There will only peace when there is justice...........i am warning u for your own good, i am leaving asap, and never coming back..............

n the years prior to the conflict, the U.S. government had continued to seize the Lakota's lands. The once large bison herds (an indigenous peoples' Great Plains staple) had been hunted to near-extinction byEuropean settlers. Treaty promises^[11] to protect reservation lands from encroachment by settlers and gold miners were not implemented as dictated by treaty. As a result, there was unrest on the reservations.^[12] It was during this time that news spread among the reservations of a Paiute prophet named Wovoka, founder of the Ghost Dancereligion. He had a vision that the Christian Messiah, Jesus Christ, had returned to earth in the form of a Native American.^[13]

According to Wovoka, the Messiah would raise all the Native American believers above the earth. During this time the white man would disappear from Native lands, the ancestors would lead them to good hunting grounds, the buffalo herds and all the other animals would return in abundance, and the ghosts of their ancestors would return to earth — hence the word "Ghost" in "Ghost Dance." They would then return to earth to live in peace. All this would be brought about by performance of the "Ghost Dance." Lakota ambassadors to Wovoka, Kicking Bear and Short Bull taught the Lakota that while performing the Ghost Dance, they would wear special Ghost Dance shirts as seen by Black Elk in a vision. Kicking Bear said the shirts had the power to repel bullets.^[13]

White Americans were alarmed by the sight of the many Great Basin and Plains tribes performing the Ghost Dance, worried that it might be a prelude to armed attack. Among them was the US Indian Agent at the Standing Rock Agency where Chief Sitting Bull lived. US officials decided to take some of the chiefs into custody in order to quell what they called the "Messiah Craze". The military first hoped to have Buffalo Bill — a friend of Sitting Bull — aid in the plan to reduce the chance of violence. Standing Rock agent James McLaughlin overrode the military and sent the Indian police to arrest Sitting Bull.