Friends Projects 2007-2008

Friends donated $5,000 towards the completion of the new Sitting Bull exhibit in the visitor center museum. The Sitting Bull exhibit will stand next to the George Custer exhibit.

To demonstrate what can be involved in preparing pieces for displays in exhibits, a replica of the 1866 Winchester carbine that Sitting Bull had when he surrendered at Fort Buford was prepared by Chief Historian John Doerner. John explains,

“This is a fully functional firearm replica of an 1866 Winchester Carbine manufactured in Italy in .44 caliber and is being closely replicated like Sitting Bull's original. Sitting Bull's original was handed over to Major David Hammett Brotherton, Commanding 7th Infantry Regiment, by Sitting Bull's son Crow Foot at Sitting Bull's formal surrender on 20 July 1881 at Ft. Buford, D.T. and later donated to the Smithsonian by the Brotherton family. Using numerous color photographs of the original, I carefully replicated Sitting Bull's initials "S.B" (carved during his time in Canada) and 'Four Winds' symbols carved into the right butt stock, along with his personal brass tack decorations, including the addition of several tack holes in the stock where the originals were missing!

Sitting Bull's formal surrender actually took place the day after he arrived on 20 July 1881 in the front parlor of Major Brotherton's quarters at Ft. Buford (the building is still standing at Ft. Buford State Park in ND). The following remarks by Sitting Bull were recorded for posterity that fateful day:

'I am entitled to some consideration from the government and the Great Father [President James Garfield], as I have never yet received a handful of corn from the United States authorities. I have come and yield to the wishes of the government, not on my own account, but because my women and children are starving. The white people lied to me.....I surrender this rifle to you through my young son, whom I desire to teach in this manner now that he has become a friend of the Americans. I wish him to learn the habits of the whites and be educated as their sons are educated.......I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender this rifle. The boy has given it to you, and now he wants to know how he is going to make a living." Tantanka Iyotake (Sitting Bull) 20 July 1881.'"

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