Sitting Bull Character Analysis

The chief of the Teton Sioux tribe, Sitting Bull was a living symbol of resistance to the United States for most of his life. In the 1860s, outraged by the cruelty and aggression of white settlers in the western United States, Sitting Bull led raids on American soldiers and succeeded in killing or capturing many of them. Sitting Bull was an important strategist during the Battle of the Little Bighorn, during which Native American warriors defeated U.S. troops led by General George Armstrong Custer. However, Sitting Bull spent the next decade exiled in Canada. When his people began to starve, he returned to the U.S. and became a fixture of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. Toward the end of his life, Sitting Bull was arrested because of his association with the Ghost Dance Movement, and—supposedly in a scuffle with the police—he was shot and killed.