White Bull (Lakota: Tȟatȟáŋka Ská) (April 1849 – June 21, 1947) was the nephew of Sitting Bull, and a famous warrior in his own right. White Bull participated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876. For years it was said White Bull boasted of killing Lt. George Armstrong Custer at the famous battle. Other sources say White Bull himself never made that claim but admitted to struggling with Custer.
Born in the Black Hills in South Dakota, White Bull came from a prominent Sioux family. He was the son of Makes Room, a Miniconjou chief and the brother of One Bull. White Bull's uncle was the famous Hunkpapa Sioux leader Sitting Bull, whom he joined in fleeing to Canada after the Little Bighorn battle. Young Chief Solomon "Smoke" and Chief No Neck (these two chiefs were the sons of the old Chief Smoke 1774–1864), who fled with White Bull and Sitting Bull and their bands to Canada.
White Bull surrendered to government troops in 1876. He eventually became a chief, replacing his father Chief Makes Room upon his death. He acted as a judge of the Court of Indian Offenses, and was a proponent of Lakota land claims in the Black Hills. White Bull and Wendell Smoke (Wendell was the son of Chief Solomon "Smoke") took over as the main headmen of Bald people and Short Bald people bands of the Bad Faces after Chief Solomon "Smoke" had died in 1895 at the Pine Ridge Agency in South Dakota. Chief White Bull died in South Dakota in 1947.
White Bull's relationship to his uncle made him an important contributor to Stanley Vestal's biography of Sitting Bull.
His grandson is Chief Dave Bald Eagle, who served with the U.S. 4th Cavalry and later in the 82nd Airborne.
Famous quotes containing the words white and/or bull:
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—National Woman Suffrage Association. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“I was a fire-breathing Catholic C.O.,
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—Robert Lowell (1917–1977)