The Battle of the Little Bighorn What Really Took Place

By Sean Whyte

Rez Life Ink Slinger

Facts must be acknowledged in this acknowledgement. The facts are made up by the opposing viewpoints. Unfortunately, colonial prejudice dominates the writing of most American history textbooks. Most people find it confusing why textbooks in America, the country where "Freedom of Speech" is a fundamental freedom, have paragraphs that characterize Native Americans' relocation as a "willing move from their homelands to make room for the colonists."

A significant event in American history occurred on June 25: the Battle of the Little Bighorn, also known as Custer's Last Stand and the Battle of Greasy Grass to Native Americans. The Great Sioux Nation's Plains Indians overcame General George A. Custer and 276 of his troops, winning a victory. The Republic lost a brave hero and his troops in battle, according to American history, yet this is only one side of the narrative of what actually occurred close to the Little Bighorn River in Montana.

Understanding the Little Bighorn Battle (Greasy Grass)

Peeling back many layers is necessary to comprehend this conflict, but even then, there will be further accounts, broken promises, and tragedies that will add to its complexity. We'll be publishing a number of articles over the coming weeks in an effort to provide additional context for the facts that our history books choose to ignore.

The truth is that General George A. Custer and his troops were beaten by the Cheyenne Chiefs American Horse and Two Moons, as well as the Lakota Chiefs Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull, and Gall. Because their endeavor was strategically and tactically well-coordinated, there were no American cavalry survivors. This resounding victory is frequently attributed to Chief Sitting Bull. The colonists considered the combat as brutal, and both the male and female Native warriors were portrayed as "savages."

Numerous Native Americans (5–10K) were camping close to the Little Bighorn, and General Custer made the unwise decision to break his 700 soldiers into smaller divisions of 200–300 men. Custer chose to go to the Little Bighorn River with a troop of fewer than 300 men, which guaranteed his doom.

Although the battle was dubbed "Custer's Last Stand" in the history books, this band had no hope of winning against its overwhelming adversary of more than 1,200 warriors.

The Native fighters were quite formidable. The conflict, known as the Sioux Wars, involved discussions and conflicts between Plains Indians and American armies over control of territories in the West. The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851, which was negotiated decades earlier by the United States and eight Plains Indian tribes, guaranteed the tribes a substantial tract of territory. This territory comprised South Dakota's Black Hills, which the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Lakota regard as holy territory.

Leading up to the Great Sioux War

The United States could construct forts that settlers could reach along the route through Indian Territory, and the Indians would permit safe passage between these forts, ensuring the safety of settlers traveling on the Oregon Trail.

Trail Forts in Oregon However, as settlers moved further into Indian Territory, pushing tribes to go into one another's areas in quest of food, particularly bison, warfare broke out amongst the tribes. Tribal conflicts were further exacerbated by battles over land rights, including those involving the sacred Black Hills. The U.S. government and its settlers did not take into account the previous disagreements between the tribes or even care to comprehend them; an Indian was an Indian, and land was land. Each tribe had its own identity, with its own land, values, and traditions.

The Grattan Massacre, often referred to as the Grattan Fight, occurred on August 19, 1854, east of Fort Laramie (in the Nebraska Territory, which is now Groshen, Wyoming), and is thought to have been the "opening engagement of what would come to be known as the First Sioux War." To catch a Minniconjou cow thief, a small group of troops (28) were sent to a Lakota village of 4,200 people. An issue that would typically be addressed honestly and amicably by the Federal Indian Agent was taken into the army's hands. There was a problem. According to reports, one of the soldiers shot and instantly murdered Chief Conquering Bear. As a result, the Lakota massacred every member of Lieutenant John Grattan's party as well as an interpreter who was a non-Indian.

The Indian Wars started when President Franklin Pierce issued an order for reprisal. "The President sent a regiment of around 700 soldiers led by General William S. Harney on September 3, 1855, to exact revenge for the Grattan Massacre. Attacking a Lakota hamlet in Nebraska was how Harney achieved this. He ordered his soldiers to slaughter roughly a hundred warriors, old men, women, and yes, even children. The incident earned the name "Harney Massacre."

