Sitting Bull Indian Without a Country

Abstract

Inspector J. M. Walsh of the North-West Mounted Police, and the time was the summer of 188o. Although Walsh's description resembled an advertisement for Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, with which the Sioux warrior was later associated, the Inspector was serious. x Sitting Bull was not circus Indian, but the key figure in an international dispute involving the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. Since fleeing to Canada in the winter and spring of I876-7, the Sioux had defied the efforts of police authorities to effect their return and had repeatedly raided American territory. Neither Canada nor the United States wanted Sitting Bull; neither acknowledged responsibility for his behaviour, and each waited for its neighhour to solve the problem. Lord Dufferin, the Canadian governor-general, first predicted trouble in the spring of • 876 when three columns of American troops converged upon the Sioux from different directions in the valley of the Yellowstone River. Dufferin realized that it would be a most undesirable contingency if the Sioux were driven north across the Canadian border. An influx of armed, warlike, and exasperated Indians, he explained to Sir Edward Thornton, the British minister in Washington, will be anything but an agreeable addi• Walsh to Minister of the Interior, • • Sept. •88o, Records of the Department of Indian Affairs, vol. •3893 (Public Archives of Canada (e^c), Record Group •o). Hereafter cited as RoI o/• 3893 or other appropriate volume number.