Sitting Bull was a defining leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota, known for his powerful spiritual presence and canny strategic vision. As white settlers flooded into Lakota lands on the Northern Plains in the mid-1800s, sparking violent clashes over territory, he led Native resistance, building intertribal coalitions and using his spiritual authority to inspire battlefield confidence and cohesion.

That resistance reached its peak in 1876, when Lakota warriors, along with Cheyenne and Arapaho, achieved a stunning victory over General George Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The triumph cemented Sitting Bull—known in Lakota as Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake—as one of the most iconic and influential Native leaders in American history.

From a young age, Sitting Bull’s life was profoundly shaped by visions, dreams and spiritual ceremonies that deepened his connection to the natural world. As a boy, he had a formative dream of a yellowhammer bird warning him to remain perfectly still after he had dozed off beneath a tree—alerting him to the presence of a nearby bear. Moments later, he awoke to find a grizzly looming. Trusting the bird’s message, he stayed motionless, and the massive predator eventually retreated. The experience left a lasting impression, inspiring him to closely heed the messages of nature, especially those carried in birdsong.

“This is one way a person can gain knowledge, and perhaps even power and protection from the natural world,” says Oglala Lakota scholar Jeffrey Means, associate professor of history at the University of Wyoming. “Not all Lakota have this kind of experience and relationship with a spirit animal. And usually, it's the ones that do that are tapped for leadership, whether spiritual, military or political.”

Sitting Bull’s childhood name was Jumping Badger, but he earned the nickname “Slow” because of his thoughtful, deliberate nature. Raised in a warrior culture, he was taught to fight and raid rival tribes like the Crow and Blackfeet—societies that, like his own, prized courage, wisdom and a deep spiritual bond with the natural world.

His bravery stood out early. At just 10 years old, he killed his first buffalo. By 14, he had “counted coup” on a Crow warrior—risking his life to touch an enemy in their camp and escape unharmed. That courageous act earned him his father’s name, Sitting Bull, marking the start of his rise as a fierce warrior and respected leader.

And his brazenness didn’t fade with age. In one notable incident in the summer of 1872, Sitting Bull, who by then had been Lakota chief for four years, took several of his warriors to warn off soldiers sent to protect a railroad construction site being built across Indian land. According to early Western historian Stanley Vestal in Sitting Bull: Champion of the Sioux, after the Lakota skirmished with troopers for a morning, Sitting Bull did something extraordinary: He laid down his gun and quiver and sat on the grass in full sight of the firing soldiers. With bullets whizzing around his head, he coolly lit his pipe and started to smoke, inviting his warriors to join him. Bolder and more fearless than any counting coup, it was intended, Vestal writes, as a message to the enemy and an inspiration to his men.

Sitting Bull wasn’t a battlefield commander in the traditional sense. But his formative years of fighting and raiding with neighboring tribes gave him a full arsenal of strategies for taking on the U.S. Army.

He employed guerrilla techniques like hit-and-run raids, ambushes and harassment of supply lines. These tactics were common among Plains warriors, and proved effective, especially against U.S. fort and railroad expansion in Indian territory. Unlike more aggressive commanders, Sitting Bull often preferred to evade large-scale confrontations unless he had favorable odds. He skillfully used his knowledge of the vast Northern Plains terrain to his advantage—striking quickly, then disappearing into difficult-to-pursue regions.

Perhaps most importantly, Sitting Bull earned wide respect for his relationship with Wakan Tanka—the Great Mystery, or what others might call a divine spirit—which gave him the spiritual strength and clarity to lead his people in their fight to survive. “The first lesson of Wakan Tanka is simple: Mitakuye Oyasin, we are all related,” asserts Dakota/Lakota writer Ruth H. Burns. “This is the purest, most concentrated meditation that we can express, because it is a recognition of our place within the universe.” On the battlefield, his meditative visions were seen as divine guidance, uplifting warrior morale and shaping strategy.

Sitting Bull first joined forces with nearby tribes to fight the U.S. Army after the 1862 Dakota War, an uprising sparked by broken treaties, late annuity payments and growing starvation. He later joined forces with Oglala Lakota leader Red Cloud in launching raids against the proliferating U.S. military forts in the Powder River region of southwest Montana. He also fought alongside the famed Lakota warrior chief Crazy Horse at the Battle of the Rosebud, a prelude to Little Bighorn.

When the U.S. government proposed the Fort Laramie Treaty in 1868—offering peace in exchange for relocating tribes to reservation lands, including the sacred Black Hills—Sitting Bull refused to sign. While about two dozen other Native leaders accepted the terms, he rejected the idea of surrendering his people’s freedom or abandoning their nomadic way of life.

But after gold was found in the Black Hills in 1874, the government reneged on its treaty promises, allowing prospectors and settlers to invade lands guaranteed to the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Dakota and Lakota. This blatant betrayal of tribal sovereignty sparked fierce resistance—with Sitting Bull at the forefront.

That resistance culminated at the Battle of the Little Bighorn (known to the Lakota as Greasy Grass), when U.S. Army Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry arrived with a mission to quash Native defiance and neutralize Sitting Bull. The chief was camped along the Montana Territory’s Little Bighorn River with an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 Indians (including some 1,500 to 2,000 warriors) who refused government directives to retreat to a reservation. Lakota battle leaders Crazy Horse, Gall and others were gearing up to lead the fight, while Sitting Bull, in his mid-40s, provided spiritual guidance.

According to historical accounts, that guidance came several weeks before the battle. That’s when Sitting Bull performed a sacred Sun Dance—a powerful Lakota ceremony of prayer, fasting and sacrifice—during which he made 50 flesh offerings, or devotional cuts, on each arm. In the midst of the ritual, he received a vision of grasshoppers falling upside down from the sky, which he interpreted as a sign of an imminent Native victory over U.S. soldiers. A voice told him the grasshoppers had no ears, a message that, as Means explains, symbolized how the soldiers could no longer hear or heed the Indians’ cries for freedom and sovereignty. The vision gave hope and confidence to the Lakota that triumph over the army was near.

When Custer and his U.S. cavalry men attacked the camp on June 25, 1876, the allied warriors defeated them in less than an hour.

After the shocking Native victory at the Little Bighorn in 1876, Sitting Bull became the most wanted man in America. Refusing to surrender, he led his followers into exile in Canada. But harsh winters and scarce resources eventually forced their return to the United States in 1881. He was imprisoned and later confined to the Standing Rock Reservation, yet even in captivity, he remained a steadfast voice for Native sovereignty. He briefly toured with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show before returning to advocate for his people’s rights.

By 1890, as the Ghost Dance movement spread—a spiritual revival promising the return of Native lands and life ways—U.S. authorities feared Sitting Bull’s symbolic power. Though he was interested in the movement, Means says, he never took part in the ritual. On December 15, 1890, he was killed during a botched arrest by Indian police. Despite his death, his legacy lived on a symbol of defiance, vision and the enduring fight for Native dignity.