Sitting Bull: A Biography of Lakota Nationhood & Paradox - Essay Sample

Introduction

The title of the book is Sitting Bull and the Paradox of Lakota Nationhood. It was a subject chosen and written by a writer called Gary Clayt Anderson in the year 1955. The book was then published in the year 1996. He gives a good presentation biography that nicely uses the life experience of Lakota Chief Sitting Bull to uncover the political, religious, and cultural structure of Lakota intricacies. The credentials that the author used in writing the book are more of the historical flow of events. The writer explains the Lakota chief sitting in the past and how people view society. The main objective of Anderson in Sitting Bull is to give a revelation of the new interpretation of a crucial conflict of historians on high plains. Most of the historians faulted the results of Little Big Horn to Colonel's faulty strategy of carrying out attacks. However, they still recall Sitting Bull as a leader who got victory just because of the mishap of Custer. It's from this part that the conflicts come from, but Anderson has given a solution unto it.

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Most of the events happened during the eighteenth century, where the Sitting Bull and his Lakota people were living peacefully in their homeland (StudyMoose, 2016). The Americans were now carrying out invasions in their lands as they saw it as inhabited and built a railway as they hunted for gold. The Lakota people depended on buffalo as their major source of sustenance, and the Americans were slowly reducing the population as they built the railway. After gold was found in the Black Hills, both Indians and Americans began killing one another. The government came up with a treaty, and the Sitting Bull and his community remained in the Black Hills and built their ground on that place. Later on, Sitting Bull grew, became strong, and chosen to be the chief of the Lakota tribe while he was a young man.

Seemingly, the people of the Lakota tribe also saw him as a good leader with great potential to lead them to the correct ways as a tribe. According to the tradition ns of the Lakota people, his uncles, four horns, and the looks that were present in him raised him to the leaders that he was. The uncles were the ones who played the part of being the role model towards Sitting Bull until when he became the great leader of the Lakota people. The Uncles of Sitting Bull were the major Chiefs of Hunkpapa and thus equipped him with the proper leadership skills required to lead the Lakota people. Sitting Bull was equipped with status and was instructed well. He was given a title that belonged to his forefathers called Ate.

The skills in training Sitting Bull began when he was ten years old; he knew how to mount a horse. Together with the other boys, they trained themselves and their horses on how to act well under stressful times during a buffalo hunting. The best skill that he learned was on how to fire a weapon directly while riding a fast-moving horse. He discovered at a very early stage that he was connected with the spirits, which showed how powerful he was in their lands. Most of the people came on to look for advice, although he was not a medicine man. With the knowledge that he had about animals and the skills of carrying dialogues, it made him be one of the best hunters. During the disputes that arose between Americans and Indians in the Black Hills because of the gold, Sitting Bull led his Lakota people to rise against the Americans. Many of his people were killed, including women and children. He was then later on arrested, and his son intimidated him not to give in to the arrest, and it was there that he was shot dead.

The writer Anderson has given a good image of the history of Americans and Indians and did not favor either side. He explains how Sitting Bull rose from being a small person up to when he becomes a trusted leader with the involvement of the Americans in his downfall and his Lakota nation in the end. Anderson also incorporated the use of Indian vocabularies to ensure that the culture is brought to terms with the reader. The content explains the whole course of how Sitting Bulls discovers his power while he is still young and leads his people, but the course of the Americans disorients the whole of his leadership. The author achieved the main target, which was to show that Sitting Bull did not get his success on a joyride. Most of the historians and other interested readers should choose on reading the book because Anderson has given the context in a good way that can be well understood. From the assessment, the book gives a good flow of the person in the context, Sitting Bull, until when he is brought down together with Lakota people by the Americans.

References

StudyMoose. (2016). Sitting Bull and the Paradox of Lakota Nationhood, Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/sitting-bull-and-the-paradox-of-lakota-nationhood-essay