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The Lakota leader Sitting Bull was first buried on the Standing Rock reservation, only to be disinterred and re-buried sixty years later. A historical study of these graves leads less to the commemoration of a great man than an opportunity to reexamine colonialism within America. While American colonial power was a fragile one and challenged by some, it was also deeply rooted in the symbolic interactions that took place on and around the reservations, which involved depriving people of land, singling out certain segments of the population, and Americanizing people’s belief systems. While this attempt at internal colonization has been considered a massive failure due to the resistance of native populations, this article seeks to lend nuance to this interpretation and analyze the situation in all its complexity