing over 150 villagers

and capturing more than 50 women and children.

Now Custer is tasked

with defending the survey teams from Lakota ambushes.

And to fight Sitting Bull,

he has a secret weapon,

a scout named Bloody Knife,

who grew up in Sitting Bull's village.

Bloody Knife had a kind of unique situation

because his mother was Arikara,

which is a longstanding enemy of the Lakota,

so his position growing up

was kind of one of an outsider.

They ridiculed him constantly because, you know,

he's mixed blood.

Especially Gall took great pleasure

in making him feel that he wasn't good enough.

Bloody Knife never forgot the way he was treated,

and he held this grudge all of his life,

and it was going to have dramatic consequences.

[narrator] Custer's thirst for greater glory

and Bloody Knife's need for revenge

will put them on a path to a dramatic showdown

with Sitting Bull and his people.

Leading to one of the most pivotal battles

in American history,

Little Bighorn.

On the next episode of Sitting Bull,

the threat of American expansion

pushes Sitting Bull into attack mode.

[whoops]

The fights on the Yellowstone were a postgraduate course

for Custer in Lakota warfare.

[narrator] But the lure of gold on sacred Lakota land

raises the stakes.

[warrior shouts]

Setting the stage for an epic showdown.

[Shane] The warriors believed that they had been blessed

by the Great Spirit to achieve a great victory.

[soldier groans]

[narrator] The Lakota's historic triumph...

[whoops]

...gives rise to a nation now bent on revenge.

Sitting Bull suddenly becomes front page news,

half man, half beast.

Prancing over Custer's fallen corpse.

The country wanted Sitting Bull's scalp.

[narrator] Sitting Bull will face unthinkable challenges.

His people are literally starving to death

and he has to make a tough moral calculation.

[narrator] New enemies.

McLaughlin refused to respect who Sitting Bull was

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

[narrator] And unexpected opportunities.

[Shane] He was able to reinvent himself again.

Known throughout the world

amongst all nations as a man of great pride,

of great dignity, great vision.

[narrator] And through it all, the Lakota leader

refuses to stop fighting.