Chiefs: Part 1 - Documentary

[Music] if you look over there and you see that mountain was a mountain range way in the distance you see there that dip that biggest dip they call that a saddle right there June 25th 1876 Custer and his cruel Scouts were in that saddle there and they're looking for grandfather who was camped right down here and those cruel Scouts they seen the smoke from the fires and they told Custer that's where Sitting Bull this grandfather [Music] long had the armies sought him but never caught him Sitting Bull was Merlin the shaman and a prophet but also a samurai the ultimate warrior the lance and shield of the Sioux against the wasis the white ones this white nation destroys all in his path my brothers should we submit should we tell them first kill me before you take possession of my homeland the white nation's most famous Indian fighter was Colonel George Armstrong Custer the orders he issued came from the top without regard to age sex or condition kill all Indians you may encounter belonging to the zoo or Cheyenne do not burden your command with prisoners this spot right about here the day before on 24th grandfather was here praying he preached all day long you guys know what those prayer sticks are today he had someone else great loss read prayer sticks my grandfather got finished praying he put those prayer sticks in the ground right about here he was like if you come this far if you come this far custard you will die you go past this spot and you will die it's like a warning and yet they did anyways and they all died this was the iliad of America the Great Sea war he was at the heart of it all the seer who prophesized victory the chief who led his people to it The Little Bighorn became the most famous Indian victory in history but for the First Nations it led to defeat dispossession and tragedy on his shoulders he bore at all defiantly he was Lakota and they said always oka hey this is a good day to die this chief was katenka yo danke the Lakota the world knows as Sitting Bull [Music] sitting Bull was born in this valley of the Dakota Hills probably in 1831 he would die here too his family is still here Ron McNeil is the great-grandson of Sitting Bull he calls himself an educated bummed he's much more than that he has a law degree and on the big Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota McNeill is the president of Sitting Bull Community College on this day McNeal has come to Montana on a pilgrimage to deer medicine rock where legend says the Lakota camped when searching for Buffalo and fleeing soldiers his with son Ronald and daughter oaxaca seeking traces of their family now this would be the pipe and the pipe of course is part of the ceremony the teepee show all the Canton where they were from this is a sacred place walk on Tonka I come to you in the humble way where the sun the moon the earth the four points of the wind there you are always [Music] this sign here is a Buffalo's head and its back arch down City that's grandpa Sitting Bull's signature with his unmistakable autograph the Buffalo for whom he is named Sitting Bull left behind his life story he drew his autobiography in pictographs Sitting Bull was Lakota one tribe of the Sioux Nation a people that honored conquest and killing a nation fierce and proud when I was a boy the Sioux owned the world the Sun rose and set on our land we sent 10,000 men into battle [Music] the Sioux Nation was Imperial they relentlessly expanded their territory through war they dominated tribes like the Assiniboine Blackfoot and crow people as a teenager Sitting Bull was expected to prove his manhood by chasing down a traditional enemy like a crow when he got close enough to kill him he didn't but reached out and touched him with a crew stick this was called counting coup sittin bull' want his laurel earlier than most was 14 years old he knew without a doubt what he had to do to become a man he rides out alone and rides up to an enemy a group of women and touches one but to try to for me that was who he was for the rest of his life for Sitting Bull and the Sioux even more important than war was the hunt the sewer called the people of the buffalo food clothing shelter everything came from them and they seemed an infinite number Sitting Bull excelled as a hunter partially because of a gift as a shaman he communed with the wild encounters which inspired his poetry along in the wilderness I roam with much hardship in the wilderness i roam a wolf said this to me going to hunt going to battle there was an expectation that every day might be the last Sitting Bull witnessed his father's day of death slain by a cruel warrior sittin bull' got even by killing the crow with a lance to exact more revenge Sitting Bull's comrades prepared to execute some captured crow women he would always remember that moment if you intend to do this for my sake take good care of them and let them live father is a man and death is his mercy courage charisma feathers in his cap each new ego plume representing a cool his renowned GRU in 1857 Sitting Bull was elected a chief of the Sioux Nation the Sioux were 50,000 strong at the peak of their power they saw themselves chosen by the maker of life to rule the plains but now