DEC 15: Sitting Bull is Killed

Chief Sitting Bull. (Credit: Library of Congress)

Sitting Bull, leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota (Sioux) that defeated Lt. Colonel George A. Custer and 264 of his troops 14 years earlier at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, is killed by Indian police on Dec. 15, 1890 at the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota. One of the most-famous native Americans of the 19th century, Sitting Bull (Tatanka Yotanka) was a fierce enemy of Anglo-Americans from a young age.

It was Sitting Bull that drew together and united warriors from the Lakota Sioux, including Hunkpapa, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes in 1876 to counter U.S. government pressure to permanently remove native tribes from their land by force. His efforts culminated in the deaths of Custer and his men on June 25, 1876.