Sitting Bull did not agree to the treaty. He told the Jesuit missionary, Pierre Jean De Smet, who sought him out on behalf of the government: "I wish all to know that I do not propose to sell any part of my country." He continued his hit-and-run attacks on forts in the upper Missouri area throughout the late 1860s and early 1870s. The events of 1866–1868 mark a historically debated period of Sitting Bull's life. According to historian Stanley Vestal, who conducted interviews with surviving Hunkpapa in 1930, Sitting Bull was made "Supreme Chief of the whole Sioux Nation" at this time.
Sitting Bull Canada, he may have visited Walsh for a final time and left a ceremonial headdress as a memento. Hunger and desperation eventually forced Sitting Bull, and 186 of his family and followers, to return to the United States and surrender on July 19, 1881. Sitting Bull had his young son Crow Foot surrender his Winchester lever-action carbine to Major David H. Brotherton, commanding officer of Fort Buford, Sitting Bull said to Major David H. Brotherton, "I wish it to be remembered that I was the last man of my tribe to surrender my rifle." To the Oglala Lakotas, Dakotas and