they were encountering another people who believed themselves chosen by God to rule America the wagon train route that carried white settlement to the West was called the Oregon Trail the trail ran past Fort Laramie through the Lakota homeland in 1843 only 900 immigrants used the trail by 1850 there were 55,000 Sitting Bull's saw trouble coming give me my friends we now have to deal with another people small and feeble when our forefathers first met them but now great and overbearing a confrontation was coming in Congress there were voices of moderation arguing that the Indian nations of the Great Prairie should be dealt with through a policy of peace and compromise but on the frontier and inside the United States Army there were a few who believed in anything but War when General came to embody the hardline the commander of the United States Army William Tecumseh Sherman I have no hope of civilizing the Plains Indians one thing is demonstrated either the Indians must give away or we must abandon all west of the Missouri and confess that 40 million whites are cowered by a few thousand savages to fight the Sioux the United States brought North a hero from the Civil War George Armstrong Custer he was a celebrated author famous as an Indian fighter his enemies called him vain ruthless a commander who would sacrifice his men to further his utter ambition Custer admitted to ambition saying that from his youngest days he was driven by little else my every thought was ambitious not to be wealthy not to be learning but to be great I desired to link my name with ax and Men and in such a way as to be a mark of Honor and not just to the present but the future generations on the frontier Custer took command of a seventh Cavalry it was a unit of Civil War veterans and Roughnecks a kind of Foreign Legion where if you were desperate enough to join no questions were asked drinking was part of the life they laughed at Indians who drank too much but many were drunk themselves they call the Sioux and Cheyenne red [ __ ] Custer was of the same mind he wrote his wife Libby he would be killing time by killing Indians Sitting Bull and the Sioux had no fear of the US Army men they called dog faces for their hairy beards they were confident if they lived a good life kept in touch with the everywhere spirits then they could not be beaten bad reason for confidence time and again the outfox the army they were a guerrilla force that refused to stand and fight but fighting the cavalry indian-style was perilous when the Calvary came along touching them or our style of warfare to simply touch an enemy didn't lend itself to well to fighting the Calvary because when you came in to touch them they'll they'd shoot you sitting booth had to put a stop to this dangerous game saying there was no honor in fighting the cavalry the only way that you can stop these young warriors from doing that is to show them that you're even braver than they are sitting Bull on this particular occasion dismounted his horse walked out within gunshot range took his pipe out took his tobacco off and yell back at his line which of my brother's will sit with me now I will smoke and so a handful of lawyers got off their horses ran out to I sat down and spoke the pipe with it as they're smoking this pipe the Calvary are shooting their rifles and some will turn popping up off the ground all around them and when they finish smoking the pipe that was a signal for the rest of my work done from the Kota this was bravery of the highest order typical understatement it became known as the smoking party for generals who had fought in one a bloody civil war war was never a party never again Sherman was infamous as the commander who burned Atlanta and made war on civilians in the American South war is hell war is cruelty and you cannot refine it you might as well appeal against the thunderstorm is against the terrible hardships of war in the Civil War Sherman brought terrible hardship on his enemies by destroying their food supply here he was frustrated he and Custer were fighting a guerrilla army that never lacked for food but the immense herds of Buffalo that supplies all the food necessary to subsist the war parties every natural circumstance is wholly in their favor as a consequence the troops and nearly all these contests with the red men came out second best finally after repeatedly coming out second best US authorities decided on a truce in 1868 General Sherman was dispatched to Fort Laramie to lead peace negotiations he was biding his time openly contemptuous of a peace process imposed by Washington the Indians got on a big drunk and are not now in a condition to hold their talk Indians are funny things to do business with the more I see them the more I'm satisfied that no amount of sentimentality can save them the dome in store for them Sitting Bull's cents the doomsday scenario that laid behind the armies talk of peace he spoke fiercely against any deal that would force the sioux onto reservations depending on white handouts look at me see if i am poor or any of my people either the whites may get me at last as you say but i will have good times until then you are fools to make yourself slaves to a piece of fat bacon some hardtack and