Speaker 1: It's not hard to be hated. You could say, criticize
Speaker 1: a beloved or powerful person that will earn you the
Speaker 1: ire of many. If it's a person who's really high up,
Speaker 1: you could even end up behind bars or dead. Or
Speaker 1: you can earn that hate by simply being born with
Speaker 1: a darker shade of skin. People all over the world
Speaker 1: and all throughout history have been detested for that. But
Speaker 1: some people, some people draw angry mobs with pitchforks just
Speaker 1: for standing for what they believe in. A lot of
Speaker 1: these people had big ideas and grand schemes. Others let
Speaker 1: very small acts of resistance, but all of them were
Speaker 1: bold enough to challenge what society told them was right.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Eve steff Code. This is Unpopular a
Speaker 1: podcast about the people in history who did not let
Speaker 1: the threat of persecution keep them from speaking truth to power.
Speaker 1: It's kind of the thing to talk about who's the
Speaker 1: bad guy right now? I mean, call out culture is
Speaker 1: in full effect. We may have reached peatrol, but they're
Speaker 1: still out there typing and typoing away. Celebrities who have
Speaker 1: been denounced for their misdeeds are still getting a bunch
Speaker 1: of attention in media and need I even mentioned US politics.
Speaker 1: I want to build the wall, the Wader patrol ice.
Speaker 1: They all want the wall, but we have some bad
Speaker 1: ambres here and we're gonna get them out. I'll let
Speaker 1: you decide who these bad folks are. Anyway, It is
Speaker 1: kindest or to cool, to be the nonconformists, to be
Speaker 1: the opposition, to have an opinion that no one else has,
Speaker 1: to proudly avoid the last se of groupthink. You know,
Speaker 1: people are really into being refreshingly different right now and
Speaker 1: talking about just how different they are as they wave
Speaker 1: goodbye to the bandwagon everybody else is riding away on.
Speaker 1: But if we're being honest here, a lot of that
Speaker 1: objection can be superficial. After all, it's a good way
Speaker 1: to get attention, to stroke the ego. Okay, let's be real.
Speaker 1: That could be heard earlier. That was from the current
Speaker 1: president of the United States, and he got to that
Speaker 1: position partly because people saw him as someone who's outside
Speaker 1: of the establishment, someone knew, someone who spoke the words
Speaker 1: that so many wanted to say but couldn't say, someone
Speaker 1: who could disrupt the machine and bring change they so
Speaker 1: desperately needed. Now, whether that's true is a different conversation.
Speaker 1: The point is somewhere there will always be an accepted
Speaker 1: state that someone will turn upside down for better or
Speaker 1: for worse. That's why when people meaningfully reject established systems
Speaker 1: and norms, knowing that backlash can be dark, but hoping
Speaker 1: the outcome could be worth it, it says something. I
Speaker 1: know everyone has an opinion, and yes, people can be
Speaker 1: super vocal about their opinions, thoughts, or ideas and just
Speaker 1: be strong and wrong. Lucky for you, I'm not here
Speaker 1: to talk about those people. Unfortunately for all of us,
Speaker 1: the arc of history helps us separate the loudmouth quacks
Speaker 1: from the people whose descent was actually productive. The reality is,
Speaker 1: even though it's not hard to be hate did, it
Speaker 1: is hard to be the person who's at the receiving
Speaker 1: end of that hate. It takes sacrifice encourage to follow
Speaker 1: through when you're advocating for a cause that you know
Speaker 1: will put you at odds with others. Some people in
Speaker 1: history they dared to go against the current and a
Speaker 1: sea that threatened to drown them. They questioned the status
Speaker 1: quo even when they had targets on their back, and
Speaker 1: they left a mark on the world, or at least
Speaker 1: they are little piece of it. When the fight is
Speaker 1: one worth fighting, it can pay to be unpopular. The
Speaker 1: response maybe fear, a version, ridicule, but hey, nobody can
Speaker 1: be loved by everyone anyway. Every week will bring you
Speaker 1: the story of a person or group who railed against
Speaker 1: the established order of things. This is a show where
Speaker 1: people in the minority speak the loud and outcasts are
Speaker 1: decidedly in in. Today's person of the Hour is tataka
Speaker 1: Io Take, also known as Sitting Bull. I wish it
Speaker 1: to be remembered that I was the last man of
Speaker 1: my tribe to surrender my rifle. That's what hunk Papua
Speaker 1: Lakota chief Sitting Bull said after his son handed his
Speaker 1: father's gun over to a commanding officer in eight one.
