Sitting Bull: The Real Story (Custer, Buffalo Bill and How He Really Died)

Sitting Bull: the real story of the Hunkpapa Lakota leader, told from the real photographs and records. Who was Sitting Bull, how he got his name, what he really did at the Little Bighorn, why he went into exile in Canada, how he ended up in Buffalo Bill's Wild West, and how he really died on December 15, 1890. Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake) was born sometime between 1831 and 1837. This Old West documentary follows him from his first coup at fourteen through the Dakota War of 1862, Red Cloud's War and the Fort Laramie treaty he refused to sign, the Northern Pacific surveys, Custer's Black Hills expedition and the gold rush, the Sun Dance vision and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, four years in Canada with James Walsh of the Mounties, his surrender at Fort Buford in 1881, Fort Randall, Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill's Wild West, the Ghost Dance, his killing by the Standing Rock Indian police, and the Wounded Knee massacre two weeks later. Along the way we take apart three myths: that he was the supreme chief of all the Sioux, that he led the charge against Custer, and that he cursed the Wild West audiences every night. Chapters 0:00 The Morning of December 15, 1890 1:18 Who Was Sitting Bull? Slow, Jumping Badger and His Name 3:11 The Dakota War and First Blood With the Army 4:34 Red Cloud's War and Not One Part of My Country 6:46 The Northern Pacific, Custer and the Black Hills Gold 11:38 The Sun Dance Vision and the Little Bighorn 16:15 Exile in Canada: Walsh and Crowfoot 18:09 The Last Rifle: Fort Buford and Fort Randall 20:56 Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill's Wild West 23:14 Wovoka and the Ghost Dance 27:04 How Sitting Bull Really Died 29:13 Wounded Knee 34:06 Sitting Bull in Film and Memory Sources Wikipedia: Sitting Bull; Great Sioux War of 1876; Battle of the Little Bighorn; Ghost Dance; Wounded Knee Massacre; Annie Oakley; Buffalo Bill Photographs and newspapers: public domain archival images from Wikimedia Commons, plus the licensed images credited below. Maps and diagrams are our own. Image credits (Wikimedia Commons) CC BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0): "Attack on New Ulm, Minnesota, 1862" by unknown CC BY-SA 2.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0): "Black Hills from Harney Peak" by Navin75; "North Dakota Badlands" by Dorian Wallender from Lake Havasu City, Arizona, USA CC BY-SA 3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0): "RedCloudAgency" by Slothus CC BY-SA 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0): "Sitting Bull, engraving by Rudolf Cronau, published in Die Gartenlaube in 1881" by Rudolf Cronau; "Fort Buford 2022 01" by Farragutful; "FortWalshCypressHill" by Vonsulnasaga; "Sitting Bull by Caroline Weldon oil on canvas 1890" by Susanna Carolina Faesch, a.k.a. Caroline Weldon; "Kicking Bear by George E. Spencer 1891 while a prisoner of war at Fort Sheridan, Illinois" by Von Bern; "Ghost Dance shirt" by Cullen328; "Wounded Knee National Historic Landmark Oglala Lakota Co SD Wounded Knee Monument looking east northeast" by SharonPapierdreams; "Wounded Knee Cemetery" by As086606 Music: "Crossing the Divide", "Lost Frontier", "Pale Rider", "Smoking Gun", "Showdown", "Western Streets", "Americana", "Windswept", "Oppressive Gloom", "Cowboy Sting" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) Narration is AI-generated from our own researched script. Maps and diagrams are our own. Which American legend should we take apart next? Tell us in the comments. #SittingBull #Lakota #LittleBighorn #WoundedKnee #OldWest #NativeAmericanHistory #AmericanHistory