100 year old Sitting Bull

What if Tatanka Iyotake aka Sitting Bull lived to 1931? How would he be viewed by the American Public in the wake of the 50th anniversary of Little Big Horn 1916 and beyond ?
 

Driftless

Donor
Considering the relative intolerance of all minorities in that era, probably only passing notice. Maybe a parthian shot at his decrepitude because of his advanced age. Movies and western literature still mostly treated the Indians as savages, or at best noble primitives incapable of adaptation to the modern world.
 

Redhand

Banned
He became popular as an old man as part of the whole Bill Hickok shtick. It may have been a bit low brow, but it at least allowed people like him to be financially supported. Same with Geronimo.
 
What if Tatanka Iyotake aka Sitting Bull lived to 1931? How would he be viewed by the American Public in the wake of the 50th anniversary of Little Big Horn 1916 and beyond ?

A minor celebrity. Americans have always been willing to give a little fame and applause to people they've defeated, if they've accepted their defeat. And by that time the American public is decades in to romanticizing the American Indian.
 
A minor celebrity. Americans have always been willing to give a little fame and applause to people they've defeated, if they've accepted their defeat. And by that time the American public is decades in to romanticizing the American Indian.

I could see that happening.
 
I suspect that there will be footage of him as motion pictures develop, maybe even a short film involving him talking about his life.
 
Come to think of it, would he have gained citizenship with the passing of the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924?
 
Top