™BBBBwy•vBBBB^x__^_^_- <ji£3^l^^X ^R m ,fO A CONFLICT OF CULTURES trenched and held their defenses throughout All the Teton Sioux were represented—Hunkpapas Custer Battlefield National Monument in that day and most of the next, returning the under Sitting Bull, Gall, Crow King, and Black southeastern Montana memorializes one of Indian fire and successfully discouraging at­ Moon; Oglalas under Crazy Horse, Low Dog, the last armed efforts of the Northern Plains tempts to storm their position. The siege and Big Road; The Miniconjou followers of The blue and gold ended when all the Indians broke their great Hump; Sans Arc, Blackfoot, and Brule Sioux. By deed and spoken word, Indians to preserve their ancestral way of regimental flag Sitting Bull's resistance to the life. Here in the valley of the Little Bighorn which Custer's encampment and withdrew upon the ap­ There ivere also Northern Cheyennes under Two Federal Government was an River on June 25 and 26, 1876, more than men carried on proach of columns under Terry and Gibbon. Moon, Lame White Man, and Dirty Moccasins, inspiration to those of his the campaign of people who had rejected 260 soldiers and attached personnel of the 1876 is now dis­ and a handful of ivarriors from tribes of Pastern reservation life from the be­ U.S. Army met defeat and death at the hands played in the park In the meantime, Custer had ridden into his­ Sioux. They clustered around six separate tribal ginning and to those who museum. accepted it to their regret. of several thousand Sioux and Cheyenne tory and legend. Vivid accounts of the battle circles, and altogether they numbered perhaps Here the great warrior warriors. Among the dead by Indians who participated in it tell how his 10,000 to 12,000 people, mustering a fighting and chief of the *,„, force of between 2,500 and 4,000 men. Many Sioux wears a were Lt. Col. George command was surrounded and destroyed in white buckskin Armstrong Custer and fierce fighting. But Custer's intentions and had firearms—some the Winchester repeating shirt, a single every member of precise movements after separating from rifle obtained, quite legally, from traders and feather in his Maj. Marcus hair, and a his immediate com­ A. Reno Reno's battalion have never been determined. Indian agents for hunting. crucifix of mand. Although the brass and Capt. Frederick wood given Indians won this W. Benteen In the battle, the 7th Cavalry lost the five "Secure in their unaccustomed numbers, the to him by battle, they lost the companies (C, E, F, I, and L) that were under Sioux and Cheyennes, moving up Rosebud Creek Father De Smet, a war against the Custer, about 225 men. Of the other six com­ in mid-]une, wasted little thought on the news Jesuit. white man's efforts panies of the regiment, under Reno and brought by some young men that they had seen to end their inde- I Benteen, 47 were killed and 52 wounded. soldiers farther south, beyond the head of the pendent, nomadic Rosebud. Turning west, the great procession ways. The Indian losses were no more than 100 crossed the Wolf Mountains and came to rest on men killed. They removed most of their dead a tributary of the Little Bighorn later named The conflict between from the battlefield when the large village Reno Creek. Here further reports confirmed the cultures had begun with the broke up. The tribes and families scattered, presence of many soldiers descending the Rose­ arrival of the first settlers from Europe some going south, some north. Most of them bud, and more than a thousand warriors rode The Battle of the Rosebud was the victorious and continued relentlessly for three returned to the reservations and surrendered over the mountains to contest the advance. prelude to the greater Indian success on the Little Bighorn. General Crook had learned of centuries—sometimes around the Lt. Col. George in the next few years. campfire, sometimes at treaty Armstrong Custer, "On the morning of June 17, General Crook col­ the Sioux' strength and will to fight, but word grounds, but more often on the leaving less than A QUESTION OF MISTAKEN NUMBERS lided with this array, and after a severe action of the battle never reached Custer and the half his command 7th Cavalry. He still estimated the Indian battlefield. Custer Battlefield, to two subordinate The information on which the Army based its lasting most of the day he turned about and with its scattered white marble officers, Captain marched back to Goose Creek (near present strength at 800 warriors. Benteen and Major campaign against the Indians who had left markers, is a reminder of that Reno, rode with the reservation was that they totaled about Sheridan, Wyo.) to call for reinforcements. The