Sitting Bull led the Lakota alliance that destroyed George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn — the most famous Native American military victory in history. Then he fled to Canada, returned to a reservation, joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show as a paid attraction, and was shot dead by his own people acting as Indian police during the Ghost Dance crisis. His life captures the full arc of Indigenous resistance and its destruction.

This episode traces Sitting Bull from his vision quests through the defeat of Custer, the Canadian exile, the strange celebrity of the Wild West show, and the assassination that remains controversial to this day.

• Sitting Bull’s rise as a holy man and war leader of the Hunkpapa Lakota
• The Sun Dance vision and the Battle of Little Bighorn that destroyed Custer’s command
• The Canadian exile, the surrender, and the surreal season touring with Buffalo Bill Cody
• The Ghost Dance movement, the order for his arrest, and the shooting that killed him