In The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull, historian Robert M. Utley presents a comprehensive biographical study of the renown Sioux leader (1831–1890), situating his life firmly within the social, political, and spiritual world of the Hunkpapa Lakota. Grounded in ethnographic research and a wide range of documentary and oral sources, the work reconstructs Lakota society on the nineteenth-century Plains before tracing Sitting Bull’s development from a youthful warrior to a figure of broad authority as a military leader, religious visionary, and spokesman for his people.
Utley organizes the narrative around distinct phases of Sitting Bull’s life: his early rise as a defender of Lakota territory, his leadership during years of armed resistance to U.S. expansion, his exile in Canada following the Great Sioux War, and his final years under reservation confinement. Particular attention is given to the cultural values that shaped his actions—bravery, generosity, perseverance, and responsibility—alongside the internal and external pressures confronting Lakota communities during a period of rapid upheaval. The biography examines Sitting Bull’s role in diplomacy, warfare, intertribal relations, and religious movements, culminating in the circumstances surrounding his death in 1890.
