His four years in Canada — in the Wood Mountain area of what is now Saskatchewan, in contact with the North-West Mounted Police — were years of declining conditions as the Canadian government made clear that permanent settlement was not available and as the buffalo herds north of the border were also declining.

Sitting Bull returned to the United States and surrendered at Fort Buford in July 1881.

He was held at Fort Randall for two years before being allowed to go to the Standing Rock Agency.

His subsequent life — the Wild West shows with Buffalo Bill, the return to Standing Rock, the Ghost Dance period, the death at the hands of Indian Police in December 1890 — is part of the broader story of what happened to Lakota leadership in the reservation era.

The contrasting fates of Crazy Horse (killed at Fort Robinson in 1877) and Sitting Bull (killed at Standing Rock in 1890) are both part of the period’s broader pattern: significant Lakota leaders who had led resistance were killed by the agents of American authority, either Army soldiers or, in Sitting Bull’s case, Indian Police who were themselves Lakota but acting under the direction of the Indian Agent.