Sitting Bull

American  

noun

1. 1834–90, American Indian warrior: leader of the Hunkpapa; victor at Little Bighorn, 1876.

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Sitting Bull British  

noun

1. Indian name Tatanka Yotanka . ?1831–90, American Indian chief of the Teton Dakota Sioux. Resisting White encroachment on his people's hunting grounds, he led the Sioux tribes against the US Army in the Sioux War (1876–77) in which Custer was killed. The hunger of the Sioux, whose food came from the diminishing buffalo, forced his surrender (1881). He was killed during renewed strife

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Sitting Bull Cultural  

1. A Native American leader of the Sioux tribe in the late nineteenth century. He was a chief and medicine man when the Sioux took up arms against settlers in the northern Great Plains and against United States army troops. He was present at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, when the Sioux decisively defeated the cavalry led by Colonel George Custer. (See Custer's last stand.)

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Example Sentences

The Lakota leader Sitting Bull defeated George Custer’s cavalry, but a sustained conflict with American forces proved ruinous.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 31, 2025

Cal Fire urged residents to head to the evacuation site “safely and immediately” at Sitting Bull Academy, 19445 Sitting Bull Road.

From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 10, 2025

In 1890, hoping to stop the spread of the Ghost Dance, federal agents went to the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to arrest Chief Sitting Bull, who they believed was behind its influence there.

From Seattle Times • Feb. 7, 2024

Lakota chief Sitting Bull was gunned down by members of his own tribe, who served in the reservation's police force at Standing Rock.

From Salon • Feb. 11, 2023

A month ago Sitting Bull had conducted a Sun Dance, the most holy and powerful of Dakota ceremonies.

From "In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse" by Joseph Marshall III