[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!
[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]
[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.