Page 94 - 4095-BOOK2

The revolver is a classic commercial Smith
& Wesson Model No. 3 Third Model Russian
revolver with a nickel plated finish. It has
an integral rounded blade front sight on
the barrel rib. The latter is marked with the
one-line address and patent marking ending
in “REISSUE JULY 25, 1871” rather than the
“RUSSIAN MODEL” marking. The barrel latch has
the notch rear sight. The latch, barrel, cylinder,
butt, and right grip are all marked with the
matching serial number “4490.” The butt also
features a lanyard loop, “1874,” and a small “P.”
The belt is approximately 41 inches and has 21
large cartridge loops. The “US” flap holster has
a Watervliet Arsenal stamp on the back. U.M.C.
.44 Smith & Wesson Russian cartridges are also
included.
The death of Sitting Bull was a tragedy and
was followed by one of the most infamous
massacres in the history of the American
West. In 1890, he was nearly 60 years old.
He famously was one of the leaders of the
Lakota at the Battle of the Little Bighorn,
one of the most significant Native American
victories in history, but, after the battle, he
and his followers fled to Canada in exile before
returning to the U.S. impoverished and starving
in 1881 and surrendering his Winchester
carbine to the U.S. Army. He was held as a
prisoner of war until the spring of 1883. In the
mid-1880s Sitting Bull traveled the country as
part of Wild West shows, including Buffalo Bill’s
Wild West, and became a celebrity like other
Native Americans before him such as Sauk
leader Black Hawk who was taken on a tour of
the East a half-century earlier under the orders
of President Andrew Jackson. Showing Native
American leaders the size and power of the
U.S. government by having them tour the great
cities of the East was long part of U.S. efforts
to end Native American resistance. When
Sitting Bull returned to the Standing Rock
Agency, however, he was again in tension with
government officials over conditions on the
reservations and the selling of land. He advised
his people to resist having their land be taken
yet again.
In 1890, the tensions that led to Sitting Bull’s
death originated in part from what was
originally a religious movement meant to bring
peace to the West: the Ghost Dance Movement
started in 1889 by Wovoka, a Northern Paiute
spiritual leader in Nevada. Wovoka had called
for peaceful relations between all people
under the Christian God and claimed that
Jesus would return in 1892 and the living
and the dead would be reunited. The people
should live in peace and perform the Ghost
Dance to ensure their eternal happiness.
As the movement spread, different peoples
interpreted the message differently. Many of
the Lakota, for example, believed or at least
hoped that the Ghost Dance would ultimately
rid the whites from their lands and bring back
the buffalo and other game that they had
long relied on. Some believed that the whites
would be washed away from the continent
in a great flood, earthquake, and landslide.
This movement combined with government
actions that imperiled the Lakota as a nation
and their survival to create renewed hostility
between the Lakota and the U.S. military. As
was common throughout the 19th century,
in early 1890, the U.S. government violated
a treaty with the Lakota and began breaking
up the Great Sioux Reservation into smaller
reservations, attempting to force the Lakota
to live on private holdings as families rather
than tribes or bands, sending children away to
boarding schools to strip them of their culture
and teach them Euro-American ways in order
to assimilate the Lakota and ensure peace,
and selling off “surplus” Lakota land to white
settlers. In addition to these injustices, the land
the Lakota lived on was not suited to farming
which led to a food crisis. Faced with further
loss of their ancestral lands, starvation, and
the loss of their children, many Lakota were
naturally drawn to the Ghost Dance Movement
which not only might provide a solution to life
in the present but also the salvation of their
people for eternity.
Many government agents and settlers did
not understand the Ghost Dance movement
and feared that the Lakota were preparing
for war. In response, the U.S. Army was sent
to the Lakota reservations to attempt to
force the Lakota to end the Ghost Dance. U.S.
Indian Agent James McLaughlin stationed at
Fort Yates sent the Indian Police, including
relatives of Sitting Bull, to arrest the Hunkpapa
Lakota leader to prevent him from leaving
the reservation and potentially stirring up a
revolt. Lieutenant Henry Bullhead was ordered
to arrest Sitting Bull quickly and quietly at
dawn on December 15, 1890, before Sitting
Bull could escape. 43 men, 39 of them Indian
Police officers, arrived at Sitting Bull’s home
between 5:30 and 6:00 a.m. Exactly what
happened during the arrest varies from
account to account. It seems Sitting Bull was
initially cooperative and considered going
away peaceably, but Hunkpapa Lakota men
loyal to Sitting Bull were also alerted during the
arrest and came to his aid. They did not initially
attack until Sitting Bull began resisting arrest
and was being forcibly removed by the police.
Catch-the-Bear, one of Sitting Bull’s men, shot
Lt. Bullhead with a rifle. Bullhead in turn shot
Sitting Bull with a revolver before falling. A
second officer, Red Tomahawk, also fired with a
revolver hitting Sitting Bull again once or twice.
Both Bullhead’s and Red Tomahawk’s shots
would have been fatal by all accounts. Soon
both sides were exchanging fire and fighting
hand-to-hand.
92