The Bismarck Tribune Newspaper, June 20, 1936, Page 9

Sitting Bull, In Patriot, Dominates History of Dakota Fanatical Leader of Hostiles Died Violently as He Had Lived Almost on Spot Where He Had Been Born Near Grand River in S. D. No man dominates the tapestry of North Dakota history more than Sitting Bull, the Hunkpapa Sioux medicine man re- garded as a charlatan 50 years ago, today assayed as one of the greatest of Indian patriots, Of all the men who loom large on the woof of early day fabric, white and red, Sitting Bull, without doubt, is the most Sitting Bull As a boy, Sitting Bull lived prominent. No white—La Ver- endrye, Lewis, Clark, Sully, Sibley, Custer, Selkirk or Mc- Kenzie wielded more influence for good or ill, took more promi- nent a part in shaping the destinies of a people or achiev- ed more world wide fame than the stocky hostile who never; would admit he had been con-} quered by the whites. Legendary is the story that Sitting Bull’s mother in travail on the banks of Willow creek, a branch of the Grand river, looked out over the prairie on a frosty fall morning to see a buffalo bull on its haunches arising from a night’s slumber. She named the baby boy Sit- ting Bull because of the im- pression, That was reputedly in 1837, the nomadic hunting and fight- ing life of his tribe. Not the son of a hereditary chief, he gain- ed the respect of his fellows as a youth when he engaged and slew an enemy warrior in single combat. Thereafter he steadily gained influence among the more unruly elements of his people by his reckless daring, his gift of persuasion and his unrelenting animosity for the white in- vaders who were gradually pushing the Indians farther and farther north and west from the lush hunting ranges on which they had subsisited for scores of years. White men first heard of Sitting Bull as a leader during the Civil war when following the Sioux uprising in Minnesota he sporadically and stealthily attacked white settlements in Min- nesota, Iowa and southern South Dakota. Sitting Bull probably came into conflict with white soldiery for the first time almost on the site of Bismarck. Gen. H. H. Sibley in his pursuit of the Indians who had perpetrated the Minnesota massacre of 1863 marched into what is now the east- ern part of Burleigh county in July, 1863. Following the Battle of Big Mound between the Minnesota soldiers and the Sioux led by a renegade, Ink-; paduta, the Indians were reinforced by Hunkpapas and Blackfeet. Sit- ting Bull and Gall were among them.) Sibley Escaped Trap In the next few days, Sitting Bull engaged in desultory action as Sibley attempted to close with the hostiles and the Indians endeavored to draw Sibley into a trap by retreating to the ‘Missouri. Sitting Bull’s first experience un- der fire ended as the Indians crossed the Missouri just above the mouth of Apple creek at Sibley island. In 1864 Sitting Bull again figured in warfare on the whites when his/ cohorts harassed the columns of Gen- | eral Alfred H. Sully in the Badlands} and fought a major engagement with them now known as the Battle of} Killdeer Mountain. Although he pretended to make peace with the whites in 1866, Sitting Bull continued his depredations. He Jed an attack on Fort Buford. In the tipis of the tribes, he constantly coun- selled opposition to the foreigners. Around the campfires he maintain- ed that the Sioux would vanish from the plains unless they killed the in- vaders robbing them of their lands, Army Aid Necessary It was Sitting Bull who made in- tervention and assistance of the U. 5. army necessary when the North- ern Pacific began pushing westward from Fargo. Because of Sitting Bull’s marauding braves the government constructed Forts Abercrombie, Ran- som, Seward and McKeen to furnish military protection for the rail layers and others penetrating the plains. He made constant war on the sol- diers, settlers, trappers, hunters, gold seekers, frontier posts, Crows and 8h 8. Horse-stealing, James Mc- Laughlin, for many years Indian agent at Forts Totten and Yates, de- clared became his principal avoca- jughlin said Sitting Bull was “crafty, avaricious, mendacious. and possessed of all the faults of the In- dian and none of his nobler virtues.” In refutation other Indian students assert that McLaughlin's viewpoint was prejudiced by the fact that the Indian agent resented the fact that he never had been able to win a bere of non-resistance from Sitting Historians differ the part Bitting Bull played in the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Some claim he cravenly skulked in his tip!. Others assert he headed @ party of the Hunkpapa Sioux that helped exter- minate Custer’s immediate command. i i ae Es ae i ae Ee 2 fat) Be LH when he was ordered returned to the had! Standing Rock reservation. Major McLaughlin put Sitting Bull | to work, and it is claimed he would: | have made a tractable man had he been kept at labor. However, with the government's permission, Sitting Bull was permitted to go with Col.: William F. (Buffalo Bill) Cody’s Wild! West shows. After touring the nation} and being made as much a hero and| center of attraction as Col. Charles A. Lindbergh in the present era, Bull's} vanity had been so aroused by adula- tion and flattery that he proved :ex-; tremely difficult to handle when he | returned to the reservation. { His confinement, the stripping of| his power and influence among the; reservation Indians preyed upon his; mind. He became morose and a per- fect recipient for any wild idea. Expounds Religion “So when the news filtered into the | northwest from Nevada that an In- | dian Messiah was at hand, Sitting | Bull became the chief exponent of, the new religion. It was this fana- tical adoption of a cult’s beliefs that! brought him to earth in front of his cabin on the Grand river in South! Dakota on Dec. 12, 1890, slain by! members of his own race within a: few miles of where he had been born.! Even as historians have disagreed THE BISMARCK