Who Was Sitting Bull?

American History Hit

History Hit

America, History

4.5 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2025

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sitting Bull, Jumping Badger, Slow - what do we know about the man who went by each of these names? How did he earn them and what was his role in the changing United States of the late 19th century?

Don is joined by none other than Sitting Bull's great-grandson, Ernie Lapointe, to hear stories passed down in his family about this Native American icon of resistance.

Ernie is a Vietnam veteran and author of 'Sitting Bull: His Life and Legacy'.

Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.

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All music from Epidemic Sound/All3 Media

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Transcript

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0:00.0	June 1876, a Lakota holy man performs the Sundance in the Rosebud River Valley.
0:09.6	Having fasted, he dances continuously for two days and nights, ritualistically offering 100 pieces of flesh from his arms,
0:18.6	inflicting excruciating pain upon himself to attain a higher spiritual realm.
0:23.6	Finally exhausted, in a trance state, blood dripping from his arms, the man faints. A vision comes to him.
0:31.6	Soldiers descending from above. They appeared him like grasshoppers, falling headfirst feet to the sky.
0:40.6	When he awakens, this man, Sitting Bull, rejoins his people and shares his vision,
0:47.1	foretelling victory against the invading U.S. Army troops.
0:51.2	It will not be long before his vision becomes reality. And the name, Sitting Bull,
0:56.9	becomes known the world over.
1:09.0	Greetings history hit listeners. Welcome back. I'm Don Wildman. There's a real trap in the study of American history, ours being a legacy involving some dark chapters of persecution and oppression to characterize those who suffered as fallen pawns in the great American chess game. This reduces them to mere victimhood,
1:30.5	a single dimension. And it is important and more truthful to try and see these figures in the
1:35.8	fullness of their humanity. We are aiming to do this today as we tell the proud story of Sitting Bull,
1:41.1	the Lakota chieftain who was central, strategically and spiritually, to the
1:45.6	resistance among Native peoples of the American Great Plains against the U.S. government,
1:50.0	across what is today the northern states of Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas.
1:54.5	Sitting Bull was a star, a living legend within his culture and beyond, with a story spanning the last half of the
2:01.9	1800s and representing so much of what happened to indigenous peoples as our government
2:07.1	laid the groundwork for white settlement across the continent. And doing so, we are in the
2:10.9	company of Ernie LaPointe, author of LeBuc Sitting Bull, his life and legacy, who also happens to be
2:17.2	the great grandson of the man himself.
2:19.8	It is an honor to meet you again in life, Ernie. Nice to be with you.
2:23.6	Thank you. Appreciate you.
	...

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