long struggle for possession five companies of 800. That number may have been correct in Indians returned to their tepees in triumph and SITTING BULL SURRENDERS the 7th Cavalry After the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the In­ of the American continent. into one of the the winter of 1875-76, but with the arrival of at once moved down to Reno Creek, crossed the most unforget­ spring more and more Indians slipped away Little Bighorn, and laid out a new camp, lt lined dian village broke up and the various bands table disasters went their separate ways pursued by the CAUSES OF in American to the western hunting grounds. The effect of the west bank of the river for 3 miles and Army. As Utley says in Custer Battlefield: THE INDIAN WARS military history. the inaccurate estimate and early Indian vic­ sprawled in places all the way across the mile- The end of the Civil War saw tories on the Rosebud River are recounted in wide valley." a vigorous resumption of the the Custer Battlefield National Park Service "By autumn many of the Indian fugitives had tired of the pursuit and, with the winter coming westward movement by set­ handbook by Robert M. Utley: on, slipped back to the agencies to surrender. tlers. An almost certain result was encroach­ to find the Indians in the Little Bighorn Valley, With the approach of spring, hundreds drifted ment on the Indian domain. Settlers showed "Rarely, unless absolutely certain of victory, did Terry ordered Custer and the 7th Cavalry up into the agencies and gave up. little regard for the sanctity of Indian hunting the Rosebud to approach the Little Bighorn the Plains Indian stand and fight; usually he grounds or the terms of former treaties. The from the south. Terry himself would accom­ faded into the hills and easily eluded his slow- Indians resisted stoutly. Then in 1868, at Fort pany Gibbon's force back up the Yellow­ moving pursuers. Thus military planning focused Voicing never to accept reservation restraints, Laramie, Wyo., representatives of the Sioux, stone and Bighorn to approach from the mainly on how to catch the quarry rather than Sitting Bull and some 400 Hunkpapa Sioux Cheyenne, and other tribes of the Great north. on how to defeat him once caught. In all the crossed into Canada. But food was scarce and Plains, signed a treaty with the U.S. Govern­ unceded territory, according to the Indian Bureau, U.S. soldiers patroled the international boundary, ment by which a large area in western BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIGHORN the warrior force did not exceed 800, and the preventing the Indians from hunting buffalo in Dakota and part of eastern Wyoming was The 7th Cavalry, numbering about 700 men, possibility that these might unite in one place Montana. Little by little the refugees weakened designated a permanent Indian reservation. located the Indian camp on June 25. Custer, was not seriously considered. .... Finally in July 1881, Sitting Bull and 43 The Government promised to protect the probably underestimating the fighting power families appeared at the fort [Fort Buford, North Dakota] and gave up." Indians "against the commission of all dep­ of the Indian forces, believed it safe to divide "As a matter of fact, a great many more Indians Custer, hatless and standing casually third redations by people of the United States." his regiment into three battalions. By attack­ were absent from their agencies than the Bureau from the left, poses with other officers ing immediately, he might have hoped to had reported, and they continued to flock to Sit­ and ladies of the 7th Cavalry at Fort Lincoln Sitting Bull's surrender marked the end of a shortly before the expedition moved out war that had all but ended 4 years earlier at In 1874, gold was discovered in the Black prevent the Indians from slipping away. One ting Bull's standard through against the Indians. The woman nearest Hills, the heart of the new Indian reservation. battalion of three companies under Capt. out the spring. By ]une Custer on the first step is Mrs. Custer. the Battle of the Little Bighorn. News of the strike spread quickly, and soon Frederick W. Benteen was sent to scout the the scattered bands had begun to come together Regaled for the fight, mounted thousands of eager gold seekers swarmed bluffs to the south. At the same time, a battal­ Indian warriors assemble be­ into the region in violation of the Fort Lara­ ion of three companies under Maj. Marcus in a single village fore Crazy Horse (left) and that formed one of the Sitting Bull. The artist, Oglala mie treaty. The Army tried to keep them out, A. Reno and one of five companies under Dakota Amos Bad Heart Bull, but to no avail.