little sugar and coffee despite Sitting Bull's opposition the landmark Treaty of Fort Laramie was signed by the peace factions it created the Great Sioux Reservation more important it declared that the Black Hills long sacred to the Sioux would be theirs forever but as he signed Sherman had a warning for the Chiefs we will treat you kindly if you keep the peace but if you won't listen to reason we are ordered to make war upon you in a different manner from what has been done before Sitting Bull's response to Sherman in the treaty was dramatic he led a raid on Fort Buford Montana making off with the cattle herd leaving three soldiers dead there were other raids not big but enough to give the army the pretext for the new kind of war threatened by Sherman [Music] and all whether army would go after the Plains Indians in their villages when they were most vulnerable in the dead cold of winter George Armstrong Custer in the 7th cavalry received their marching orders seek out and destroy the Sioux and Cheyenne unable to catch Sitting Bull they went after easier prey in Oklahoma they found a village of peaceful Cheyenne at a place called Washita dawn the 27th of November 1868 Custer's cavalry stormed the village with the band playing Custer's favorite Garryowen and Irish drinking song [Music] as women and children or from the TVs charging cavalry slashed than the sabers and shot them down in the snow following the concept of total war Custer's men destroyed everything leaving the survivors destitute in homeless the battle made Custer's name and led to a book deal that his memoirs Custer explained why of the 103 Cheyenne killed 93 were women and children in a hand-to-hand conflicts such as the troops were then engaged in this squaws are as dangerous adversaries as the Warriors well Indian boys between 10 and 15 years of age were found as expert and determined in the use of pistol and bow and arrow as the older warriors [Music] after the battle some fifty women and children were rounded up by Custer and marched back to fort Abraham Lincoln as was the custom of his seventh Cavalry Custer took one of the women for his own use sitting Bull was renowned as a family man he felt a growing wrath over this war on women in children especially by a society that called all Indians thieves drunks and Red savages what white woman was ever captive or insulted by me that they say I'm a bad Indian what white man has ever seen me drunk who has come to me hungry and left unfed who has seen me beat my wives or abused my children what law have I broken is it wrong for me to love my own is it wicked for me because my skin is red because i'ma sue because I was born when my father lived because I would die for my people in my country God made me an Indian and I will die and Indiana the only good Indian I ever saw was dead declared an army commander exterminate them declared Sherman and a railroad is the way to do it Sherman called it a final solution to the Indian problem the railroad did it all it was the most efficient way to transport the army to the frontier it bought a legion of settlers and sold them land taken from the Indian it disrupted the buffalo herds on which the Indian depended Custer put it succinctly no one measures so quickly and effectually frees a country from Indians as the building of a railroad as well as disrupting the Buffalo the railroad would become instrumental in annihilating them the plan was simple and devastating to eliminate roaming Indians eliminate the Buffalo all of them all the estimated 40 million for an army that had won a great Civil War this was a realistic objective the government war on the buffalo began seriously in the late 1860's it took many forms there was an ad campaign come to Buffalo Land come by train come and slaughter Buffalo General Sherman declared the campaign should have an international flavor invite all the sportsmen of England in America this fall for a great buffalo hunt make a grand sweep of them all the killing gathered momentum the leather was so valuable hides were now worth half the weekly wage of a factory worker hunters came by the thousands slaughtering under US Army Protection professionals like Frank Mayer could kill 300 a day the army officers in charge of planes operations encouraged the slaughter of the Buffalo in every way possible part of this encouragement was of a practical nature which we appreciated it consisted of ammunition free ammunition all you could use all you wanted more than you needed the great hers began to vanish from the plains everywhere that were rotting corpses great piles of buffalo skeletons [Music] sitting Bull in the Sioux were stunned by the carnage he described the country as poisoned with blood and he said you call us savages [Music] in 1873 peace suddenly descended on the Great Plains [Music] sitting will return from scouting mystified he bought tidings at the railway had stopped construction the new settlers were few and far between Sitting Bull and the Lakota concluded that the maker of life had delivered them from the white man in Indian country it was a new day behold my friends the spring has come the earth has joyfully received the embrace of the Sun and Su we will see the result of their love it