He spent two years as a prisoner of war at Fort Randall, then was released to the Standing Rock Agency on the Missouri River, where the boundaries between North and South Dakota straddle the river. He lived at the agency from 1883 onward, and he was never an easy presence from the perspective of the agents who administered it. He opposed the 1887 Dawes Act, which broke up communal tribal landholding into individual allotments. He opposed further land cessions. He used his fame and his authority to argue, consistently and loudly, against the policies that were systematically dismantling Lakota land and life.
In 1885, he spent one season with Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West show — the touring spectacle that brought performances of frontier life and simulated combat to audiences in the eastern United States and, eventually, Europe. The show made Sitting Bull even more famous. He earned income from autographs and photographs. He was paid well. He left after a single season, reportedly disturbed by what he saw of poverty among white Americans in eastern cities.
He returned to Standing Rock, where he remained for the rest of his life. He took in children who had been orphaned, sharing what he had. He maintained his ceremonial and spiritual practices. He continued to resist the erosion of Lakota land.
By 1890, the situation on the northern plains had grown desperate. Drought had devastated crops. The cattle herds promised by the government were inadequate. Disease moved through the agencies. In this context, a spiritual movement called the Ghost Dance spread from the Great Basin across the plains — a ceremonial practice that promised, in various formulations, the restoration of the old world, the return of the buffalo, and the disappearance of the white settlers who had come to dominate the landscape.