Sitting Bull, Buffalo Bill, and Native American Stereotypes
Marcello A. Monterrosa, Rosemary Candelario Ph.D.
Department of Dance
Abstract
Buffalo Bill
History of Abuse
Sitting Bull was a great Sioux warrior, holy man and Chief
who resisted white culture and domination in the 1800s. The
chief was invited by William Cody, aka “Buffalo Bill,” to join
the Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show for the 1884‐85 season.
The association between Sitting Bull and Cody can be
complex and given to debate, but the effect of Sitting Bull’s
participation in the Wild West show upon stereotypes of
Native American’s in popular culture are profound. Whether
Sitting Bull’s participation was beneficial, exploitative, or one
of empowerment, his participation in the Wild West Show
connected Native Americans with stereotypes that would
follow them for more than a century. In this poster
presentation, I will be analyzing the effects of Sitting Bull’s
Wild West Show legacy in relationship to Native American
popular culture stereotypes.
William Frederick Cody’s qualities as an adult included a
practical knowledge of media, press coverage and the role of
audience at every stage of his career. His real identity became
confused with Buffalo Bill due to the popularity of his show.
Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Company staged a construction of
America internationally between 1883 and 1916 employing
many Pawnee and Sioux American Indians. The Show
included trick riding, marksmanship, and mock Indian attacks
on stagecoaches and various U.S. military encounters with the
Indians, including Custer's adventure at the Little Bighorn. In
1885, Chief Sitting Bull was allowed to join the Wild West
show. He made money from his autographs and photographs in
addition to receiving a weekly salary. After Sitting Bull’s
death, Cody was allowed by the US government to hire more
Ghost dancers or “potential troublemakers” in an effort to
contain the force of real Indian dance for fear of warfare that
could threatened acquisition of Indian land and resources. This
behavior demonstrated the federal belief in the Wild West
Show for suppressing feelings of bellicose zeal.
“Characterized as something "halfway between humanity and
animality", New World inhabitants were doomed from the
moment of first contact with Europeans” (Berkhofer 1979:13).
In 1851, settlers took Yuki children and women as slaves and
traded them with the Spanish. The federal government moved
the Yuki onto fenced reservations that were tore down by
white farmers who quickly apportioned more land so their
livestock could graze on the reservation land. H. L. Hall, cattle
supervisor for the Round Valley reservation and his group
killed 240 Yuki in an organized manhunt, in revenge for the
killing of a valuable stallion in 1859. That same year,
California Governor John B. Weller granted state
commissions to companies of volunteers that excelled in
killing Indians. Methods of solving the “Indian problem”
often included starvation, kidnapping, state-sanctioned mass
slaughter and destruction of traditional customs. Colonel
Richard I. Dodge in 1867 at Fort McPherson, Nebraska, said
to a group of British hunters: "Kill every buffalo you can.
Every buffalo dead is an Indian gone"(Chalk 1990:198). A
hundred years later, a trail of broken treaties lead to the Battle
of Wounded Knee II in the 1960s after American Indian
member’s claims of injustice had not been taken seriously.
AIM members were beaten, arrested, or found dead of causes
unexplained. An assistant prosecutor in the state Attorney
General's office, William Janklow, stated: "The only way to
deal with the Indian problem in South Dakota is to put a gun
to the AIM leaders' heads and pull the trigger."
Sitting Bull
Tatanka-Iyotanka was born in 1831 and became the Chief of
the Hunkpapa division of the Teton Sioux (Lakota). He
defeated Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer at the
Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876. Following the Custer battle,
the Chief remained in Canada, but in 1881 he surrendered.
After living as a prisoner of war at Fort Randall for two years,
he was allowed to settle at Standing Rock reservation in 1883.
He traveled with the Wild West Show for one season between
1884 and 1885. The Hunkpapas admired him for his profound
spirituality. Sitting Bull’s nephew White bull, once said that
his uncle could foretell anything during religious ceremonies
after pointing the pipe to the four winds. His arms, back and
breast were heavily scarred from given of his flesh as an
offering to Wakantanka when performing the sun dance with
the intention of seeking supernatural assistance for the tribe.
