A visit to Crow Agency and the Little Bighorn battlefield.

Sorry for the delay in updating the blog.

 

We’d been on the move for over a month and living out of the car was losing its appeal. A cabin in a campground on the banks of the Yellowstone River provided a few quiet days to catch our breath. Then, right on cue, an email arrived inviting us to visit the Little Bighorn College, on the Crow Indian reservation about 100 km east of Billings, Montana.

The name Little Bighorn rang a bell, but not a very loud one. We set out not realising that chance had directed us to another of the sites where the disastrous relationship between the US government and Native Americans was forged. It was at Little Bighorn that the 7^th Cavalry, under the command of George Armstrong Custer suffered ignoble defeat at the hands of warriors of the Sioux and Cheyenne tribes in one of the most famous battles in US history. This defeat provoked a savage reaction by US politicians and soldiers, culminating in the murders of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, the massacre at Wounded Knee and the end to the armed Indian resistance.

 

While Julie met with health providers at the college and hospital I headed for the battlefield, now a National Monument.

 

Julie found workers and programs that echoed her own efforts in Bunbury and came away excited by what was happening in the community (including a new name for her lay educators …. ‘Health Messengers’).

 

I found a monument to an inglorious defeat, where a man possessed of reckless arrogance led his troops to certain death and a sad monument to the Indian victors which called mainly for peace.

In the mid 1870’s large numbers of Native Americans of the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes had moved off their reservations and returned to the rich hunting grounds of their traditional lands.

 

The US government, determined to force them back onto the reservations sent thousands of troops in three columns against them. The column approaching from the South was routed in a series of skirmishes with Crazy Horse and his warriors in the battle of the Rosebud. The other two columns, unaware of this defeat continued their march.

 

 

Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his contingent of the 7th cavalry (around 600 men) were ordered to move ahead of their column to approach the Little Bighorn from the south while the main column moved north. On June 25^th,1876, they came across a large Indian settlement on the banks of the Little Bighorn River. Custer, with reckless arrogance, decided to attack rather than wait for reinforcements. He split his small band of cavalry into three, and ordered one group, under the command of Major Marcus Reno, to attack the Indian settlement from the south while a group under his command moved along the ridge above the settlement to mount an attack from the north. The third group was sent to scout the bluffs to the south.

 

 

Reno’s attack took the settlement by surprise, but warriors of the Lakota and Cheyenne tribes soon retaliated and forced Reno to retreat back into the hills. The retreat became a rout as the troops struggled to cross the river and ascend the hills to a defensive position.

 

 

The warriors then turned their attention to Custer and his band (around 210 men) who were descending down a ravine towards the river to the north of the encampment. Thousands of heavily armed warriors confronted the troops while others swarmed over the ridge of the ravine, attacking their flank.

 

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The battle lasted less than 30 minutes. Custer and all of his troops were killed.

 

In 1881, a memorial was erected on ‘Last Stand hill’ over the mass grave of the soldiers killed in the battle. The grey marble memorial lists the names of men the 7^th Cavalry unit and the Indian scouts who met their death at the hands of the warriors. .

 

 

I stood looking at the monument. What did it really represent?

 

Was it a monument to a recklessly stupid man whose arrogance led to the certain death of those under his command;

was it a memorial to the courage of the soldiers who died in an un-winnable battle initiated by their foolish commander;

or was it a memorial erected by politicians to glorify the battle and distract attention from the truth?

 

 

 

This monument stood alone above the battlefield for over 100 years. There was no acknowledgement of the Native Americans who died defending their land and culture until 1996, when the US national conscience led to a competition to design a monument to the Native Americans who died in the battle. A monument to the warriors now stands near the crest of the battlefield. It honours both the Native Americans who fought for their land and those who fought as scouts for the US army. The design is beautiful, somehow in harmony with the surroundings. The etchings on the marble plaques that line the walls bear the images and philosophical statements of the warrior chiefs. It speaks more of peace than of war.

 

 

 

My mind drifted back to the Crazy Horse monument. His hand is outstretched reaching to the horizon.

Below the monument are etched his words, “My lands are where my dead lie buried”.