Everything about The Black Hills War totally explained
The
Black Hills War (also known as the
Great Sioux War or
Little Big Horn Campaign) was a series of conflicts between the
Lakota (
Sioux), their allies, and the
United States from
1876 until
1877.
Background
The Lakota claimed the
Black Hills since their victory over the
Cheyenne in
1776, and considered them sacred lands. Following
Red Cloud's War, the
Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) included them in the
Great Sioux reservation from which non-Indians were excluded. While the Black Hills were often considered "
terra incognita", rumors of
gold in them were proven true by the
George Armstrong Custer Expedition of
1874.
Miners, suffering from the
Panic of 1873, began a
gold rush to the Black Hills, in violation of the treaty and Federal law. Further angering the Lakota and their allies was the consistent failure of the
United States Army to keep intruders out. Eventually, Tatanka Iyotake (
Sitting Bull), Tašunka Witko (
Crazy Horse) and their people waged war against the intruders and the United States. Many historians today believe that the
Ulysses S. Grant Administration deliberately provoked the war, since a new
gold rush and the opening of the Black Hills would aid recovery from the economic depression which had lasted three years.
Campaign
Following unreasonable demands for Lakota families and hunters to report to the various agencies in the middle of the winter of 1875-76, Grant approved orders for the Army to round up the bands by force. In the spring of 1876, the Army launched a coordinated campaign, involving three columns of troops operating in what is today a five-state region. It resulted in the
Battle of Rosebud, where the Lakota, under Tašunka Witko, defeated one of the three Army columns moving to find and force the tribes home. Days later,
Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer's
7th Cavalry attacked a camp of the Lakota and their Cheyenne allies on the banks of Greasy Grass Creek
Little Big Horn River. The resulting
Battle of the Little Bighorn saw the Sioux and Cheyenne, under the leadership of Tatanka Iyotake and Tašunka Witko, defeat the 7th Cavalry, killing 258 soldiers (43% of the regiment present) in one of the worst defeats of the
Indian Wars for the Army.
In later battles in the summer and fall of 1876, including the
Dull Knife Fight and the
Battle of Slim Buttes, cavalry and infantry units defeated the Lakota war parties and forced the Lakota people to return to the agencies.
The war was finally ended with another treaty, in which the Lakota ceded a 50-mile (80 km) strip along the western border of their reservation, and some additional lands. This gave the U.S. legal title to the Black Hills and legalized the previously-illegal gold hunters and camp followers in
Custer City,
Deadwood, and other boom towns in the Black Hills.
Further Information
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