Lakotas considered themselves an important part of nature
and tried their best to manipulate it for their benefit by
honoring or appeasing their deities with group ceremonies,
rites and taboos. In addition to enjoying the reputation of
Wichasha Wakan, warrior and hunter, Sitting Bull was known
for being generous, humble and kind with children, old people
and even to people who hated him. On one occasion, he
rescued an elder’s stranded horse by crossing a river. After
reaching the other side, exhausted but safe, he said to the
scared animal: “Grandchild, I have been sent to come to your
rescue. Do not run away from me. Someone is waiting for you
on the other side.” Sitting Bull was assassinated on December
15, 1890 while being arrested for his participation in the
controversial Ghost Dance Religion also known as the
“Messiah movement”. Just two weeks later, another dark
event in the troubled history of relations between American
Indians and the growing white population was about to
unfold. A group of Minneconjou Sioux Indians were captured
at Wounded Knee Creek in southwestern South Dakota. The
next day, on December 29, 1890, as the Indians surrendered
their weapons, a shot rang out and the cavalry opened fire
killing at least 153, but some estimate nearly 300. Many were
shot in the back as they fled, most of them women, children,
and unarmed men. According to American Historian Alvin M.
Josephy, Jr. this episode marked the completion of the white
man's conquest of the Indian in the United States.
Chief Sitting Bull’s Personal Autograph
Stereotypes
Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill 1885
Genocidal Racism
After the victory by the "savages" over General Custer
Seventh Cavalry the government's efforts to further suppress
the Indian populations increased and any organized activity on
the part of Indians was considered suspicious. Ten years
before writing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum
was the editor of The Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, a weekly
newspaper published in Aberdeen, South Dakota. After
learning of the death of Chief Sitting Bull he wrote:
“The proud spirit of the original owners of
these vast prairies inherited through centuries of fierce and
bloody wars for their possession, lingered last in the bosom of
Sitting Bull. With his fall the nobility of the Redskin is
extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs
who lick the hand that smites them. The Whites, by law of
conquest, by justice of civilization, are masters of the
American continent, and the best safety of the frontier
settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few
remaining Indians”
Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer, December 20, 1890
“The incessant image remains that somehow all American
Indians are the same and are to be clumped together as a
single ethnic entity. This is perhaps one reason that negative
stereotyping continues to be so tempting. It is much simpler to
dominate and express superiority over the "others" when they
all belong to the same generic category – Indians.”
Steven W. Baggs
The beginning of racist stereotyping in the New World may
have been the product of the clumping together of all the
American Indians as a single group by ethnocentric Europeans
who in the fifteenth century were under the influence of strict
Christian definitions of what humans should be. According to
Baggs the exploitation of the "noble savage” in the Wild West
Show was another chapter in the continuing saga of the white
man's quest for domination over the American Indian, and
defines stereotyping as a learned form of classifying and
labeling others based on inaccurate information or
assumption. According to Daniel Bar-Tal, stereotyping is a
form of delegitimization,. "...beliefs that downgrade another
group with extreme negative social categories for the purpose
of excluding it from human groups that are considered as
acting within the limits of acceptable norms and/or values.”
Records of racist statements include:
“The most vicious cowboy has more moral
principle than the average Indian”
Theodore Roosevelt
“We trust that, as long as you are on earth, you
will compel and with all zeal cause the barbarian nations to
come to the knowledge of God, the maker and founder of all
things, not only by edicts and admonitions, but also by force
and arms, if needful, in order that their souls may partake of
the heavenly kingdom”
Pope Clement VI
Conclusion
The photograph of Buffalo Bill and Sitting Bull in the Wild
West represented the image of the “noble savage” American
Indian standing next to the civilized white man. Ironically, the
image of the submissive American Indian also seemed
obvious with the presence of Chief Sitting Bull who resisted
white domination all his life. The need of the white race to
motivate their culture through the Wild West Show
perpetuated American Indian stereotypes that originated in the
fifteen century with the colonizers of the New World. Buffalo
Bill contributed to popular culture by introducing conflicting
identities and harmful stereotypes of Native Americans as
“savages” but “noble”, “exotic” but “uncivilized”, “spiritual”
but “heathen.” Buffalo Bill’s Show spread the image of the
civilized and powerful white man through staged scenes of
“Indians” attacking peaceful settler villages in which the
cowboys who came to the rescue were cheered while the
“savages” were booed and hissed. Today, in the 21st century,
Hollywood films like “The Lone Ranger” and “Alone yet Not
Alone” (2013), exposed new generations to the old racist
stereotypes of Native Americans that many still refuse to bury,
and in doing so, the white men try to create a hyperreality by
insisting on living uni-culturally in a multi-cultural society.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to: Dr. Rosemary Candelario for sponsoring my
research project, Dr. Sandra Westmoreland for her support
through her scientific communication class, Ilana Morgan for
her motivation and advice and Tracy Lindsay for her support
during abstract submission adjustments.