Chief Big Foot:

By: Davin Sandia

Chief Big foot (Si Tanka) was the son of chief Lone Horn. Chief Si Tanka later became the Chief of his tribe at his father's death in 1875. Chief big foot (Si Thanka) also known as Spotted Elk, and was the name of a chief of a sub-group of the Lakota Sioux tribe. Chief Lone Horn, Big Foot’s father became a chief upon the death of his father. And also he was a highly renowned chief with very good skills in a war or in a negotiation. Chief Lone Horn Si Tanka’s father was killed in 1890 in South Dakota, along with almost 300 people in other members of his tribe. the U.S. Army in what came to be known as the Wounded Knee Massacre, During the 1870s, he allied himself with Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse together with Touch the clouds against the U.S. Army but saw no major action during the war in 1876-77. The Miniconjou Lakota suffered during the Sioux War for the Black Hills, after which they surrendered back. Following the defeat of the Sioux, Big Foot urged his followers to adapt to the white men’s ways while retaining their Lakota language and cultural traditions. After all due to the tribes poorly living conditions on the reservations was made worse by fraud and corruption on the part of Indian agents charged by the law, with supplying the tribe people with basic necessities. The Lakota tribe’s members were in a state of great; by 1889 it began to look to a little radical solution to their on going problems. The radical solution became in the form the of "the Ghost Dance" movement, it was a new religion initiated by a Paiute prophet named Wovoka. Big Foot and the Lakota tribe’s members were among the most enthusiastic believers in the Ghost Dance ceremony when it arrived among them Lakota people in the spring of 1890.

Although government reservation rules outlawed the practice of the religion, the movement swept like a wild fire through their land, and causing Indian agents to react with alarm. Some agents successfully suppressed the dancers, others called for federal troops to restore order. And also chief big foot (Si Tanka) was found dead in the snow December 29, 1890.