[RERUN] EPISODE 56 Sitting Bull: Compulsory Civilization with a Side of Murder (Part 3)

February 28, 2023 Daniele Bolelli

“Kill the Indian and save the man.” — Richard Pratt

“The life my people want is a life of freedom. I have seen nothing that a white man has, houses or railways or clothing or food, that is good as the right to move in the open country, and live in our own fashion.” — Sitting Bull

“The white man knows how to make everything, but he does not know how to distribute it.” — Sitting Bull

“Possession—a war that doesn’t end.” — John Trudell

“We were faint with hunger and maddened by despair. We held our dying children and felt their little bodies tremble as their souls went out and left only a dead weight in our hands. They were not very heavy, but we ourselves were very faint, and the dead weighed us down. There was no hope on earth, and God seemed to have forgotten us.” — Red Cloud

“Don’t talk to me about Indians; there are no Indians left except those in my band.” — Sitting Bull

“We shall live again.” — Comanche Ghost Dance song

In this third episode of this series, we’ll see how the U.S. government forcibly tried to change Lakota culture by outlawing their religion, removing kids from parents, and taking their land through laws such as the Dawes Act. We’ll also discuss the corruption of the agents in charge of reservations, Sitting Bull joining the Wild West Show, adopting Annie Oakley, befriending William Cody, giving away all he earned, Senator Henry Dawes wanting to ‘teach Indians to be selfish’, President’s Harrison terrible policies, the birth of the Ghost Dance movement, and much, much more.

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[RERUN] EPISODE 55 Sitting Bull (Part 2)

February 16, 2023 Daniele Bolelli

“I don’t want to have anything to do with people who make one carry water on the shoulders and haul manure. You are fools to make yourselves slaves to a piece of fat bacon, some hardtack, and a little sugar and coffee. The whites may get me at last, but I will have good times till then.” — Sitting Bull

“Let me live deep while I live.” — Robert E. Howard

“Were I to run away from the enemy, no one will consider me a man.” — Kit Fox warrior society song

“A warrior I have been. Now it is all over. A hard time I have.” — Sitting Bull song

In historical terms, it was just a blink of an eye ago. In the mid-1800s, the Great Plains in the United States were still firmly in the hands of nomadic, buffalo hunting tribes. The looming threat of American expansion was still barely noticeable. But things changed quickly, and soon the tribes were locked in an existential struggle with the U.S. for control of the heartland of North America. One man rose among these tribes to lead his people to resisting the inevitable for over two decades. By the time he was 10 years old, the boy who would become the Lakota leader Sitting Bull, had killed his first bison by running him down and putting an arrow through its heart. In the opinion of his fellow tribesmen, his ability as a hunter and as a warrior was only second to his generosity in taking care of widows and orphans. In this second episode of this series, we’ll see Sitting Bull emerging as the main leader for the free Lakota, fighting in a brutal intertribal battle, challenging the expansion of the Northern Pacific Railroad, saving the Cheyenne from starvation, Sun Dancing and having premonitory visions of the Little Big Horn battle, leading his people to Canada, befriending a major for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, helping Nez Perce’ refugees across the border, fighting in a duel at 49 years of age, returning to the U.S. as a POW, and much, much more.

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[RERUN] EPISODE 54 Sitting Bull (Part 1)

January 30, 2023 Daniele Bolelli

“Sitting Bull, leader of the largest Indian nation on the continent, the strongest, boldest, most stubborn opponent of European influence, was the very heart and soul of the Frontier. When the true history of the New World is written, he will receive his chapter. For Sitting Bull was one of the Makers of America.” — Stanley Vestal

“If you intend to do this for my sake, take good care of them and let them live. My father is a man and death is his.” — Sitting Bull addressing his fellow tribesmen who wanted to kill some captives

“I told them I did not want their annuities, nor could I sell my country. My father lived and died here; so would I. And if our white brothers would do right, we would never have had war.” —Sitting Bull

“At no other time or place in the history of the Indian Wars, before or after, would the U.S. Army voluntarily destroy a major defensive line in order to appease an enemy.” — Bill Yenne

In historical terms, it was just a blink of an eye ago. In the mid-1800s, the Great Plains in the United States were still firmly in the hands of nomadic, buffalo hunting tribes. The looming threat of American expansion was still barely noticeable. But things changed quickly, and soon the tribes were locked in an existential struggle with the U.S. for control of the heartland of North America. One man rose among these tribes to lead his people to resisting the inevitable for over two decades. By the time he was 10 years old, the boy who would become the Lakota leader Sitting Bull, had killed his first bison by running him down and putting an arrow through its heart. In the opinion of his fellow tribesmen, his ability as a hunter and as a warrior was only second to his generosity in taking care of widows and orphans. In this first episode of this series, we’ll see Sitting Bull dueling man-to-man against a Crow chief, adopting a boy from an enemy tribe, avenging his father (Conan The Barbarian-style), having visions, acquiring shamanic powers, dealing with marriages and grief, leading the first round of warfare against the U.S., and much, much more.

