Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapa Lakota, c.1893
C.D. Fredricks of New York

A cabinet card portrait of Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapa Lakota, with a printed facsimile of his signature in the lower margin. A narrow strip of typed text identifying the sitter has been pasted along the right-hand edge of the print; it looks like this was added in the early 20th century. This identifies him as Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapa Sioux. The Sioux are a confederacy of several tribes that speak three different dialects: the Lakota, the Dakota and the Nakota. The Lakota comprises seven tribal bands, one of which is the Hunkpapa. 

Sitting Bull’s people, led by Crazy Horse, met with the troops of the 7th Cavalry at the Little Big Horn River on 27 June 1876. During the ensuing battle, General George Armstrong Custer was killed. Sitting Bull and his people subsequently escaped into Canada, where they remained for four years until hunger and desperation forced them to return to the United States and surrender on 19 July 1881. 

In 1885 Sitting Bull joined William F. Cody’s (Buffalo Bill’s) Wild West Show, earning $50 a week for simply riding once around the arena in each presentation. He proved a popular attraction, although it is rumoured he cursed his audiences in his native tongue while he smiled and performed for them. He only stayed with the show for four months before returning home. 

Back at the Standing Rock Reservation, on the border between North and South Dakota, Sitting Bull became embroiled with the Ghost Dance movement (a quasi-religious resistance movement whose adherents danced to raise the spirits of the dead to fight alongside them), although it is possible that he did no more than allow the dancers to meet on his land. Sitting Bull was fatally shot when he resisted arrest at dawn on the 15 December 1890. His body was buried at Fort Yates in North Dakota but in 1953 was exhumed by members of his Lakota family and buried at his birth place near Mobridge, South Dakota. 

Photographed by C.D. Fredricks of New York.

Condition: the print is in excellent condition, with very good tonal range. The mount presents a very small amount of dirt verso but is otherwise also in excellent condition.

Dimensions: the card measures 6.4” by 4.2” (16.4 cm by 10.7 cm)