is through this power that we too have our being [Music] all across America it felt like the sky had fallen if God played a role it was the god of market forces for the banks had failed the stock market crashed the railways bankrupted and millions were out of work it was the panic of 73 at the White House president ulysses s grant faced a crisis bigger than any battle he general din the Civil War to refinance America grant decided the economy needed a massive infusion of gold grant issued orders to search out gold where it had never been sought before [Music] out west all eyes turn to the Great Sioux Reservation and the Black Hills where there had long been rumors of big gold deposits [Music] majestic bountiful the hills were sacred to Sitting Bull and the Lakota the Fort Laramie Treaty forbade whites from even passing through but Custer's 7th cavalry was ordered to invade the mountains with a massive force 110 wagons 1200 men Custer even brought his own photographer the secret aim of the invading army was to shield a scientific corps of geologists engineers and miners they were hunting for gold on August 15 1874 Custer made his report I have upon my table forty or fifty particles of pure gold the miners report that they found this gold in the roots of the grass found in paying quantities on Indian land a gold rush got underway in defiance of the Treaty of Fort Laramie fifteen thousand gold miners occupied the Black Hills in response a summons went out to the Indian nations of the Great Plains a call to arms from Sitting Bull we must stand together he said or they will rub us out separately only seven years ago we made a treaty guarding the Buffalo and the Black Hills now they threatened to take it away from this my brothers should we submit or should we tell them first kill me before you take possession of my homeland the sea Nations elected Sitting Bull's supreme chief a post never held before in their history no longer would they back down the United States tore up the Treaty of Fort Laramie and mobilized the army to seize the Black Hills by force it became known as the Great Sioux war the orders were clear hunt them down and kill them Custer in the army enlisted scouts to find Sitting Bull they were Crowe and other ancient enemies of the Sioux intent on settling old scores on the 17th of May 1876 Custer and his 7th cavalry prepared to depart for Abraham Lincoln before leaving Custer had a haircut and a portrait taken he was 35 and more ambitious than ever he was determined this campaign would lead to fortune and fame making such a name for himself he could run for president one day as a seven throat out the band played the girl I left behind at the fort Custer's wife had a premonition he would never return and they came up to this rock here sometime after maybe been a couple days later in Montana at a place called deer medicine rock the first nations of the Great Plains prepared for war grandpa had a camp right down there in that flat spot they say that down and that flat spot there that they had been up out of Sundance it was June 14 1876 the Supreme chief of the lakota started the sacred son ceremony in a sweat lodge praying for a vision of what was to come in the war would the people suffer could the soldiers be stopped in the next stage of the Sundance to bring the vision Sitting Bull offered body and blood [Music] as he prayed a sharp instrument was used to dig out flesh from each arm bloody pieces each the size of a match head 50 pieces of flesh off of each arm and it's a hundred pieces total let me say that his arms dripped blood from the tips of his fingers as the blood came down and then he danced in the Sun [Music] [Music] Sitting Bull danced without stopping for 36 hours and suddenly there was a vision in his vision he's seen teepees blow in the sky and high just above that Sun he's seen horses and soldiers upside down falling into the camp and in the teepees there were just a few Indians who were also upside down he told everybody he said what that means is that it was going to be a big battle and at the Calvary of the soldiers would attack but they would all die and just a few of the Indians would die but there was a warning in the vision the soldiers are to die you are not to take their belongings for sittin bull' Massoud the vision was enthralling the maker of life was on their side and promised victory the indian kam whose south to a river they called the greasy grass the place was ancestral to the crow people they called it a little big Lorne for 35 days the seventh cavalry had pushed hard through the prairies summer heat hunting for Indians now they found Sitting Bull's trail and were riding night and day on Sunday morning the 25th of June Custer and his Scouts climbed this distant mountain to reconnoiter see that dip biggest if they call out of saddle Custer and his cruel Scouts were in that saddle and they were looking for grandfather who was camped right down here and those cruel Scouts they'd seen the smoke from the fires and they told Custer that's where Sitting Bull was grandfather The Crow Warren Custer the Sitting Bull's encampment was huge more Indians than your soldiers have bullets Custer dismissed their fears saying there were not enough