Sitting Bull, pictured with Buffalo Bill Cody, was a legendary Hunkpapa Sioux chief and medicine man. He led an escape to Canada in September 1876 in the vengeful aftermath of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. Even though he had not fought in the June 25 massacre, the medicine man was considered a threat by white authorities because his visions of victory had encouraged the uprising. In 1881, famine forced Sitting Bull’s band back to a reservation in the United States. Throughout the mid-1880s, Sitting Bull won international fame as the prototype of the American Indian when he joined Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show on tour. Sitting Bull returned to the reservation at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, where he was killed in 1890 during a struggle with Indian police.
Photo: Library of Congress
