What event led to the Battle of Little Big Horn?

Answer 1

The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 guaranteed the Sioux access to large territory in the northern Great Plains for use as a hunting ground. However since the Sioux and their allies the Cheyenne were loose bands with no centralized political structure, some bands had agreed to the treaty and some had not. Those who had not agreed to the treaty were officially deemed to be hostile to the United States however at this time there was no open conflict.

The lands were divided into reservation lands and hunting lands. The reservation lands were intended as permanent settlements with the hunting lands as occasional use lands. However since the plains tribes were nomadic peoples, they had little hope of survival on the small reservation lands and rarely went there except to ocassionally camp.

The hunting lands included the Black Hills, which the Sioux considered to be sacred. In 1874 however, an expedition, ironically lead by George Armstrong Custer, discovered gold in the Black Hills. Settlers soon began streaming in to the Black Hills. At first the Army evicted these settlers as trespassers but by late 1875 they announced that they would no longer evict whites from Indian lands.

In an act that can only be described as a naked act of aggression, the US government ordered that all bands, treaty or non-treaty, had to report to reservation lands by January 31, 1876 or be considered hostile. The act was designed to start an armed conflict with the tribes as they were unlikely to be able to comply in the dead of winter.

When the deadline passed and predictably few of the bands complied, the US Army organized a punitive expedition to subjugate the tribes. It was during one of these expeditions in June of 1876 that Custer blundered into the massacre at the Little Bighorn River. :)

Answer 2

The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 guaranteed the Sioux access to large territory in the northern Great Plains for use as a hunting ground. However since the Sioux and their allies the Cheyenne were loose bands with no centralized political structure, some bands had agreed to the treaty and some had not. Those who had not agreed to the treaty were officially deemed to be hostile to the United States however at this time there was no open conflict.

The lands were divided into reservation lands and hunting lands. The reservation lands were intended as permanent settlements with the hunting lands as occasional use lands. However since the plains tribes were nomadic peoples, they had little hope of survival on the small reservation lands and rarely went there except to ocassionally camp.

The hunting lands included the Black Hills, which the Sioux considered to be sacred. In 1874 however, an expedition, ironically lead by George Armstrong Custer, discovered gold in the Black Hills. Settlers soon began streaming in to the Black Hills. At first the Army evicted these settlers as trespassers but by late 1875 they announced that they would no longer evict whites from Indian lands.

In an act that can only be described as a naked act of aggression, the US government ordered that all bands, treaty or non-treaty, had to report to reservation lands by January 31, 1876 or be considered hostile. The act was designed to start an armed conflict with the tribes as they were unlikely to be able to comply in the dead of winter.

When the deadline passed and predictably few of the bands complied, the US Army organized a punitive expedition to subjugate the tribes. It was during one of these expeditions in June of 1876 that Custer blundered into the massacre at the Little Bighorn River. :)