Sitting Bull: Chief of the Lakota Nation

Medicine man, warrior, spiritualist, and one of the fiercest foes the U.S. Army ever encountered. Biography presents a stirring portrait of this legendary Native American who led the Lakota Sioux to victory over General Custer at Little Big Horn. Considered a cunning strategist, Sitting Bull taught his braves new fighting techniques to combat the advance of the white man. But it was his talent for spurring others into action that the army feared most. Able to inspire rebellion even after defeat, Sitting Bull was killed after his arrest for ‘trying to escape.” Sitting Bull would be useful for classes on American History, Native American History, Military History and Native American Culture. It is appropriate for middle school and high school.

• annihilation
• autonomy
• cajole
• chastise
• demoralize
• epitome
• incensed
• manifest destiny
• matriarchal
• monogamy
• nomadic
• notoriety
• ostensibly
• pathetic
• personify
• pictographs
• stoic
• tumultuous
• urchins
• vengeance

1. Native Americans and white settlers clashed over issues of land, space and lifestyles. Why did these cultural clashes occur?

2. The Constitution provides Americans with equality and protection. How did the U.S. government’s treatment of Native Americans defy the principles of the Constitution?

3. Sitting Bull is credited with the defeat of General Custer at Little Big Horn, but he was not present. How could he be responsible for Custer’s defeat if he was not physically there?

4. Romantic images of Native Americans always portray them with horses. But horses are not native to North America. How did horses become part of the American landscape?

5. How did horses revolutionize Sioux culture?

6. What is meant by a warrior culture? How does Sioux culture fit this description?

7. Family and gender relations in Sioux culture were vastly different from white American culture. How did methods of child-rearing differ? How were the roles and status of women different?

8. How was Sitting Bull a “Renaissance man?”

9. What is ethnocentrism? How did it affect relations between Native Americans and white Americans? How does ethnocentrism affect relations between different people of different racial or ethnic backgrounds today?

10. Why did members of his own tribe kill Sitting Bull?

1. Create a scale model of a Native American village and use your model to describe the daily activities and lifestyles of Native Americans.

2. On a map of the United States trace the evolution of the Sioux reservations.

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Air Dates

• November 19, 2002