[January 9. 2022| The Montrose Mirror | By Kathryn R. Burke]

The story behind the Battle of the Little Bighorn, otherwise known as Battle of Greasy Grass, by the Lakota and other Plains Indians, or Custer’s Last Stand because of the outcome, is complicated.

The battle took place June 25, 1876, along the Little Bighorn River, on the Crow Reservation in Montana. That location is significant. It was, and long had been, contested ground between different nations (or tribes). The famous (infamous?), and still-controversial, confrontation was not just a battle between Indians and cavalrymen. It was part of a series of battles where several competing forces fought for natural resources—the land, and all that was on, in, or under it.

It was a significant event in the Great Sioux Wars—between the Sioux and Cheyenne and lesser tribes whose lands they had been confiscating, primarily to increase their hunting territory. Buffalo (the American Bison), which sustained them, were disappearing from the Great Plains due to encroaching settlement.

It was the beginning of the end of the Indian Wars, pitting indigenous peoples against the U.S. Government in its attempt to eradicate their culture in the name of Manifest Destiny—to make room for those settlers.

It was a battle between legendary fighters and forces—great Indian war leaders, like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, and the 7^th Calvary, led by the flamboyant, controversial, “boy general, George Armstrong Custer. And it was also, was Custer’s Last Stand.

Historians and scholars have spent a lifetime writing about and studying this battle. I am neither. But I am fascinated with Western American history and enjoy talking and writing about it. As always before a presentation, I spend time looking for new information or something I may have missed. I learned a lot from the two Interpretive Ranges at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument whose books I published: Where the Rivers Ran Red, by Michael Donahue and Little Bighorn, Voices from a Distant Wind by Steven C. Adelson. I also helped produce Adelson’s DVD, Contested Ground. Both authors are considered experts on the battle and Western American history. I’m fortunate to have met and work with them.

This is a difficult topic, filled with angst and controversy. I’ve visited with book buyers from all over the world—Custer is a cult, and the battle both famous and infamous. The impetus behind the battle is all too familiar—The Roman Empire, Egypt, the Crusades, the Inquisition, Indian Wars, Nazi Germany, and now Russia vs Ukraine. The concept of genocide is not new. Since the beginning of recorded history, humans have set out to destroy anyone whose beliefs—or appearance—is different or who has something they want and can take by force. What led up to Custer’s Last Stand is part of a continuing saga of Us versus Them.

Indian Wars & Manifest Destiny

The Indian Wars was a campaign designed to obliterate a culture that had existed on the North American continent for at least 15,000 years—probably even longer.

When the Europeans arrived, there were between 8 and 18 million Indigenous people living in North America. By the end of the Indian Wars. and compounded by white man’s diseases to which they had no immunity, approximately 80% of that population had perished!

Manifest Destiny was a concept that the United States was destined, by God (as its advocates believed) to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism—across the entire North American continent. Sound familiar?

Bighorn was one of the last armed efforts of the Northern Plains Indians to preserve their way of life against the onslaught of western migration and the U.S. Government opening the west to settlement and taking ownership of natural resources.

Indians refused to cede ownership of the land. They do not believe in the concept of land “ownership;” they live in harmony with it. White settlers wanted to own the land, and all that was in, on, and under it. To facilitate that determination, the U.S. Government removed (or killed) the Indians. Problem solved. The story was the same throughout the west for all the tribes as the U.S. took their lands and sent those who survived to reservations.

Despite the Indian’s victory at Bighorn, where they vastly outnumbered the soldiers, Native peoples in total were a small force compared to Euro-Americans, who just kept coming and coming. Leveraging natural resources, they forced the Indians to surrender, primarily by attacking and destroying their encampments and property.

Great Sioux Wars (or Lakota Wars).

This was an ongoing confrontation between the Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne against the U.S. Government. The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty allocated reservation lands to the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne to include the Black Hills in Dakota Territory and “unceded” territory in what became Montana and Wyoming.

The Lakota, who dominated the area, considered the Papa Sapa, or Black Hills. sacred, as their place of origin thousands of years earlier. Since the Treaty was signed, the Unites States had been steadily ignoring the treaty and invading their territory.

Tribal land was being seized at alarming rates. The once numerous bison herds were nearly hunted to extinction. The entire livelihood of the Plains tribes revolved around the bison, and without the resources the animal offered, their cultures rapidly lost stability and security. This forced them to rely on the United States government to provide rations and goods, or else face starvation. The way of life of these independent people was rapidly fading. And the government was not keeping its part of the bargain to sustain them.

The Sioux, led by Sitting Bull a Hunkapapa Lakota leader and Medicine man resisted. His leadership inspired his people to a major victory. In response, the U.S. government sent thousands more soldiers to the area, forcing many of the Lakota to surrender over the next year. Sitting Bull refused to surrender, and in May 1877, he led his band north to the Canadian North-west Territories (now Saskatchewan). Sitting Bull remained there until 1881, at which time he and most of his band returned to U.S. territory and surrendered to U.S. forces.

Wounded Knee

Eighteen battles were fought during the course of the Sioux Wars, a few where the Indians were victorious, more where they were not. It ended at Wounded Knee, December 29, 1890, on the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern Dakota. More than 250 men, women, and children, most all unarmed, were slaughtered and buried in a mass grave.

Gen. Nelson Miles participated in the campaign that scoured the Northern Plains after the Bighorn, forcing the Lakota and their allies onto reservations. He was not present at Wounded Knee, and afterward, telegraphed Washington D.C., condemning the action as “the most abominable criminal military blunder and a horrible massacre of women and children”.

Nonetheless, 20 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for the slaughter.

Custer’s Black Hills Expedition

In 1874, Custer and the 7^th Calvary traveled to the previously uncharted territory of the Black Hills. While Custer and the military units searched for a suitable location for a fort, civilians searched for gold. And they found it.

Publicity about the expedition prompted a mass gold rush, which in turn antagonized the Sioux Indians, who had been promised protection of their sacred land by earlier treaties. The U.S. Army ignored previous treaty agreements and invaded the area.

The Battle of the Rosebud

June 17, 1876, two years after Custer’s Black Hills expedition, 1,500 Lakota Sioux and Northern Cheyenne warriors, led by Crazy Horse, defeated a force of 1,300 Americans under General George Crook. The battle took place along Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory. Crook retreated.

Eight days later, the Indians were again victorious, at the Battle of the Little Bighorn.

The aftermath of both battles was that the U.S. sent thousands of soldiers into the territory to force the Sioux and their allies onto reservations. Sitting Bull, who participated at Rosebud as a spiritual leader, and his people continued to resist, until they returned to the Pine Ridge reservation.