William Sitting Bull

William Sitting Bull (c. 1878 – 8 December 1909) was a son of Sitting Bull.

William Sitting Bull
William Sitting Bull in 1904
Born
Runs-Away-From-Him

1878
Southern Manitoba, Canada or northeastern Montana, US
Died8 December 1909 (aged 31)
Wanblee, South Dakota, US
Occupation(s)circus performer, farmer
SpouseScout Woman (died 1931)
ChildrenNancy Sitting Bull (1903-1959) Rosa Sitting Bull (1906-1907)
Parents

Biography

William Sitting Bull was a natural son of Sitting Bull, his mother was Four-Robes-Woman. He was born c. 1878 in what is today southern Manitoba, Canada, or in northeastern Montana in the United States. His native name was Runs-Away-From-Him (Lakota: Nakicipa). He was a twin; his brother was Left-Arrow-In-Him who died in childhood.[1]

After his father's surrender with 186 members of his family and followers to the United States on July 19, 1881,[2] the band was detained as prisoners of war for two years at Fort Randall in Dakota Territory. They were allowed in May 1883 to rejoin the rest of the Hunkpapa Lakota band at Standing Rock Reservation. After the murder of his father on December 15, 1890, the surviving immediate family relocated in early 1891 to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation settling in the White Clay district.[3]

In 1901 William Sitting Bull joined Colonel Frederick T. Cummins' Indian Congress & Wild West and in 1904 Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Circus.[4][5][6][7][8] On April 7, 1904, while traveling to New York City, he was seriously injured in a train collision near Maywood, Illinois.[9] The following month, he contracted tuberculosis and was sent home. After recovery, he rejoined the circus and toured many U.S. cities as well as Europe. William Sitting Bull, being touted the natural and only surviving son of Sitting Bull was the star attraction on the show's reenactments of Custer's Last Stand of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

In 1902, he married Scout Woman, an Oglala Lakota from Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.[10] The couple had two daughters, Nancy Sitting Bull born in 1903 and Rosa Sitting Bull born in 1906.[11] Rosa died in infancy.

In May 1908, William Sitting Bull, his mother, his wife and daughter petitioned with the Bureau of Indian Affairs to be permitted to return to live at Standing Rock Indian Reservation. The request was denied on the fear that his presence and connection to his late father would create a disturbing element at that reservation.[12]

William Sitting Bull died at his cabin near Wanblee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation on December 8, 1909,[13] and was buried at the nearby Presbyterian cemetery. In 1953, his surviving daughter Nancy Kicking Bear, together with two cousins, were instrumental in the removal of their grandfather's remains at his neglected grave at Fort Yates and reburial at the present grave site at the Sitting Bull Monument on Standing Rock Indian Reservation near Mobridge, South Dakota.[14][15] There are numerous living descendants of William Sitting Bull today.[16]

Sitting Bull with his wife Her Four Robes, his children Runs-away-from and Left-arrow-in-him, and a younger sibling on the mother's lap 1881 or 1882
William Sitting Bull in 1891
William Sitting Bull by Joseph Scheuerle, 1908

References
  1. Sitting Bull: His Life and Legacy by Ernie LaPointe, Gibbs Smith, 2009
  2. Sitting Bull Surrender Census, the Lakotas at Standing Rock Agency, 1881 by Ephriam D. Dickson III, South Dakota Historical Society Press, Pierre SD, 2010
  3. family group detail, 1892 Indian Census, Pine Ridge Agency, South Dakota, pages 88 and 89
  4. “Buffalo Bills Indians”, Fall River Daily Evening News, Fall River MA, 23 June 1902, page 8
  5. ”Son of Sitting Bull to Appear”, New-York Tribune, New York NY, 25 November 1906, page 50
  6. ”The Hippodrome”, The Omaha Sunday Bee, 2 December 1906
  7. ”On Heap Big Stage”, The Creston Statesman, Creston NE, 7 December 1906, page 2
  8. Sioux Chief’s Daughter to go on the stage to drown sorrows” The Chattanooga News, Chattanooga TN, 14 November 1906, page 1
  9. ”6 Indians Meet Death in Wreck”, The Minneapolis Journal, Minneapolis MN, 7 April 1904 front page
  10. family group detail, 1903 Indian Census, Pine Ridge Agency, South Dakota, page 35
  11. family group detail, 1907 Indian Census, Pine Ridge Agency, South Dakota, page 162
  12. Letter by the US Department of the Interior, Office of Indian Affairs, Washington DC, 2 May 1908, Record Ref: Land 9096-1908,28758-1908, National Archives, Washington DC
  13. ”William Sitting Bull death notice”, The Oglala Light, Pine Ridge SD, 1 December 1909, page 37
  14. "Bones of Sitting Bull Go South From One Dakota to the Other". Associated Press in The New York Times. 9 April 1953. Retrieved 29 May 2008. A group of South Dakotans today lifted the bones of Sitting Bull, famed Sioux Indian medicine man, from the North Dakota burial ground in which they had been buried sixty-three years and reburied them across the state line in South Dakota near the Chief's boyhood home.
  15. S.D. Historians Rush to Tribal Archives, The Bismarck Tribune, 13 March 1953
  16. Succumbs in S.D.”, death of Nancy Kicking Bear, Argus Leader, South Falls SD, 25 May 1959, page 2
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