Sitting Bull "Buffalo Bill's Wild West" show. Tension between Sitting Bull and Agent McLaughlin increased and each became more wary of the other over several issues including division and sale of parts of the Great Sioux Reservation. During that period, in 1889 Indian Rights Activist Caroline Weldon from Brooklyn, New York, a member of the National Indian Defense Association "NIDA", reached out to Sitting Bull, acting to be his voice, secretary, interpreter and advocate. She joined him, together with her young son Christy at his compound on the Grand River, sharing with him and his family home and hearth. A Paiute Indian,
Sitting Bull who counted twelve people in the Hunkpapa leader's immediate family. Forty-one families, totaling 195 people, were recorded in Sitting Bull's band. The military decided to transfer Sitting Bull and his band to Fort Randall, to be held as prisoners of war. Loaded onto a steamboat, the band of 172 people was sent down the Missouri River to Fort Randall (near present-day Pickstown, South Dakota) on the southern border of the state. There they spent the next 20 months. They were allowed to return north to the Standing Rock Agency in May 1883. In 1883, rumors were reported that Sitting Bull