The Last Sovereigns
Sitting Bull and the Resistance of the Free Lakotas
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4.5 • 4 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
2021 Spur Award Winner for Best Historical Nonfiction from the Western Writers of America
True West Magazine's 2020 Best Author and Historical Nonfiction Book of the Year
The Last Sovereigns is the story of how Sioux chief Sitting Bull resisted the white man’s ways as a last best hope for the survival of an indigenous way of life on the Great Plains—a nomadic life based on buffalo and indigenous plants scattered across the Sioux’s historical territories that were sacred to him and his people.
Robert M. Utley explores the final four years of Sitting Bull’s life of freedom, from 1877 to 1881. To escape American vengeance for his assumed role in the annihilation of Gen. George Armstrong Custer’s command at the Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull led his Hunkpapa following into Canada. There he and his people interacted with the North-West Mounted Police, in particular Maj. James M. Walsh. The Mounties welcomed the Lakota and permitted them to remain if they promised to abide by the laws and rules of Queen Victoria, the White Mother. But the Canadian government wanted the Indians to return to their homeland and the police made every effort to persuade them to leave. They were aided by the diminishing herds of buffalo on which the Indians relied for sustenance and by the aggressions of Canadian Native groups that also relied on the buffalo.
Sitting Bull and his people endured hostility, tragedy, heartache, indecision, uncertainty, and starvation and responded with stubborn resistance to the loss of their freedom and way of life. In the end, starvation doomed their sovereignty. This is their story.
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Historian Utley (Geronimo) delivers a thorough account of Sitting Bull's years in Canada after the Battle of Little Bighorn. Harassed by the U.S. Army, Sitting Bull led 1,000 of his followers across the border in 1877. Though the North-West Mounted Police initially granted permission for the Hunkpapa Sioux to stay in the country, diplomatic pressure from Washington, D.C., and conflicts with local tribes led to a government policy of encouraging the refugees to return to the U.S. Maj. James Walsh was tasked with persuading Sitting Bull to leave Canada for the Standing Rock Reservation in North and South Dakota, despite his fears of punishment. When the Canadian government became convinced that Walsh was too friendly with Sitting Bull, he was replaced by the trader Jean Louis Legar , who pressured the Lakota chief and his last few remaining lodges to turn themselves in at Fort Buford, N.D. In 1890, Sitting Bull was killed while being arrested on the reservation. Utley amasses a wealth of information, though his recaps of long, inconclusive discussions make for some dry reading. Still, this is a well-informed study of a decisive moment for "the last free Lakotas."
