Leaders of the Sioux: The Lives and Legacies of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and Red Cloud

*Includes pictures of Sitting Bull, depictions of Crazy Horse, and important people and places in their lives.

*Explains several Lakota oral legends, including the origins of the names Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse

*Explains the Battle of the Little Bighorn and their roles in it. 

*Includes a Table of Contents.


"When I was a boy the Sioux owned the world. The sun rose and set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle. Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them? Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am Sioux? Because I was born where my father lived? Because I would die for my people and my country?” – Sitting Bull


"Upon suffering beyond suffering: the Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world. A world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations. A world longing for light again. I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again.” – Crazy Horse


Like Geronimo in the Southwest during the same era, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were warriors and leaders of different groups of Lakota (Sioux) who fought in several skirmishes against settlers and U.S. forces across the Plains during the 1860s and 1870s. Admired by their own people for their kindness and strong leadership, reviled by their enemies for their defiance, when The Great Sioux War of 1876 began, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were two of the most important leaders among all Native American tribes on the Plains, and they were the ones to turn to for those who intended to keep fighting whites. 


Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were hardly the only Native Americans fighting the U.S. Army at the time, but they became legends at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, during which an estimated 2,000 Lakota and Cheyenne warriors led by Crazy Horse and inspired by one of Sitting Bull's visions routed and then annihilated the 7th U.S. Cavalry led by George Custer. That disaster led the American government to double down on its efforts to “pacify” the Sioux, and by the end of the decade many of them had surrendered and been moved onto a reservation. Crazy Horse kept fighting for a year before surrendering, and Sitting Bull defiantly refused to surrender, instead heading with a smaller band into Canada and remaining exiled. 


When they finally did surrender, and the threat they posed eliminated, Americans viewed the two Native Americans as celebrities. Sitting Bull even went on to appear in Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show during the 1880s. However, the two Lakota leaders would be connected in one more way: death. The deaths of both Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse took place on reservations and remain controversial to this day. 


Though he has not been remembered as vividly as another member of the Oglala Lakota, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud led the group for 40 years, in war, in peace, and on a reservation, becoming so esteemed and influential that Americans began to mistakenly take him for the leader of the entire Sioux tribe. In the 1860s, Red Cloud was at the forefront of skirmishing among whites and Native Americans along the frontier in Wyoming and Montana, which came to be known as Red Cloud’s War. After that, however, Red Cloud continued to lead his people to reservations first near the Black Hills and later westward after the Battle of the Little Bighorn. 


Leaders of the Sioux looks at the most famous leaders of the Lakota and the victors at Little Bighorn, but it also humanizes the men who became some of the most famous symbols of defiance in American history. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and Red Cloud like you never have before.