December 15 | Sitting Bull

c. 1831 - December 15, 1890: Age 59

"It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being, and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even to our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves to inhabit this vast land."

"There are things they tell us that sound good to hear, but when they have accomplished their purpose they will go home and will not try to fulfill our agreements with them."

Sitting Bull was a Hunkpapa Lakota holy man who played key roles in the wars against the whites in 19th century United States. He was present at The Battle of Little Bighorn, also known as Custer's Last Stand, the most famous and last major victory of the native people against the white armies.

During most of his adult life Sitting Bull took a militant stance against the white invaders, but in 1881, five years after the victory at Little Bighorn, he surrendered to the whites along with his family and a few other warriors. After nearly two years of imprisonment in various forts, Sitting Bull and his family were transferred to Standing Rock Agency, an indian reservation in North and South Dakota.

In 1885 Sitting Bull was allowed to leave the reservation to join Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show. He earned $50 a week for riding once around the ring. It is said that he would curse the audience in Lakota; it is also said that he would give speeches about the education of the young and normalization of relations between the Sioux and the Whites. It is possible that both are true, as it was during his travels with the Wild West Show that Sitting Bull came to realize that the whites were not just small bands of soldiers and settlers, but a very large and technologically advanced society. He realized that the native people were doomed if they continued to fight. After four months he returned home.

Back at home, he became associated with the Ghost Dance movement. There is no evidence that he joined, but some evidence that he allowed or even encouraged others to do so. This was a nationwide spiritual movement among Native Americans that prophecied a return to peace and prosperity through various magical interventions, after which all evil would be swept from the land. To many Natives, this meant that all whites would be swept from the land. This added an element of mystery and fear to the already-stressful relations between whites and Native Americans, and an uneasy escalation of troops began in areas where the Ghost Dance was adopted, often resulting in confrontation.

Indian Affairs decided to arrest Sitting Bull, afraid that his involvement would give the movement credibility. Sitting Bull did not resist arrest, but about 150 of his followers gathered around his cabin in a warlike mood. One of them fired a shot at one of the officers and in the ensuing melee Sitting Bull was shot in the head.

Source: Wikipedia

October 3 | Kintpuash

1837 - October 3, 1873: Age 36

Kintpuash, commonly known as "Captain Jack", was a leader of the Modoc people, a small band of Indians whose traditional home was on the California/Oregon border. In the 1820s an explorer for the Hudson's Bay Company established first contact with them, trading with their neighbours to the north, the Klamath people. In the 1840s settlers began to move through the area on their way to western Oregon. The Modocs, numbering at the time about 600, began to raid the settlers, and in 1852, after a massacre of a 65-person caravan (only 3 survived), the cycle of vengeance unfolded in its usual way.

In 1864 a treaty with the US Government moved the Modocs north to share territory with several other tribes in an area dominated by the Klamath. The land ceded did not provide enough food for the combined tribes, and poverty and sickness increased racial tensions. Since the US Government wanted to deal with one leader, the tribe was required to choose a single individual to lead all the bands (a form of government completely alien to them); the individual chosen was from the Klamath tribe and the Modoc in general were treated as intruders. The Modoc applied to the US Government for territory nearer their ancestral home but were rejected. In 1870 Kintpuash led a group of Modocs back to reestablish a village in their ancestral home.

The general outcome was inevitable. Both the US Government and the Modoc repeatedly attempted to negotiate some kind of settlement over several years of struggle and intermittent violence. After 3 years, Kintpuash's comrades began to doubt his leadership. In a complete misunderstanding of white people's culture and intentions, they believed that if the white generals were killed, the army would go away. During a negotiation, Kintpuash made yet another plea for a reservation to be established for his people on their ancestral land. As he spoke about their grievances, he suddenly shouted Utwih-kutt! ["Let's do it!"] and fired at one of the white negotiators, a US general. The warriors fled back to their camp and prepared to die in the fighting that would follow.

They did not — not right away. They held out until May, when Kintpuash and his lieutenants turned over their guns and gave themselves up. They were sentenced to hang. Kintpuash refused to name a successor, and the Modoc who had followed him were forced to witness his execution. After burial, Kintpuash's head was severed from his body and sent to the collections of the Army Medical Museum in Washington along with the heads of other warriors. The skulls were later transferred to the Smithsonian Institution. In 1984 the Smithsonian returned the remains to Kintpuash's relatives.

The remaining Modoc who had followed Kintpuash back to their ancestral land were sent to live on Shawnee land in Oklahoma, where many died of hunger and disease. Today about 200 Modoc live in Oklahoma. 600 Modoc live in Klamath County, Oregon, the descendants of those who did not follow Kintpuash. The ancestral language of the Modoc, the Klamath-Modoc Indian Language, has only one truly fluent speaker (of the Klamath dialect) left, and a few dozen other elders who remember something.

Sources: Answers.com, Wikipedia article on Kintpuash, Wikipedia article on the Modoc, Native Languages of the Americas

September 6 | John Raymond Rice

April 25, 1914 - September 6, 1950: Age 36

Sergeant John Raymond Rice was an American soldier killed in action in Korea in 1950. His body wasn't shipped home to Nebraska until the following August, and his wife Evelyn prepared to have him buried at the Memorial Park Cemetery in Sioux City. During the funeral on August 28 a cemetery employee noticed there were a lot of Native Americans among the mourners. When cemetery officials discovered that Rice himself was native, they made the family take the body home without burying it.

According to the cemetery officials, they weren't being prejudiced, just enforcing a policy based on people's wish to be with their own kind. They insisted they had legal obligation to the rest of plot owners in the cemetery.

After a big firefight in the press, then-President Harry Truman publicly reprimanded the cemetery and the Sioux City town leaders. Rice's family were invited to bring him to be bured at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington. Sergeant Rice (who was also a WWII veteran) was buried with full military honors on September 5, 1951, nearly a year to the day after he died, in Arlington National Cemetery between a couple of generals.

Sources: Find-a-Grave, Sioux City History