Defeat and demise of the Native Americans of the Plains
The Native Americans of the Plains were ultimately defeated and contained by white settlers, who outnumbered them, had more technology, more money, and who destroyed their traditional way of life.
Part of
Battle of Little Bighorn
Background
- Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull refused to accept the peace of 1868
- Gold was discovered in the Black Hills in 1874
- The Sioux refused to sell their land in the Black Hills
- The government ordered the Sioux onto small reservations. When the Sioux refused, they were declared
hostile
1876 campaign, battle preparation
- General Philip Sheridan was sent to defeat the Sioux
- In June 1876 US armies, led by the generals Alfred Terry and John Gibbon, met at the Yellowstone river
- Gibbon was set to march up the Little Bighorn River, and Lt Colonel George Custer was ordered to march round the Wolf Mountains, as part of a two-pronged attack on the Sioux camp
To the Little Bighorn
- The Sioux had been joined by the Cheyenne and Arapaho, making an army of more than 3,000 warriors, armed with Winchester repeating rifles
- Custer marched his men through (not round) the Wolf Mountains, to arrive at the Sioux camp first
- Custer divided his 600 men into three groups
Custer's last stand
- Custer sent Captain Frederick Benteen scouting, and sent Major Marcus Reno to attack the Sioux village from the south
- Custer headed north of the village with 215 men
- The Sioux cut off both Reno and Custer. Benteen rescued Reno, but Custer and all of his troops lost their lives
- The Sioux withdrew when Terry and Gibbon arrived
'Custer's Last Fight'. Painting by Cassilly Adams, 1895.