Speaker 1: Throughout his life, Sitting Bull stuck to his goods. He
Speaker 1: fought with passion and resolve. He was committed to resisting
Speaker 1: the influence and dominance of white people and preserving the
Speaker 1: Lacoda lifestyle and land. When we look back at the
Speaker 1: life of Sitting Bull, we see him as this larger
Speaker 1: than life, heroic character who championed Native American rights. But
Speaker 1: it turns out time a close sister of distance can
Speaker 1: also make the heart grow fonder. The thing is, while
Speaker 1: he was a much respected and loved chief to the
Speaker 1: people he fought for, he was a public enemy. The
Speaker 1: new America he found himself in wasn't a friendly one.
Speaker 1: Whites were generally hostile to the Native people's ways of life,
Speaker 1: impartial to assimilation, and sitting bowl wasn't planning on going
Speaker 1: down that easy. He was an agitator, so in their
Speaker 1: eyes he was a problem. Imaginative for a moment. Living
Speaker 1: on a land that feeds you, provides you in your
Speaker 1: family's shelter, and gives you clothing. You your parents, your
Speaker 1: parents parents have grown up there, tended to the land,
Speaker 1: built up communities and traditions there, learned the land and
Speaker 1: learn to love it like another family member. It is
Speaker 1: your home, and you and your ancestors have made many
Speaker 1: memories there. Stories of things that happened on that land
Speaker 1: have been passed down through generations. It is your home,
Speaker 1: the place you know best. Now imagine that being forcefully
Speaker 1: taken away in the name of manifest destiny and misguided
Speaker 1: views on assimilation. US President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian
Speaker 1: Removal Act in eighteen thirty, which gave the President the
Speaker 1: authority to grant lands west of the Mississippi River in
Speaker 1: exchange for tribal lands within US boundaries. That led to
Speaker 1: the trail of tears, forced relocations of Native people's that
Speaker 1: was a lot more brutal and protracted than the name
Speaker 1: lets on. The Suppression of Indigenous people's rituals and beliefs
Speaker 1: was a constant throughout nineteenth and twentieth century relations between
Speaker 1: the U. S Government and tribes. Tribal ceremonies were banned,
Speaker 1: Native children were forced to attend boarding schools, use anglicized names,
Speaker 1: and where non native outfits. Basically, Indigenous peoples and their
Speaker 1: cultures were unwanted in the very place that they had
Speaker 1: grown up, and immigrants would do whatever it took to
Speaker 1: get rid of them. That isn't to say that Native
Speaker 1: Americans were hopeless, defenseless victims of a tyrannical federal government
Speaker 1: and a monolithic white population. Some tribes agreed to see
Speaker 1: their land and made no effort to resist the federal government.
Speaker 1: We know conflict is never that black and white, even
Speaker 1: though movies can make it look that easy. The quirky
Speaker 1: but treacherous villain tries to foil the hero with increasingly
Speaker 1: convoluted plans and expository monologues along the way, and at
Speaker 1: the end the good guy triumphs. But no, in real life,
Speaker 1: there ain't no story that's as simple as good versus
Speaker 1: evil were only one and can prevail in this story.
Speaker 1: The story of Sitting Bull, Defender of the Northern Plains
Speaker 1: Native Americans, is one that begins in tragedy and ends
Speaker 1: in tragedy. Sitting Bull was born around eighteen thirty one.
Speaker 1: According to Sitting Bull's great grandson, he was born on
Speaker 1: the Yellowstone River south of Miles City, Montana, though it's
Speaker 1: been said by others that he was born in what
Speaker 1: would become the Dakota Territory. His father was a warrior
Speaker 1: named Jumping Bull, and his mother's name was her Holy Door.
