As the main chief of the Sioux peoples from about 1867, he resisted the US government order of 1875 forcibly resettling the Sioux on reservations; when the US army opened hostilities in 1876, Sitting Bull led the Sioux in the fight to retain their lands, which resulted in the massacre of General Custer and his men at Little Bighorn. In 1885 he appeared in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show, but continued to lead his people; becoming an advocate of the ghost dance cult, he was killed in an uprising.