Sitting Bull

3 Pages 821 Words

Sitting Bull, said to be driven by the spirit, became chief of the Sioux tribe at an early age. His leadership included the time during in which America began its explorations of “The Great West”. In their expansion, they simply pushed the Native Americans back with promises of land and equal opportunities that were available to the whites. Throughout his reign, Chief Sitting Bull led his tribe through a number of confrontations with the American Army. The most famous of which being the Battle of the little Big Horn. However, the subject of the speech I reviewed does not deal with battling, but rather the unkept promises the American government made to the Sioux.
Hearings were being conducted in Washington to hear the complaints of those who had lost land or other items of value during the war. So, the Chief had left with a delegation of his people and headed to Washington to see what was being done about the complaints the representatives from their tribe had lodged. Upon their arrival, he confronted Senator John Logan, a former civil war hero, because he had learned that the senator refused to acknowledge a single complaint made by the Sioux representative. In reaction to Logan’s arrogance, Sitting Bull became angered and accused Logan of “acting like a man drunk with whiskey.” Realizing that anger and finger pointing would get him nothing, Sitting Bull returned the next day in hopes of repairing the damage caused the previous day. Though first and foremost he was making an apology, he still wanted to express his resentment toward the United States government for the broken treaties and lies they had made with the Sioux tribe.
His introduction was somewhat expected by those attending the hearings, so it did not make much of an impact but probably had the attention of all present because they wanted to see an “engine” apologize for his incivility. However if he had not apologized for his outburst the pr...