Speaker 1: The hunt Papas were one of seven branches of the
Speaker 1: Lakota who lived west of the Missouri River. Let me
Speaker 1: just pause here to say that the term sue is
Speaker 1: widely used to describe an alliance of several tribes of
Speaker 1: Northern Plains indigenous peoples, but the term isn't except it
Speaker 1: by all the people it describes. Many of these people
Speaker 1: preferred to refer to themselves as Lakota or Dakota, because
Speaker 1: the label Sue is a derogatory name that enemies gave them,
Speaker 1: so here we'll stick with saying Lakota and Dakota. At
Speaker 1: the time of Sitting Bull's birth, hostilities between the US
Speaker 1: government and Native Americans were already at a high point.
Speaker 1: The government was already lustily looking at rich Native lands
Speaker 1: and sending people west. Tribes were already resisting American strong arming,
Speaker 1: and the government was already attempting to civilize Native Americans.
Speaker 1: All that's to say US and Native American relations weren't
Speaker 1: exactly in the best place. Okay, they were terrible in
Speaker 1: getting more hostile, and that's the climate. Sitting Bull, or
Speaker 1: Jumping Badger, as he was first named, was born into
Speaker 1: Sitting Bulls nickname as a child was slow because of
Speaker 1: how measured his demeanor was, but it didn't take long
Speaker 1: for him to earn the name most people know him by.
Speaker 1: The Plans Natives were bison hunters. They used the hides
Speaker 1: for tepee covers, clothing, and blankets, the meat for food,
Speaker 1: and the bones for tools and utensils. So when he
Speaker 1: was just ten years old, Sitting Bull killed his first
Speaker 1: bison and when he was fourteen, he counted coup or
Speaker 1: struck a rival Crow warrior by forcing him off his
Speaker 1: horse with acoustick, which was a stick that warriors used
Speaker 1: in battle to touch enemies without killing them and show
Speaker 1: their courage. It was after this brave moment when his
Speaker 1: father gave him the name that would embody his headstrong
Speaker 1: and persistent character for the rest of his life, Tatanka
Speaker 1: e o Take, which described a bison bull that's sitting down,
Speaker 1: and so the story goes. Sitting Bull became a warrior.
Speaker 1: He got into the Strong Heart Warrior society, which fought
Speaker 1: enemies of the Lakota people, and by the time he
Speaker 1: was twenty five, he became a leader. Throughout his youth,
Speaker 1: he went to war with rival tribes like the Crows,
Speaker 1: Hadatza flat his shashone and man dance. Once, when he
Speaker 1: was in battle with the Crows during a horse dealing
Speaker 1: raid in eighteen fifty six, Sitting Bull was shot in
Speaker 1: his left foot. He walked with a limp for the
Speaker 1: rest of his life, but he had killed the offending crow,
Speaker 1: so he was praised for his courage. He would also
Speaker 1: go on to become a member of the Silent eaters,
Speaker 1: an exclusive group that discussed tribal welfare, and when his
Speaker 1: father was killed by a crow warrior in eighteen fifty eight,
Speaker 1: Sitting Bull exacted revenge by mutile lating the killer's body.
Speaker 1: Sitting Bowl even adopted Arrival, a Sinna boy and boy
Speaker 1: that he caught in battle as his brother. The accounts
Speaker 1: of young Sitting Bowls bravery and his exploits seemed never ending,
Speaker 1: but as Sitting Bowl got older, the fight that defined
Speaker 1: his plucky and obstinate warrior spirit was the one against
Speaker 1: encroaching white men that threatened their ways of life and
Speaker 1: lives themselves. Because not many white people traveled through where
Speaker 1: Sitting Bowl lived, it wasn't until the early eighteen sixties
Speaker 1: when Sitting Bowl at his first serious run in with them.
Speaker 1: The Santee Dakota that lived on reservations in Minnesota grew
Speaker 1: tired of their mistreatment and rebelled by killing and wounding
Speaker 1: soldiers and other white people and taking women hostage. US
Speaker 1: troops quilled the uprising, but the US retaliated by sending
Speaker 1: Generals Henry Hastings, Sibley and Alfred Sully to attack Lakota camps.
Speaker 1: Sibley's expedition went into hunk Papa territory, and Sitting Bull
Speaker 1: helped fight, even though he hadn't been part of the rebellion.
