The Last Sovereigns: Sitting Bull and the Resistance of the Free Lakotas

by Robert M. Utley

Overview

The Last Sovereigns is the story of how Sioux chief Sitting Bull resisted the white man’s ways as a last best hope for the survival of an indigenous way of life on the Great Plains—a nomadic life based on buffalo and indigenous plants scattered across the Sioux’s historical territories that were sacred to him and his people.

Robert M. Utley explores the final four years of Sitting Bull’s life of freedom, from 1877 to 1881. To escape American vengeance for his assumed role in the annihilation of Gen. George Armstrong Custer’s command at the Little Bighorn, Sitting Bull led his Hunkpapa following into Canada. There he and his people interacted with the North-West Mounted Police, in particular Maj. James M. Walsh. The Mounties welcomed the Lakota and permitted them to remain if they promised to abide by the laws and rules of Queen Victoria, the White Mother. But the Canadian government wanted the Indians to return to their homeland and the police made every effort to persuade them to leave. They were aided by the diminishing herds of buffalo on which the Indians relied for sustenance and by the aggressions of Canadian Native groups that also relied on the buffalo.

Sitting Bull and his people endured hostility, tragedy, heartache, indecision, uncertainty, and starvation and responded with stubborn resistance to the loss of their freedom and way of life. In the end, starvation doomed their sovereignty. This is their story.

 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781496220226
Publisher:	UNP - Bison Books
Publication date:	10/01/2020
Pages:	200
Sales rank:	636,070
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Robert M. Utley is a preeminent historian of the West and the author of numerous award-winning books, including The Last Days of the Sioux Nation; Frontiersmen in Blue: The United States Army and the Indian, 1848–1865 (Nebraska, 1981); Custer and the Great Controversy: The Origin and Development of a Legend (Nebraska, 1998); and Billy the Kid: A Short and Violent Life (Bison Books, 1991).
     
 

Table of Contents

Contents

List of Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments

1. Sitting Bull

2. James Morrow Walsh

3. The Sitting Bull Commission

4. Fall and Rise

5. Creeping Uncertainty

6. Indecision

7. Jean Louis

Epilogue

List of Abbreviations

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

08/17/2020

Historian Utley (Geronimo) delivers a thorough account of Sitting Bull’s years in Canada after the Battle of Little Bighorn. Harassed by the U.S. Army, Sitting Bull led 1,000 of his followers across the border in 1877. Though the North-West Mounted Police initially granted permission for the Hunkpapa Sioux to stay in the country, diplomatic pressure from Washington, D.C., and conflicts with local tribes led to a government policy of encouraging the refugees to return to the U.S. Maj. James Walsh was tasked with persuading Sitting Bull to leave Canada for the Standing Rock Reservation in North and South Dakota, despite his fears of punishment. When the Canadian government became convinced that Walsh was too friendly with Sitting Bull, he was replaced by the trader Jean Louis Legaré, who pressured the Lakota chief and his last few remaining lodges to turn themselves in at Fort Buford, N.D. In 1890, Sitting Bull was killed while being arrested on the reservation. Utley amasses a wealth of information, though his recaps of long, inconclusive discussions make for some dry reading. Still, this is a well-informed study of a decisive moment for “the last free Lakotas.” (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

“In The Last Sovereigns the greatest biographer of the greatest Lakota leader delivers a superb account of Sitting Bull’s last years, centering on his exile in Canada. It is both a deeply human story of Sitting Bull’s friendship with a Canadian Mountie and an insightful history that puts Native resistance to conquest in an international context. A splendid read and a necessary book.”—T. J. Stiles, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America

 

T. J. Stiles

“Robert Utley’s epic The Last Sovereigns is the heroic and heartbreaking saga of Sitting Bull’s desperate flight into Canada before his death in 1890. The backstory of how Maj. James Morrow Walsh of the North-West Mounted Police befriended the Lakota resistance leader is brilliantly rendered. Like all of Utley’s books, this is essential reading for anyone interested in the American West and Native American History. Highly recommended!”—Douglas Brinkley, Katherine Tsanoff Brown Professor in Humanities and professor of history at Rice University and author of Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Land of America

Douglas Brinkley

“With twenty-two acclaimed books over the last fifty-eight years, Robert M. Utley has established a reputation as the Dean of Western History. The Last Sovereigns adds luster to that well-deserved title: a masterful tale of cross-border intrigue and heroic resistance as Sitting Bull attempts to establish a new life for his people north of the ‘medicine line’ separating the United States from Canada. Utley’s fast-paced narrative, sharply delineated characters, and graceful prose make this a book that will appeal to all readers.”—Paul Andrew Hutton, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of New Mexico and author of The Apache Wars
 
 

Paul Andrew Hutton

“In The Last Sovereigns the greatest biographer of the greatest Lakota leader delivers a superb account of Sitting Bull’s last years, centering on his exile in Canada. It is both a deeply human story of Sitting Bull’s friendship with a Canadian Mountie and an insightful history that puts Native resistance to conquest in an international context. A splendid read and a necessary book.”—T. J. Stiles, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America

 

T.J. Stiles