Dustin White
Editor

(The death of Sitting Bull stands as an important event of a tumultuous time. While it signals neither the beginning or the end, it did set off a string of incidents that, in part, led to an Indian Panic in the Dakotas. Today, the effects of such can still be seen.)

Few throughout history have managed to capture the public imagination like Tatanka Iyotake, Sitting Bull, has. Today, he continues to be remembered as one of the greatest Indian leaders, as well as an American patriot. However, like many, his life was cut down early, 129 years ago on Dec. 15, 1890.



Having attained fame throughout the world, Tatanka Iyotake would straddle two separate worlds after he surrendered to the United States on May 6, 1877. Living a life at his new home on the Standing Rock Reservation, he would quickly begin to butt heads with James McLaughlin, the U.S. Indian Agent at Fort Yates.

McLaughlin feared the influence that Tatanka Iyotake continued to have with his people, as well as the traditional Lakota life that he encouraged. Those fears erupted anew when a new religion was brought to the broken Lakota people. It was called “Dance in a Circle,” the “Spirit Dance,” or Ghost Dance.

For the Lakota, the new religion gave them hope that one day, they would once again be free. With the Ghost Dance came a promise that performing the ceremony would bring about an apocalyptic ending, where the white people would be removed from the land, as well as restore the Indians’ way of life.

The new religion was not for Tatanka Iyotake though, who preferred the traditional ways of the Lakota. However, with the introduction of the Ghost Dance to Standing Rock by Kicking Bear, Tatanka Iyotake was placed in between a rock and a hard place. Realizing that the new religion may help his people survive, by giving them a hope for the future, he eventually allowed it to be taught to the people around him.

McLaughlin
McLaughlin’s relationship to the Indians in his care was one of great complexity. He was known for both liking and respecting the Indian people, having married a Lakota woman and learning the language.

However, that respect only stretched so far, as he saw his ultimate mission as “civilizing” them. That meant stripping them of their Indian culture and replacing it with that of the white Europeans. The traditional Lakota way, for McLaughlin, was taken as a threat to his work. It was a threat Tatanka Iyotake embodied.



When the Ghost Dance arrived at Standing Rock, McLaughlin would be quick to do an investigation. Objecting to what he saw, McLaughlin would lecture Tatanka Iyotake about what he considered improper activities.

But the dancing continued. Initially, McLaughlin sent Indian police to arrest Kicking Bear, but the attempt failed. Fearing Kicking Bear’s powerful medicine, the police would come back to McLaughlin empty handed.

For McLaughlin though, the real force behind the Ghost Dance was Tatanka Iyotake. Contacting the Commissioner of Indians Affairs, McLaughlin recommended that Tatanka Iyotake be placed into a military prison away from Standing Rock. The recommendation was turned down after the Secretary of War decided that it would cause additional problems.

Getting out of hand
As McLaughlin was busy trying to figure out a way to have Tatanka Iyotake removed from his people, Tatanka Iyotake was becoming worried by the effects the Ghost Dance was having. Instead of giving hope, the dance began to overpower the people.

Unbeknownst to McLaughlin, the two individuals would be attempting to rid the reservation of the new religion. However, their attempts would be very different, with misunderstandings leading to death.

It wasn’t just on the Standing Rock Reservation where the Ghost Dance had taken hold though. The Lakota had already adopted the ceremony at Pine Ridge and Rosebud, where similar problems had arose.

With the situation continuing to worsen, Tatanka Iyotake began to prepare for a trip to Pine Ridge, where he planned to confer with Red Cloud. It would be a trip he never took. He would be betrayed by his own family, which would lead to the arrest and murder of Tatanka Iyotake.

At the same time, McLaughlin was continuing his move to have Tatanka Iyotake arrested and removed from Standing Rock. His chance would shortly come.

As the Ghost Dance continued to rise in popularity, the Indian Bureau became alarmed. On Nov. 20, 1890, agents were given the requirement to identify the leaders of the new religion. McLaughlin would single out Tatanka Iyotake as the one leading the “Messiah craze.”



McLaughlin believed that Tatanka Iyotake was promoting the Ghost Dance, or the “Messiah doctrine” as he called it, in order to unite the Indian people, and have himself asserted as the “high priest.” McLaughlin worried that Tatanka Iyotake would soon try to leave and spread the doctrine to others.

