ghost dance

• • Their desperation became worse in the summer of 1890. A drought meant that the Sioux were not able to farm already poor land. They had nobody they could call upon for help.
• • Their only hope however was to call upon help from the spirit world and in particular the Great Spirit.
  • the ghost dance
• • A Paiute Indian, Wovoka, claimed to have had a vision telling him that, if Plains Indians rejected white ways of life and danced a sacred dance, the Great Spirit would then bring all the dead Plains Indians back to life. A great flood would carry away the white people and they would have their land back again.
• • This ghost dance spread rapidly through the reservations so president Harrison ordered the army to take control. Sitting Bull was killed in an attempt to arrest him as the army believed he was planning to lead the ghost dance in a rebellion.