Speaker 1: In July eighteen sixty four, Sully launched an attack on
Speaker 1: the Lakota and Dakota at Kildeer Mountain as part of
Speaker 1: the retaliation, and Sitting Bull helped lead the defense. And
Speaker 1: from there he fought many more battles against the US,
Speaker 1: including the War on Powder River and attacks on Fort Rice.
Speaker 1: Between all those battles of Indigenous people versus white people,
Speaker 1: Sitting Bull made the decision to never bow to white
Speaker 1: men who wanted them to assimilate our give up their
Speaker 1: freedom and land, and that was the resolve he had
Speaker 1: as he led his people. The extent of Sitting Bulls
Speaker 1: authority over individual tribes has been called into question, but
Speaker 1: it's been said that around eighteen six eight, Sitting Bull
Speaker 1: became the head chief of the entire Lacoda nation thanks
Speaker 1: to his leadership in resistance to US forces. Either way,
Speaker 1: Sitting Bulls reputation as a warrior leader and medicine man
Speaker 1: preceded him, and he managed to unite the Western Northern
Speaker 1: Plains tribes in their fight against American westward expansion and
Speaker 1: cultural dominance. In sitting Bulls, opposition would only grow stronger.
Speaker 1: We'll be back after this quick break. For more than
Speaker 1: two months, France's Yellow Fest protesters have been on the
Speaker 1: streets and gry over the cost of living and a
Speaker 1: political system and president they say ignores the poorest. Friday's
Speaker 1: prayers in Sudan ended with cause for more protests demanding
Speaker 1: the resignation of president. Dominant issue mccaby is long gone,
Speaker 1: but in Bobwe's anguish is getting only worse. The second
Speaker 1: time in six months, the government dealt with demonstrations by
Speaker 1: deputing truths we need our pay checks. Across the country,
Speaker 1: increasingly desperate federal workers stage protests against the shutdown. People
Speaker 1: have been using protest as a way to get what
Speaker 1: they want for centuries. Time has proven that if a
Speaker 1: person or group is unhappy with something, they will fight
Speaker 1: back an attempt to change it. Protests has caused compromise,
Speaker 1: It's caused death, and it's caused change. People who have
Speaker 1: used their voices to reject laws, people, and conventions have
Speaker 1: risked their lives in service of causes. They believe we're right.
Speaker 1: But that's the thing each side operates under the notion
Speaker 1: that what they believe is right. Otherwise there would be
Speaker 1: no left versus right, no old guard versus new guard,
Speaker 1: no black versus white. If we make decisions based on
Speaker 1: our personal ethics, education, and opinions, then those things will
Speaker 1: guide which position we take on political and social issues,
Speaker 1: and we're going to believe what we believe until our knowledge, morals,
Speaker 1: or opinions change. That's why one person can be completely
Speaker 1: gung ho about the fact that Earth is spherical and
Speaker 1: another can be like, the Earth is flat. Changed my mind,
Speaker 1: my reality, my senses tell me that the Earth is
Speaker 1: flacking stationary. After all, we were sure the Earth was
Speaker 1: flat back in the day until we weren't. Anyway, it's
Speaker 1: so easy to get caught up in who is on
Speaker 1: which side, who should be condemned, and who should be praised,
Speaker 1: especially since we have the Internet at our fingertips. Gone
Speaker 1: are the days when people can say, hey, wait, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty where the earth is round and escape The criticism
Speaker 1: of the entire world's peanut gallery discent is amplified now,
Speaker 1: and considering the number of social media comments I've seen
Speaker 1: sarcastically dismissing people as edgy for having unorthodox opinions. They
Speaker 1: seem like we kind of have a discent fatigue. That
Speaker 1: fatigue shows up in Americans who are tired of social
Speaker 1: justice warriors. You can see it in Americans who are
Speaker 1: tired of people denying the legitimacy of Trump's presidency. And
Speaker 1: then there are those who are tired of political correctness.
Speaker 1: And that fatigue even shows up in people tired of
Speaker 1: others who decry the mainstream media as fake news. I
Speaker 1: know that we really want to hate the fact that
Speaker 1: everybody has opinions and can share those opinions with the
Speaker 1: world easily and become I really dislike this word, but influencers.
