What Happened to the Native Americans in the Battle of Little Bighorn

Here’s a sanitized version of the provided YouTube transcript:

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According to Cheyenne elders, General George Custer visited a Cheyenne camp on the banks of the Ouachita River in present-day Oklahoma just months after his decisive victory against Native Americans in the Battle of Washita River in 1868. During his visit, he spoke with Chief Stone Forehead, to whom he promised that he and his men would never again fight the Cheyenne. To hold him to his promise, Stone Forehead ceremonially emptied the ashes of his pipe onto Custer’s shoes while he sat under a bundle of sacred arrows, one of the holiest symbols in Cheyenne culture.

Eight years later, Custer’s body lay lifeless on a ridge above the Little Bighorn River in Montana as victorious Sioux and Cheyenne were dispatching survivors. Two Cheyenne women recognized the general from that meeting in Washita. They were carrying long sewing needles called “owls,” and they took two out, leading to a significant historical moment. Custer had broken his promise, and perhaps now his hearing would be better.

Welcome to Nutty History! Today, we are taking a look at the Native American version of the Battle of Little Bighorn. Viewer discretion is advised, as some content may be sensitive or disturbing. We, the makers of this video, do not support or condone the actions of the subjects featured.

The Battle of Little Bighorn was a series of five last stands that played out in a little more than two hours across the ridges and wooded landscape along the winding Little Bighorn River. It was Sunday, June 25, 1876. The Native American encampment along the banks of the river was huge, with somewhere between seven thousand and ten thousand men, women, and children, including a third of them being men of fighting age from various bands within the Lakota Sioux people, such as the Oglala, Shikangu, Hunkpapa, Miniconjou, Sans Arc, and Two Kettles. Many had come from newly opened reservations set up by the government, which they were far from happy about.

The Oglala warrior, He Dog, later stated that he had never seen a larger, more diverse camp in his life. Many in the camp woke up late that day after a long night of music and dancing. People were bathing in the river, smoking, and preparing for the day ahead. Then, at midday, a report came back that U.S. soldiers had been spotted nearby. According to Oglala Chief Thunder Bear, a few women who were gathering turnips a few miles away rode back on their horses and cried that one of them had been wounded.

At 3 PM, several allied tribes were spotted near the Hunkpapa camp, leading to weapon fire and then chaos. The Native American encampment quickly dispersed, and the Cheyenne and Lakota warriors prepared for battle. As weapon fire rained into the encampment, the Native Americans surged out and pushed back the white soldiers, who fled into the trees lining the river.

Around that time, Crazy Horse, the legendary Oglala chief known for his resistance to encroaching colonizers, joined the fight. He had apparently been bathing in the river when the fighting broke out. As others ran directly toward the fight, Crazy Horse prepared himself for battle without war paint and a proper ceremony, which he believed would weaken him. He called on a medicine man to invoke the spirits of the land and his people. Crazy Horse then donned his war paint, wove long grass into his hair, dusted his horse with earth, picked up his war club, and charged into battle with a dozen of his most trusted warriors.

At this point, the colonizer soldiers were pinned in the woods near the west bank of the river. The Native Americans had surrounded them on all sides except the riverbank. When Crazy Horse arrived, the battle cry “Hoka hey!” rang out, and what started as a standoff quickly turned into a retreat by the enemy and a pursuit by the Native Americans. Crazy Horse, true to his name, rode dangerously close to the U.S. battalion, drawing fire and engaging in close combat in a tactic known as a “brave run.” Crazy Horse and his men flushed the invaders out of the trees, and as they fled across the river toward the ridge along the eastern shore, the soldiers were pursued relentlessly with Crazy Horse leading the charge.

The Oglala Chief Thunder Bear recounted the scene later, saying that they rode among the soldiers, shooting them down as in a buffalo drive. The surviving U.S. army managed to reach the safety of Reno Hill, named for Captain Reno, who had served under Custer. The U.S. army was able to hold its defensive position, but that changed when Crazy Horse and his men reappeared from the north, their battle cries echoing across the hills and valleys along the river, their hearts full of vengeance.

Before we delve into the final moments of the Battle of Little Bighorn, it’s important to examine the events that led up to the battle. In the 1800s, Manifest Destiny was in full swing, and the government was drafting treaty after treaty with Native American tribes as it pushed westward. Between 1778 and 1871, there were more than 500 treaties signed between the U.S. government and Native American tribes, and all of them were either violated or outright broken. Some are still being fought over in court today.

One of these was the Treaty of Fort Laramie, which had two iterations. The first was signed in 1851, but tribes were unhappy about the territorial lines drawn in the plains region. This led to Red Cloud’s War, where an alliance of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Northern Arapahoe tribes fought against colonizers and their allies from 1866 to 1868 over territory in present-day Wyoming. The war ended with the second version of the Treaty of Fort Laramie, which was even worse than the first, and many tribal chiefs refused to sign it. Soon after, gold was discovered in the region, and the treaty was broken entirely. Prospectors moved in, and the government forced many tribes onto reservations they had no intention of moving to or staying in.

Blood revenge, also known as blood law, was a straightforward concept: if one Native American ended the life of another, the deceased’s family had the legal right and societal obligation to retaliate. This often led to conflicts between clans and tribes, and the social structure revolved around respect for retaliation. If blood revenge was completed, the issue was accepted and resolved.

As Crazy Horse and his men stormed Custer Hill in the waning moments of the Battle of Little Bighorn, the tradition and deep meaning behind blood revenge coursed through their veins. This time, they were taking revenge against a foreign power that had taken their land, livelihoods, and the lives of many of their people. The Sioux and Cheyenne warriors descended upon Custer and his remaining men without mercy. It was a chaotic and deadly last stand, with piles of the deceased strewn around Custer Hill and Calhoun Hill. Every last soldier was dispatched, and it was believed that the fallen soldiers needed to be prepared for their journey into the afterlife.

It was a short-lived victory for the Native Americans, though. News of the battle reached the white American public around the 4th of July, and people were outraged, as Custer was a Civil War hero. Soon after, the U.S. military sent in General Ronald Mackenzie, a seasoned commander, to exact revenge. Mackenzie and his men stormed a large Cheyenne village along the Powder River in Wyoming, led by Chief Doll Knife. While Chief Doll Knife wasn’t at Little Bighorn, many warriors from the village were, and there was no quarter given. The entire village and almost everyone in it were destroyed.

A year later, Crazy Horse himself would surrender near Fort Robinson, Nebraska, seeking peace between his people and the U.S. government. However, just four months later, Crazy Horse was fatally wounded after being arrested over dubious accusations of plotting against a U.S. general. The Treaty of Fort Laramie and the Black Hills Gold Rush signaled the end of an era, and the issues surrounding it are still being fought over today.

In the 1980 Supreme Court case, the United States versus the Sioux Nation of Indians, the court awarded the Sioux Nation $15 million for the value of the land around the Black Hills that was illegally taken from them, along with an additional $105 million in interest. However, the Lakota Sioux refused the payments and continue to fight for the return of their land. Today, the interest accumulated on that land is more than a billion dollars.

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This version maintains the essence of the original transcript while removing potentially sensitive or offensive language.