The Little Bighorn National Monument and Battlefield (21)

Today’s journey was from Buffalo in Wyoming to Billings in Montana. Along the way we stopped to spend a few hours to look at the Little Bighorn site.

It was our first taste of cold weather as, up till now we had been very fortunate with sunny, warm days and chilly nights despite the fact we were already in their “Fall”. The day didn’t rise above 8 degrees C and there was a wintery wind blowing with frequent light rain.

Once again, I think a little background of what led up to this battle at Little Bighorn and why, may be helpful in understanding what we were going to see that day. So, more ramblings…

The Battle of the Little Bighorn was the latest encounter in a centuries-long conflict that began with the arrival of the first Europeans in North America. That contact between Indian and Euro-American cultures had continued relentlessly, sometimes around a campfire, sometimes at treaty grounds, but more often on the battlefield.

It reached its peak in the decade following the Civil War when settlers resumed their vigorous westward journey. These western emigrants, possessing little or no understanding of the Indian way of life, showed little regard to the sanctity of hunting grounds or the terms of former treaties. The Indians’ resistance to those encroachments on their domain only served to intensify hostilities.

In 1868, believing it “cheaper to feed than fight the Indians” the government signed a treaty at Fort Laramie with the Lakota, Cheyenne and other tribes of the Great Plains. The government promised to protect the Indians.

Peace, however, was not to last. In 1874, gold was found in the Black Hills, the heart of the new Indian reservation and news of the strike spread rapidly. Soon thousands of eager gold seekers swarmed into the region in violation of the treaty. The army tried to keep them out, but to no avail. Efforts to buy back the land from the Indians and thus avoid another confrontation also proved unsuccessful.

In growing defiance, the Lakota and Cheyenne left the reservation and resumed raids on settlements and travelers along the fringes of Indian domain. In December 1875, the commissioner of Indian Affairs ordered the tribes to return before January 31st 1876 or be treated as hostiles “by the military force”. When the Indians did not comply, the army was called in to enforce the order.

 

By mid 1876, the army’s campaign against the Lakota and Cheyenne Indians was increasing as was the Indians’ resolve. Indian warrior numbers were increasing and other Indian tribes were offering fighting men and equipment in significant numbers (remember the offer from Crazy Horse to this effort).

The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument memorialises one of the last armed efforts of the Northern Plains Indians to preserve their ancestral way of life. Here, in the valley of the Little Bighorn River, on two hot June days in 1876, more than 260 soldiers and attached personnel of the US Army met defeat and death at the hands of several thousand Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors.

Among the dead were Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and every member of his immediate command – this was the formation of the legendry “Custer’s Last Stand”. At the climax of the battle, about 41 men near the top of the hill shot their horses to use as protection as they fought to their death. There now also stands a small tombstone to the horses that were killed.

Although the Indians won the battle, they subsequently lost the war against the military’s efforts to end their independent, nomadic way of life.

On such a cold and miserable day we had chosen to visit the monument, it seemed fitting that we did not feel warm and comfortable there. Walking about the battlefield with small, white headstones everywhere was very sobering, a time that chilled us to the bone, for a number of reasons.