Speaker 1: But people's informed, dissenting opinions have gotten us out of
Speaker 1: messes and into better places. And we don't get to
Speaker 1: have productive opposition without some nonsense here and there. People
Speaker 1: like Sitting Bull, who hold fast to their resistance of
Speaker 1: the status quo and take one for the team helped
Speaker 1: the world go round because it's not flat. Well, this
Speaker 1: is awkward. The latter half of Sitting Bull's life was
Speaker 1: full of conflict with the US. American forces were powerful
Speaker 1: and their ability to organize was great, but Sitting Bull
Speaker 1: and all the other Native Americans who wanted to resist
Speaker 1: the influence of white people were tenacious and determined to
Speaker 1: ensure the survival of their people. Two. When Sitting Bull
Speaker 1: was a prisoner of war at Fort Randall, he told
Speaker 1: James Creelman the following in an interview. This land belongs
Speaker 1: to us, for the Great Spirit gave it to us.
Speaker 1: When he put us here, we were free to come
Speaker 1: and go and to live in our own way. But
Speaker 1: white men, who belonged to another land have come upon
Speaker 1: us and are forcing us to live according to their ideas.
Speaker 1: That is an injustice. We have never dreamed of making
Speaker 1: white men live as we live. White men like to
Speaker 1: dig in the ground for their food. My people preferred
Speaker 1: to hunt the buffalo as their fathers did. White men
Speaker 1: like to stay in one place. My people want to
Speaker 1: move their teps here and there to the different hunting grounds.
Speaker 1: The life of white man and is slavery. They are
Speaker 1: prisoners in towns are farms. The life my people want
Speaker 1: is a life of freedom. I have seen nothing that
Speaker 1: a white man has houses or railways, are clothing or food.
Speaker 1: That is as good as the right to move in
Speaker 1: the open country and live in our own fashion. Why
Speaker 1: has our blood been shed by your soldiers? And Sitting
Speaker 1: Bool would go on to say this, we marched across
Speaker 1: the lines of our reservation, and the soldiers followed us.
Speaker 1: They attacked our village, and we kill them all. What
Speaker 1: would you do if your home was attacked? You would
Speaker 1: stand up like a brave man and defend it. That
Speaker 1: is our story I have spoken. We'll be right back, okay.
Speaker 1: After the Civil War ended in eighteen sixty five, white
Speaker 1: settlement and expansion was booming again. Gold was discovered in Montana.
Speaker 1: Advances in agricultural machinery brought more people looking to make
Speaker 1: a book off farming to the west, and the first
Speaker 1: transcontinental railroad was completed in eighteen sixty nine, creating a
Speaker 1: stream of passengers headed west. That meant that white people
Speaker 1: were headed towards hunk Papa land, and that influx of
Speaker 1: people was a huge threat to the lives of Lakota
Speaker 1: since there were nomadic and relied on the bison for sustenance.
Speaker 1: Even the bison were targeted by US forces since they
Speaker 1: were a source of Native American survival. Even though they
Speaker 1: were up against a lot, Sitting Bowl still tried to
Speaker 1: get tribes to fight together against whites. The Lakota attacked
Speaker 1: railroad surveyors and soldiers, committed massacres, and raided forts. The
Speaker 1: tribe's resistance was putting a lot of pressure on US forces.
Speaker 1: Seeing how much war and uprising there was in the West,
Speaker 1: the federal government drew up the Treaty of Fort Laramie
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty eight. The treaty established what was called
Speaker 1: the Great Sioux Reservation, including an area called the Black
Speaker 1: Hills that would be designated exclusively for those Native people
Speaker 1: who agreed to it. It also said that the U
Speaker 1: s would abandon forts it had set up along the
Speaker 1: Bowsman Trail, which had become a point of conflict between
Speaker 1: the US and Native Americans. Spoiler alert Sitting Bowl never
Speaker 1: signed a treaty, but the starry eyed hope for this
Speaker 1: treaty was peace and the late eighteen sixties in early
Speaker 1: eighteen seventies where the era of President Ulysses Grant's Peace Policy,
Speaker 1: which attempted to get rid of corrupt Indian Bureau agents.