Indians in the country to whip the seventh Cavalry the cavalry and their supremely confident commander began to ride into history his only fear was that his quarry would escape Custer split the seventh into three forces he dispatched major Marcus Reno and 170 men to launch the first attack across the river captain Benteen was sent on a reconnaissance to the southwest Custer himself led some 200 soldiers across the high ground planning an assault from above the Indian camp he was attacking like at Washita surprise from several directions at once all the warnings about the size of Sitting Bull's army were true the cap was immense not only war factions of the Sioux and Cheyenne but also peace factions enraged by the violation of the Black Hills 1000 teepees 8,000 people 1800 fighting men one of the biggest powwows in Plains history yeah imagine the surprise on the Calvary's Calvary's face when they come over the hill and they seen that many teepees too late couldn't turn back [Music] a battle whose thunder would echo for generations was about to be joined it was a little after 3:00 in the afternoon Sitting Bull heard the distant gunfire in the bugles at his TV the supreme chief prepared for battle his arms still weak from the Sun dance he would be not a warrior but a general on this day major renals troopers wrote up to the village dismounted and opened a steady fire at anyone that moved in the early minutes they killed many women in children including the family of Gul a boyhood friend of Sitting Bull spurred by grief and anger Gul now led the assault on widows battalion but ferocious Indian attack bro Reno's troopers backward toward the river in the water many cavalry were caught and killed about 100 of Reno's men climbed this Bluff to make a stand on the ridge just as they were about to be overrun sitting will save their lives let them go now or something go home and spread the news the entire Indian force turned to join the attack on Custer's battalion down the ridge Custer sent for help dispatching a hurried message to Benteen to bring his men in packs of reserve ammunition too late [Applause] the critical assault was launched by Crazy Horse he led her daring ride through the center of Custer's men the soldiers all fired once but didn't hit him 20 horses charge broke the last organized resistance lakota say it became a hunt the cavalry outnumbered perhaps twenty to one chased down and killed like buffalo you know something son you were about to age your if you're 14 now most of the lawyers who fought in this battle here were were young 13 to 18 years old you'd have been coming up that [ __ ] up that ravine after these guys time to count crew maybe become a chief someday [Music] long before sunset it was all over Custer and his battalion were all killed the bodies were found scattered far and wide evidence command had broken down his soldiers had panicked and run at the end to be cut down almost at will the Sioux and the crows say some were drunk and some committed suicide The Last Stand of legend was a myth [Music] one of the union's recognized Custer's body on the bluff said the warrior he thought he was the greatest man in the world but there he is [Music] [Music] Sitting Bull's vision had foretold the battle and the victory but the vision had also warned not to plunder the white soldiers possessions ignoring Sitting Bull the people took everything from the dead soldiers the spirits were angry that we didn't listen to the vision of the future that was given to grandfather that is that we would win that battle and we did since we didn't listen to the spirits and people took things from them that we eventually lost the battle for all of our lives and so even today some of those things are on on our reservation back home someday we must do is we must get those things as many of those things as we can't give them back to the American government some people believe that until that happens that all this poverty that we live in now on the reservations all the bad things that happened to us some reservations will continue to happen until we give those things back in the aftermath of the battle the Sioux in Sitting Bull did not comprehend the magnitude of the event that they had killed the most famous Indian fighter in America now a humiliated US Army would be hunting for them as never before their destruction ruthlessly planned by Custer's comrades and commanders these Indians will be so severely handled at war and such a scale will never again recur don't feel mercy into the badlands Sitting Bull's people vanished beginning an almost biblical Exodus in the last act of a tragedy [Music] [Music]

Channel: Encore +

Views: 51,116

Rating: 4.8575497 out of 5

Keywords: CMF, Canada Media Fund, Encore, Mini-series, Television, Aboriginals, First Nations, Chiefs, August Schellenberg, Tyrone Tootoosis, Billy Merasty, Gabriel Arcand, 90s, nineties, 90s TV, 90s kid, nostalgia, Canadian TV, Canadian shows, Canadian film, Canadian television, Native, Native culture, first nations, first nations culture, Canadian history, first nations history, Chiefs: Part 1 (2003) | Full Documentary

Id: i0N9lxxSPFg

Length: 47min 3sec (2823 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 06 2017