Battle of the Little Bighorn

The Little Bighorn River is a 138-mile-long tributary of the Bighorn River in the United States in the states of Wyoming and Montana. The Battle of... the Little Bighorn was fought on its banks in 1876, as well as the Battle of Crow Agency in 1887. The Little Bighorn rises in extreme northern Wyoming, along the north side of the Bighorn Mountains. It flows northward into Montana and across the Crow Indian Reservation, past the towns of Wyola, Lodge Grass and Crow Agency, and joins the Bighorn near the town of Hardin. The battle site, now included in the grounds of Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, is approximately five miles south of Crow Agency, on the eastern side of the river. The Little Bighorn River has also been known as: Custer River, Greasy Grass River and Great Horn River.
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The Great Sioux War of 1876, also known as the Black Hills War, was a series of battles and negotiations which occurred between 1876 and 1877... involving the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne, against the United States. Traditionally, the United States military and historians place the Lakota at the center of the story, especially given their numbers, but some American Indians believe the Cheyenne were the primary target of the US campaign. An alternative interpretation suggests that the Indians would have called it "The Great Cheyenne War". The Cheyenne had migrated west to the Black Hills and Powder River Country before the Lakota and introduced them to horse culture about 1730. By the late 18th century, the growing Lakota tribe had begun expanding its territory west of the Missouri River. They pushed out the Kiowa and formed alliances with the Cheyenne and Arapaho to gain control of the rich buffalo hunting grounds of the northern Great Plains. The Black Hills, located in present-day western South Dakota, became an important source to the Lakota for lodge poles, plant resources and small game. They were considered sacred to the Lakota culture.
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