If you feel generous and enjoy History on Fire, please consider joining my Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/historyonfire to access plenty of bonus content.

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EPISODE 97: The Psychology of Power in History: A Conversation with Aziz Al-Doory

January 16, 2023 Daniele Bolelli

“…we venerate the crooks, rapists, and pillagers credulous historians have repackaged as ‘founders,’ ‘conquerors,’ and ‘civilize.’ We erect statues and consecrate tombs to commemorate their difference-making. But in fact, most of these monuments memorialize the dark deeds of unhinged lunatics driven by rampant ego and raving greed… most of the supposed ‘great men of history’ were criminals on a rampage. We celebrate them because they ‘changed the world.’ But where’s the evidence that they changed it for the better?” — Chris Ryan

“He who dies with the most toys wins.” — Malcolm Forbes

“If we don’t put aside our enmities and band together, we will die. And then it doesn’t matter whose skeleton sits on the Iron Throne.” — Davos Seaworth, Game of Thrones Season 7 Episode 3

In most episodes I tell a story about a specific event with a clear beginning and end. Occasionally, I tackle a theme and look at how it plays out throughout history. This is one of those times. Simple stories are great, but sometimes looking at the big picture is even more interesting.

I am joined by Aziz Al-Doory from the History of Westeros podcast to chat about a central theme in history and, of course, in JRR Martin’s work: the drive that makes individuals struggle for power throughout history. In particular, we look at the more extreme (but by no means rare) examples: what makes someone risk his position and wealth in an effort to plunge a country into civil war for the sake of power? What goes through someone’s head who is willing to murder his siblings to get to the throne? Can uber-powerful people who executed their children and spouses ever have been happy? Why so many people have become addicted to a struggle that seems to be antithetical to having a good life?

As we ponder the answer to these questions, we tackle multiple case studies: from the Japanese warring states period to Shaka Zulu’s career, from the power struggle after the death of Alexander the Great to the conflict between Kublai Khan and his brother, and many more.

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[RERUN] EPISODE 51: A Life for a Whistle: Emmett Till and the Birth of the Civil Rights Movement

December 20, 2022 Daniele Bolelli

“Until the philosophy
Which hold one race superior and another
Inferior
Is finally
And permanently
Discredited
And abandoned
Everywhere is war” — Bob Marley, War, inspired by a speech by Haile Selassie

“Emmett Till is dead and gone… Why can’t people leave the dead alone and quit trying to stir things up?” — Roy Bryant

“I think black peoples' reaction was so visceral. Everybody knew we were under attack and that attack was symbolized by the attack on a 14-year-old boy.” — Rose Jourdain

“The audience fell silent, wondering if Wright would risk his life to accuse a white man in open court. For a moment no one moved. Excruciating tension filled the room while people waited for Wright’s reply. Then, in one of the most dramatic moments in Mississippi trial history, Mose Wright, a poor Black sharecropper, stood up, raised his arm, pointed at Milam, a white man, and said, ‘There he is.’” — Chris Crowe

By 1955, in United States, people liked to say that the worst racial abuses belonged to the past—that the culture that had led to nearly 5,000 people getting lynched between the end of Reconstruction and the mid-1940s no longer existed. But then a 14-year old boy from Chicago jokingly whistled at a white lady in Mississippi, and what followed was a familiar script: the flashing of guns in the middle of the night, kidnapping, torture, African Americans looking for their relatives where bodies were normally dumped, and a justice system that was anything but just. What was not part of the familiar script was Mamie Till’s choice that led to a public funeral attended by tens of thousands, and—many people argued—that lit the spark for the birth of the Civil Rights Movement.

Among other things, in this episode:

The culture of lynching and the gutsy Southern ladies standing up against it
How ‘Brown vs. Board of Education’ set the South on fire
Paranoia over integration and Communist plots
William Faulkner and the fear at the roots of white supremacy
Getting away with murder and boasting about it
How white supremacists won a battle and lost the war

But the craziest thing in this whole story is realising this happened not so long ago…

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