With hearing that Tatanka Iyotake planned on leaving the reservation, McLaughlin saw his misguided predictions beginning to come true. He believed that the great Indian chief was trying to regain his former prestige and popularity.

Arrest
The decision for Tatanka Iyotake to leave Standing Rock to consult Red Cloud at Pine Ridge had been made in private; however, there was a traitor in their midst.

One Bull, who was the nephew of Tatanka Iyotake, had been informing McLaughlin of what was occurring during their meetings. It would be One Bull who ultimately alerted McLaughlin to Tatanka Iyotake’s plan on leaving the reservation.

Still waiting for the go ahead to make the arrest of Tatanka Iyotake, when McLaughlin heard of the plans to leave, he decided there was no more time to wait, and made the order to apprehend the chief.

On Dec. 15, 1890, 43 Lakota police, under the command of Lieutenant Bull Head, arrived at Tatanka Iyotake’s cabin just before sunrise. Three miles away, the cavalry was present to back the Indian police.

By all accounts, Tatanka Iyotake, when initially informed of his arrest, agreed to go quietly.  After that, the accounts diverge. What appears to be true though is that while Tatanka Iyotake remained peaceful during the arrest, violence  soon erupted, and he was shot, purposefully, by the Indian police.

Burial
When Tatanka Iyotake’s body was set to be recovered, it had been beaten to a point in which it was hardly recognizable. He would soon be taken to Fort Yates, where the post surgeon, Dr. Horace M. Deeble would perform a postmortem examination.

Tatanka Iyotake would then be wrapped in a canvas bag, placed in a pine box and buried unceremoniously in the post cemetery. It would not be his final resting place.

In 1953, Tatanka Iyotake’s three granddaughters made the decision to move their grandfather from Fort Yates. Along with their uncle, Clarence Gray Eagle, and the assistance of the Mobridge, S.D., Chamber of Commerce, the three set out to rebury their grandfather’s remains.

As was required, they sought permission from the the state health board, which was denied. It was claimed that Tatanka Iyotake belonged to the state of North Dakota.

Instead, on April 7, 1953, the granddaughters, their uncle and member of the Mobridge Chamber of Commerce, under the cover of darkness, entered the military cemetery at Fort Yates and recovered the remains of Tatanka Iyotake.

Dan Heupel, a member of the chamber of commerce donated a track of 10 acres of land on the west side of the Missouri River, across from Mobridge. There, the artist Korczak Ziolkowsi sculpted a monument of Nancy Kicking Bear, a granddaughter of Tatanka Iyotake.



Not all of the granddaughters agreed on the location. Angelique Spotted Horse – LaPointe refused to accept the new burial spot. Instead, she wanted to see her grandfather buried in the Black Hills, but eventually was outvoted.

Her reasons for objecting would soon prove true. From the beginning, the gravesite has largely been in disarray. Serving as a party location for the youth of Standing Rock and Mobridge, the grave has been trashed with beer bottles and other debris.

Wounded Knee
The death of Tatanka Iyotake increased tensions among the Lakota. A rift had formed between those seeking to live according to the traditional ways of the Lakota, and those who were being “civilized” by adopting the culture of white Europeans.

Fourteen days after the death of Tatanka Iyotake, on Dec. 29, more than 150 (possibly twice as many) were massacred at Wounded Knee. Half of them were women and children.

It was the U.S. Army’s Seventh Cavalry, posted at Fort Abraham Lincoln, that surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers. Demanding that they surrender their weapon, a shot was fired. A massacre ensued.

Some historians believe that part of the motivation for the tragedy was that the Seventh Cavalry was seeking revenge for their defeat at Little Bighorn, where Tatanka Iyotake’s tribe would meet George Armstrong Custer.

After the incident, the Ghost Dance movement was essentially ended, and it also marked the last major confrontation in the war against the Plain’s Indians.

Today
Views on Tatanka Iyotake have changed greatly over the last century. Today, he is largely seen as a great American, having been featured in the United States Postal Service 1989 release of Great American series, as well as in President Barack Obama’s children book, “Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters,” which features 13 great Americans, Tatanka Iyotake is largely seen as an American patriot.

However, there are those who would object to such a depiction. For some, depicting Tatanka Iyotake as a great American is loosing a part of the great chief. Tatanka Iyotake instead is seen as Lakota, as it wasn’t until 1924 that Indians were given U.S. citizenship.

One thing remains constant in either view though; Tatanka Iyotake has kept the public’s imagination.