Moving Robe Woman (Tȟašína Máni) — The Hunkpapa Lakota Woman Who Rode Into The Battle Of Little Bighorn After Learning Her Brother Had Been Killed

SITTING BULL IN CANADA AND THE END OF THE FREE PLAINS

After Little Bighorn, the world the Lakota had defended began to close.

The summer and fall of 1876 saw intensified military operations against the free Lakota bands.

The Army pursued the scattered groups through Montana and the Dakotas, attacking camps, destroying food stores, and steadily reducing the options available to people who refused to go to the reservations.

Sitting Bull led his Hunkpapa band north across the Medicine Line — the U.S.-Canada border — into what the Lakota called Grandmother’s Land, under the authority of the British queen rather than the American government.

He and his followers remained there until 1881, living in increasingly difficult conditions as the buffalo that sustained them were hunted to near-extinction south of the border and the Canadian government made clear that it would not support a large Lakota presence in its territory.