Sitting Bull instigator. Alarm spread to nearby white settlements as the Sioux added a new feature to the dance – shirts that were said to stop bullets. In 1890, James McLaughlin, the U.S. Indian Agent at Fort Yates on Standing Rock Agency, feared that the Lakota leader was about to flee the reservation with the Ghost Dancers, so he ordered the police to arrest him. On December 14, 1890, McLaughlin drafted a letter to Lt. Henry Bullhead (noted as Bull Head in lead), an Indian agency policeman, that included instructions and a plan to capture Sitting Bull. The plan called for the
Sitting Bull north to Wood Mountain, North-Western Territory (now Saskatchewan). He remained there until 1881, at which time he and most of his band returned to US territory and surrendered to U.S. forces. After working as a performer with "Buffalo Bill's Wild West" show, Sitting Bull returned to the Standing Rock Agency in South Dakota. Because of fears that he would use his influence to support the Ghost Dance movement, Indian Service agent James McLaughlin at Fort Yates ordered his arrest. During an ensuing struggle between Sitting Bull's followers and the agency police, Sitting Bull was shot in the side and head