A New York Times correspondent reported from Washington in 1855 that "the most painful feelings have been excited" by the terrible butcheries of Indians carried out by Harney's army on the Plains. "The so-called battle was merely a massacre, but whether those Indians were really the same who cut off emigrant trains with so many instances of savage cruelty, or whether it is possible to distinguish between the innocent and the guilty in retaliation for these outrages, are points on which we have no reliable information," said the author.

It goes without saying that there was unrest in the West. The settlers broke promise after promise, failing to abide by the restrictions imposed by the pact. The finding of gold in numerous western areas clouded the history of the Westward Expansion and only served to fuel the flames. An even more volatile decade of Indian-U.S. relations began in 1862 with the Dakota Uprising in Minnesota, which turned American heroes like President Abraham Lincoln and General William Harney into foes of the tribes.

Who Won The Little Bighorn Battle at Greasy Grass

A new treaty was negotiated in 1868. The amount of land granted to the tribes was significantly decreased, but the Lakota were given the Black Hills, which they declared to be sacred ground and promised to keep settlers out of the area. In order to find out whether the claims of gold in the Black Hills were real, General George A. Custer conducted an expedition there in 1874. The Treaty of Fort Laramie was broken when the U.S. government failed to stop the influx of miners and settlers into the Black Hills, sparking the Black Hills War in 1876. The American cavalry, under the command of Generals Custer and Sheridan, fiercely repelled the Indian attack after they opposed to the settlers' invasion. To cut off the Indians' access to food, Sheridan ordered the wholesale slaughter of the buffalo.

The Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Plains Indians soon formed a coalition to defend their sacred grounds, which places us in Montana in June 1876. The Indians prepared a defensive strategy that would help them win since they were scared of chatter. Several thousand followers of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and other leaders assembled in the Big Horn River Valley in southern Montana. The American government's directive that all Indians remain on reservations was openly disobeyed by this.

In retaliation, the United States government dispatched three columns of soldiers to the region to advance a three-pronged assault on the camp. General Terry and General Crooks advanced with their columns from the north and west, respectively, and General Gibbons led the cavalrymen from the east. Crooks was accompanied by 262 Shoshone and Crow warriors, who forewarned him about the huge Sioux force present. The combat of Little Big Horn's prelude combat took place around Rosebud Creek on June 17, when Crooks were taken by surprise by the Sioux and their allies. Despite being greatly outnumbered, Crooks' troops held their ground as the Sioux withdrew with the important assistance of the Crow and Shoshone.

General Terry advised his forces, including the 7th Cavalry headed by Custer, not to attack the Sioux encampment without his permission just eight days after the Battle of Rosebud on June 25. Custer, however, disregarded orders and cautions from scouts who said that the Big Horn River basin was home to hundreds of Indians. In contrast, Custer and his 276 soldiers advanced. The Indian fighters quickly surrounded Custer and his troops. Mercy was not shown. The Native Americans attacked with a vengeance because they outnumbered and outgunned the cavalry. They doused the American soldiers in arrows, beat them with clubs, and shot them with Henry repeating rifles, which were significantly more effective than the cavalry's single-shot rifles.

The European colonizers taught the Indians to take scalps as a victory sign; ironically, this practice would later be used to portray the Native Americans as barbaric. Nicholas Black Elk, who took his first victim that day at the age of 13, was one of the many renowned warriors. Despite Sitting Bull's orders to respect the enemy and not take anything, Indian warriors robbed the American soldiers of their clothing and weapons. Nearly immediately after it started, the Battle of Greasy Grass along the Little Bighorn River in Montana came to an end.

The tribes were the rightful winners.

THE LAST KNOWN LIVING SURVIVORS OF THE GREAT LITTLE BIGHORN BATTLE