Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Sitting Bull

SITTING BULL, Sioux chief, b. in 1837; d. 15 Dec., 1890. He was a chief of the Dakota Sioux, who were driven from their reservation in the Black Hills by miners in 1876, and took up arms, against the whites and friendly Indians, refusing to be transported to the Indian territory. In June, 1876, they defeated and massacred Gen. George A. Custer's advance party of Gen. Alfred H. Terry's column, which was sent against them, on Little Big Horn river, and were pursued northward by Gen. Terry. Sitting Bull, with a part of his band, made his escape into British territory, and, through the mediation of Dominion officials, surrendered on a promise of pardon in 1880. In 1888, in a conference at Standing Rock, Dak. — where he was afterward killed — he influenced his tribe to refuse to relinquish Indian lands. See Johnson's Life (1892).