Speaker 1: There was a moment of relative silence, but it definitely
Speaker 1: wasn't all peaceful. The government was still after the natives
Speaker 1: way of life. The US instituted agricultural training on reservations,
Speaker 1: and established schools and churches intended to convert Native Americans
Speaker 1: to Christianity. So the word peace is probably a euphemism,
Speaker 1: but that faux piece didn't last too long anyway. In
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy four, General George Armstrong Custer lent an expedition
Speaker 1: looking for gold into the Black Hills, and even though
Speaker 1: that land was a no go for prospectors because of
Speaker 1: the Laramie Treaty, they went for it anyway. The Lakota people,
Speaker 1: of course, weren't having it, and Sitting Bull helped unite
Speaker 1: the branches of the Lakota to face the army and
Speaker 1: reservation agents. Sitting Bowl was also a respected medicine man,
Speaker 1: so when he underwent the Sun Dance, a religious ceremony
Speaker 1: that's done for the welfare of the people, and had
Speaker 1: a vision of a victory, people believed him. When custer
Speaker 1: seventh Cavalry rolled into the Lakota encampment on a mission,
Speaker 1: the Natives emerged victorious, but Americans were really upset about
Speaker 1: the defeat, and the Lakota people who had linked up
Speaker 1: to fight custers troops suffered a lot of losses to
Speaker 1: persist in cavalrymen, so Sitting Bowl and the anti treaty
Speaker 1: natives who hadn't surrendered flat to Canada. M That didn't
Speaker 1: go so well either. Sitting Bowl was losing people's allegiance
Speaker 1: as they had a hard time finding food in Canada,
Speaker 1: and one after five years in Canada, Sitting Bowl went
Speaker 1: back to America with less than three hundred of his followers.
Speaker 1: When he got back, he handed in his rifle, then
Speaker 1: was sent to Standing Rock Reservation, then Fort Randall, where
Speaker 1: he was held as a prisoner of war for almost
Speaker 1: two years. Even though he had surrendered, he was still
Speaker 1: steadfast in his resistance to white assimilation, and he remained
Speaker 1: that way until he died. Near the end of his life,
Speaker 1: he joined in on the Ghost Stands, a ceremony that
Speaker 1: was spreading through Native American tribes that was supposed to
Speaker 1: put an end to white people's oppression of Indigenous peoples
Speaker 1: and bring about a new leader. But the dance brought
Speaker 1: about Sitting Bulls demise. Americans were afraid that the Ghost
Speaker 1: Dance was really a call to political action, and Sitting Bull,
Speaker 1: as fearsome as he was, could in no way be
Speaker 1: a part of that. On December ninety, police tried to
Speaker 1: arrest Sitting Bull fearing his involvement in the Ghost Dance.
Speaker 1: In the scuffle that ensued, one of the Lakota policemen
Speaker 1: shot and killed Sitting Bull. Sitting Bull was all about
Speaker 1: the preservation of his people in their way of life,
Speaker 1: but white people were able to suppress Native traditions and
Speaker 1: languages in a major way. That doesn't mean that Sitting
Speaker 1: Bowls efforts were for not. Sitting Bulls legacy as a
Speaker 1: defender of the Lakota people lives on, and he has
Speaker 1: achieved a sort of legendary status in Native American, American
Speaker 1: and world history. It's unfair to say just because he
Speaker 1: didn't when the war he was fighting, and it was
Speaker 1: a war that Sitting Bulls efforts were meaningless. Sitting Bowl
Speaker 1: was resilient. He was an enemy of many people throughout
Speaker 1: his life because of his commitment to protecting Native American lives.
Speaker 1: It would have been easy for him to choose the
Speaker 1: path of least resistance. Instead, he chose to disrupt. It
Speaker 1: is not hard to be hated, but if you are
Speaker 1: going to be, at least make it worthwhile. Sitting Bulls
Speaker 1: resolve despite all the backlash and losses he faced is
Speaker 1: a good reminder that sometimes a fight just takes serious doggedness.
Speaker 1: Sitting Bull helped keep Native people in traditions alive, and
Speaker 1: he inspired tons of people to resist, to honor their heritage,
Speaker 1: and to be brave. Sitting Bull was hunted and feared
Speaker 1: for his defiance, but it was his defiance that made
Speaker 1: him the bold leader we remember him as today. Andrew
Speaker 1: Howard is our producer. Holly Fry and Christopher Hasiotis are
Speaker 1: executive producers. You can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with another episode of Unpopular
Speaker 1: k