78: The Indian Wars (Part 2): The Battle of the Little Bighorn (the Greasy Grass)

“There’s a good fight coming over the hill. That’s where the big fight is going to be. We’ll not miss that one.”

This is the story of the Battle of the Little Bighorn (or the Greasy Grass).

In 1868, representatives of the US government meet leaders from a few indigenous nations at Fort Laramie to sign a treaty. The agreement creates the boundaries for a Great Sioux Reservation and “unceded” Sioux territory. But the treaty soon falters: With the discovery of gold in the Lakota’s sacred Black Hills, miners and settlers flock to the reservation’s mountain range. Meanwhile, thousands of Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho “non-treaty Indians” refuse to move to the reservation. The US government responds by designating them as “hostile.”

In 1876, three US armies move out to force the now thousands-strong non-treaty village to the reservation. Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer’s 7th Cavalry finds them first. Will he succeed in forcing them to the reservation? Or will Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse’s village defeat the cavalry and maintain its liberty? It will all come down to a battle on the hills just above the eastern bank of the Little Bighorn River.