TRIBUNE, SATURDAY, JUNE , dian| ONEFOR BELIEVE IT OR NOT In the winter of 1879-80, the proof. over the facts of his life so have they disagreed over the facts of his burial. Post surgeons at Fort Yates re- ported the body of the medicine man was brought there, sewed up in al canvas, placed in a coffin and buried in the northwest corner of the post| cemetery in a grave eight feet deep. Reservation residents for many years asserted that Sitting Bull's body had been mutilated, the skele- ton disarticulated and the bones dis-) tributed or sold as souvenirs. Interred in Quick Lime The story generally accepted, how- ever, is that Sitting Bull's body was bundled into a rough pine box, filled with quicklime and interred without benefit of religious service in the post. cemetery. ‘When Fort Yates was abandoned as a military post the bodies of soldiers were removed. Today Sitting Bull sleeps alone in the abandoned and almost neglected graveyard on the western edge of Fort Yates, some 80 miles south of Bismarck. Sitting Bull was not honored with burial in the Catholic cemetery be- cause he was neither Catholic nor Christian. For many years only @ small stone marked his grave. It was removed to the historical society in! Bismarck when the government de-| cided to discourage further disturb-| ance of his remains. A slab of concrete was placed over ‘stones was erected. At the corners rear four small concrete _pillars.; Around the grave grow the wild flow- ers and grasses of the prairie. Epitaph Suggested A student of Indian history hasi suggested an epitaph: “Medicine man, patriot and brave | Indian warrior. Forsecing the im- ipending fate of the Red Man, he! jfought in jis own way for what he thought would save his race from ex- the Missouri river, the Northern Pacific laid its rails on the three-feet thick ice to run its trains westward. Here’s the grave. On the slab a cairn of|= there being no bridge across the parade. He carried a huge Amer- ican flag. The Ghost dancing craze, the climax of which was the killing of Sitting Bull, is more fully treated in another story in this edition. N. D. Had Phones Long Before Large Cities North Dakota had telephones be- fore such large cities as Cincinnati, Cleveland or Buffalo, N. ¥. In 1876, Oliver Dalrymple, operator of the world’s largest wheat farm at Casselton, one of the farms which later were to gain worldwide fame as “bonanza” farms, visited the Centen- nial exposition at Philadelphia. There he saw Alexander Graham Bell's talking machine. Dalrymple was so impressed with the possibilities of the then new in- vention that he ordered a crude ap- paratus installed on his main farm) in order to keep in touch with his sub-farms. The National Federation of Busi-| ness and Professional Women’s clubs | was organized during the World war as a result of the shortage of men’ available for business pursuits in this | country. The Bismarck chapter was organized Oct. 1, 1920. tinction, Let us be generous and pay homage to a courageous foe. { Sitting Bull had two. wives at the time of his death. By them he had; two daughters and a mute son. The; son was killed with the father. | Sitting Bull was not unknown in_ Bismarck. He was a visitor on many; occasions, times that he took to en-/ rich himself. His favorite spot in the} , Capital City was the Northern Pacific} railroad station where he would meet | all trains to sell his autograph to Bap-| ing customers at $1 @ scratch. Not totally inimicable to white men’s ways, | he charged visitors who came on the, Villard special at the time of the, completion of the railway $1.50 a scribble. | On July 4, 1889, at the assembling of the constitutional convention in Bis- marck, Sitting Bull proudly led a’ procession of reservation Indians in Insurance A sudden threat from an ap- Preaching car. You turn out— into a stene wall or telegraph pole! Nobody legally to blame for the | damage. Nobody to pay for it | but ycurself. In such a case, Collision Insur- ance would come to your finan- cial rescue. F. A. LAHR Insurance and Bonds Dakota National Bank & Trust Co. Bldg. BISMARCK, N. DAK. 57 YEARS f” We have watched Bismarck and the great Misouri Slope Area of North Dakota grow. As Bismarck’s leading bank since 1879, we take a pardonable pride in the fact that we have played an important part in this development. Here is Main Street in Bismarck (then Edwinton) in 1872 And thus—as a pioneer of the first water—we join in the invitation to one and all to attend the Pioneer Days Festival Commemorating the Founding of Dako‘a Territory, 1861, and the Battle of the The First National Bank Chartered in 1879 Bismarck, July 3-4-5 Little Big Horn, 1876. Member F.D.I.C. Affiliated with First Bank Stock Corporation Bismarck, N. D. es The A. O. U.W. of North Dakota The only fraternal insurance or- ganization incorporated in the state of North Dakota is proud of its home state in which it has been domiciled for over half a century. Congratulations The A.O.U.W. of North Dakota extends sincere best wishes to Bis- marck and the Slope area in their Pioneer Days Festival Celebration July 3-4-5. Shown here are Bradley C. Marks, active head of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and the home office building of the fraternal benefit society. Though Marks now lives at Fargo, he became as- sociated with the organization in Bismarck and still retains his mem- bership in the Capital City unit. 1986 also signifies our 42nd an- niversary as a Bismarck organization and the 68th anniversary of the founding of A.0.U.W. The A. O. U.W. of North Dakota especially feels proud to have done its part in the building up of this great state in the , years gone by and dedicates itself to future service of our citizens by making available to them Whole Family Insurance Protection on a sound Legal Reserve Basis at Lowest Net Cost, thus building up a bulwark of de- fense against poverty and distress. There isan... . 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