True West Magazine
The Sioux chief Sitting Bull was arguably the greatest Indian chief of all the tribes in the American West in the 19th century. In the decades since his death, his name has become known to most Americans and treasured by many as the supreme embodiment of Sioux values. He lived from 1831 to 1890. – D.F. Barry, Courtesy Library of Congress –
The Sioux Leader’s Final Flight to Freedom
Sunday, June 25, 1876, was a clear, hot, sunny day in the valley of Montana’s Greasy Grass River, which the white man’s maps labeled the Little Bighorn. Six tribal circles of Lakotas and one of Northern Cheyennes, the coalition of winter roamers, sprawled for nearly three miles down the narrow valley, rimmed on the east by the snow-fed river. The Hunkpapas occupied the extreme upper end of the village, the Cheyennes the lower. In between rose the lodges of Blackfeet, Miniconjou, Sans Arc, Oglala and Brule. It was an unusually large village: 7,000 people, 2,000 warriors, hous