The American West by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300185171
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 2000-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

Red Cloud. Photograph by Charles Milton Bell, 1880. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Sitting Bull. Photograph by Zalmon Gilbert, c. 1880. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.

Then George Armstrong Custer marched into the volatile mix. A dashing Civil War hero who knew the value of publicity, Custer led an armed scientific expedition into the Black Hills on the Sioux Reservation to confirm rumors of gold there. “From the grass roots down,” he declared to the press, “it was ‘pay dirt.’” Within two years the town of Deadwood was swarming with ten thousand miners and the nearby Homestake Mine was exploiting the richest lode of ore in American history. The Sioux treaty of 1868 required the army to keep miners and settlers off the reservation, but officers looked the other way, hoping that hobnailed boots on the ground would force the Sioux into agreeing to sell the Black Hills. A federal commission attempted to negotiate a purchase, and although Red Cloud and most of the reservation chiefs were willing to sell, they set a price the government was unwilling to pay. Sitting Bull was contemptuous of even a hard-driven bargain. “I want you to go and tell the Great Father that I do not want to sell any land to the government,” he declared. And bending down, he picked up a pinch of dust: “Not even as much as this.” With gold beckoning, the federal government was in no mood to wait on stubborn Indians. Smashing the rejectionist Sioux became a bargaining gambit. With Sitting Bull trounced, more cooperative chiefs like Red Cloud might lower their price. American officials began to plan for a campaign of total war.43

Knowing what was coming, free bands of Sioux, Cheyennes, and Arapahos congregated in the summer of 1876 to hunt buffalo. In June, along the Powder River and the nearby Rosebud and Little Bighorn tributaries, more than four thousand men, women, and children assembled in what was the largest encampment any of them could remember. At a summer solstice Sun Dance ceremony, Sitting Bull had a vision of many dead American soldiers “falling right into our camp.” His dream reflected the Indians’ confidence and their determination to bloody the two army regiments of some thousand troops sent against them. In the first major encounter along the Rosebud, Crazy Horse and General George Crook fought with roughly equal numbers, and though Crook claimed victory, he was immobilized for nearly a month.

On June 25, Custer, leading six hundred troops of the Seventh Cavalry, came upon the combined Indian camp. A veteran Indian fighter, Custer had led a charge through a sleeping village of Southern Cheyennes along the Washita River in 1868 that left 103 Indians dead, including Chief Black Kettle, survivor of the Sand Creek Massacre. Instead of trepidation, the massive encampment filled the colonel with glee: “Hurrah, boys, we’ve got them.”44

. . .

A commotion woke Wooden Leg from his afternoon nap in the Indian camp. The eighteen-year-old Cheyenne warrior roused his sleeping brother.

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