THE GREAT PLAINS INDIAN WARS

1862 - 90

Little Crow

The first eruption of violence on the great plains occurred in Minnesota during the American civil war. In August 1862, suffering from near starvation, severe economic hardship brought on by ever increasing numbers of settlers upon there territory and the neglect of the federal Indian agents tasked with there well being, the Santee Sioux led by Chief Little Crow rose up in armed revolt. 

It would take the U.S. Army and local militias four months to put down the uprising with hostilities ending with the final defeat of the Sioux during the siege of Fort Ridgely in late December. The revolt had cost the lives of seven hundred settlers killed along with eighty U.S. soldiers in stark contrast with two hundred native Sioux.

Of the one thousand Santee captives taken during the conflict the majority were interned in Minnesota jails with the remainder of the tribe fleeing to Dakota territory. In a grim example to the other tribes in the state, thirty eight Sioux warriors were hanged on December 26th 1862 in what today still remains the largest one day execution in American history.

Red Cloud

After the end of the American civil war, the U.S. government went forth with a plan to build a chain of forts along the bozeman trail within Montana and Wyoming. This angered the native american tribes who felt the army was once again encroaching on there sacred lands.

Led by Chief Red Cloud, an alliance of Northern Cheyenne, Lakota Sioux and Arapaho agreed to go to war and put a stop to the proposed white occupation of there territories.

On December 21st 1866, Red Cloud and six hundred warriors attacked and annihilated an eighty one man cavalry detachment led by Captain William Fetterman. This massacre was to spark what was to be later known as Red Cloud's war.

The conflict would go on to culminate in the native siege of Fort Kearny and several battles including the Hayfield and Wagonbox fights in August. Fighting would only subside in the autumn of 1867 after Red Cloud settled for peace with the United States under the treaty of Fort Laramie / Medicine Lodge, in which the U.S. government agreed to abandon their forts and withdrawal from Lakota territory. 

Roman Nose

Black Kettle

In 1868 the U.S. government's campaign against the plains Indians shifted south. Major George Forsyth's Colorado campaign against the Northern Cheyenne resulted in victory after the nine day battle of Beecher's Island (September 17 - 25) in which the Cheyenne war leader Roman Nose was also killed.

In the early morning hours of November 27th, Lieutenant Colonel George Custer and five hundred troopers of the 7th Cavalry surrounded and massacred Chief Black Kettle's entire village of three hundred Southern Cheyenne as they wintered along the Washita River in Oklahoma. 

After the U.S. government had sanctioned the slaughter of nearly two hundred thousand buffalo during 1872 - 73 to starve the northern plains tribes onto reservations, they requisitioned hundreds of buffalo hunters to move further south into the Texas panhandle region where they set up a large encampment and trading post at Adobe Walls. 

Quanah Parker

The Comanche, Cheyenne, Kiowa and Arapaho perceived the post as a major threat to there very existence and decided to act. On the morning of July 27th 1874, the fifty men present within the post were suddenly attacked by three hundred warriors led by Comanche Chief Quanah Parker.

The initial attacks were repulsed however due in large part that the buffalo hunters were able to keep the attackers at distance with there high calibre, long range sharp's rifles. By evening the attacks had ceased and Parker's warriors returned to their lodges.

Chief Parker would repeat these tactics for the next seven days until August 4th when a cavalry troop of one hundred men under Lieutenant Frank Baldwin arrived at Adobe Walls where two dozen men still remained alive.

The next day Lieutenant Baldwin deemed the position untenable and returned with the remaining survivors to his encampment at Contonement Creek. The warriors later returned and burned Adobe Walls to the ground.

The end result of the battle was that the slaughter of the buffalo heard's in the region ended and Chief Parker could claim victory for the plains tribes, for they had succeeded in saving there main source of food from extinction and had driven the whites from there territory.

Sitting Bull

The discovery of large gold deposits withing the Black Hills of Dakota in 1875 prompted the U.S. government to attempt and purchase the sacred lands. Chief Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse sternly declined all offers. Therefore on January 31st 1876, the government ordered all Cheyenne and Lakota within the territories onto reservations. 

For the next few months all the tribes openly disobeyed the government directives. So in early June the U.S. broke its peace treaty with the natives and launched a three pronged invasion of the Dakota territories to subdue and forcibly relocated the Indians.

Colonel John Gibbon led a force westward from Fort Ellis Montana, General Alfred Terry advanced eastward from Fort Lincoln North Dakota and General George Crook marched northward from Fort Fetterman Wyoming, in all the U.S. forces amounted to 3,000 cavalry.

However five hundred warriors under Crazy Horse severely mauled Crook's forces at the battle of the Rosebud on June 17th, which forced his withdrawal back to Wyoming.

Crazy Horse

Unaware of Crook's defeat, General Terry ordered Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and 600 men of the 7th cavalry regiment ahead of the main column to bottle up and surround the Indians within the Little Big Horn valley.

Custer's Crow scouts reported they had found a massive village containing perhaps ten thousand inhabitants fifteen miles distance from the column. Custer's overriding concern now was that once the natives knew of his approach, they would break up the camp and scatter.

Custer decided to attack the village without further delay. He divided his force into three battalions, three companies were placed under Major Marcus Reno and three under Captain Frederick Benteen with the remaining five companies of 210 men remained with Custer.

On June 25th, Custer's command was surrounded and totally annihilated by 2,000 Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors led by Crazy Horse while both Reno and Benteen were forced to retreat suffering heavy losses. 

 

It would take the U.S. army another year and a half of vigorous campaigning to finally restore peace to the western plains. This peace was broken for the last time when the U.S. government became alarmed by what it considered the militant fervor induced in the tribes by a new religious movement, the ghost dance. 

It was believed that during this time the white man would completely disappear from all native lands, the buffalo would return in abundance and the ghosts of there ancestors would return to earth.

An expedition was sent into the Dakota's to restore order which included units of the 7th cavalry regiment. On December 29th 1890, this inept effort resulted in the massacre of 200 Lakota Sioux at wounded knee. 

This act crushed the ghost dance movement and was the last confrontation between the plains Indians and the U.S. government.