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Little Bighorn Research Paper

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The Events and Precedings of the Battle of Little Bighorn

In the 1800’s, westward expansion in the United States was becoming a rampant concept--the romanticized idea of private self-governing in a expeditiously developing country. Many people came for reasons such as living on the open plains. Others, like General George Custer of the 7th cavalry, attempted to annex the west because of rumors of gold and to settle race differences with Indians, whom he thought did not belong on their land any longer. So, following the government’s orders and breaking United States’ Treaty of Fort Laramie, on a blazing day in June 1876, General George Custer led his army of 231 down the Bighorn River to their undetected but infallible deaths. This mass slaughtering …show more content…

The Black Hills of South Dakota were home to a number of Native American tribes including but not limited to the Sioux, Lakota, and Cheyenne. When Custer found gold, the Sioux of the Black Hills refused to sell the land to him when he asked. He reported their refusal back to the government and was further commanded to take the land alongside General Terry. On the way, Custer stumbled across a large multitude of Indians and decided to abandon agreements with General Terry and attack the natives in his own manner. Expecting a small amount of warriors, he asked only two other military leaders, Captain Benteen and Major Reno, to help him with a triple attack in which they would confront different areas of the camp. Custer, unluckily, went to a valley at the Little Bighorn River and became surrounded by Indians who killed him and his whole cavalry. They were later mutilated by the …show more content…

Explorers found gold in the Black Hills, a very sacred ancestral burial ground for the Lakota Indians but disregarded the Indian culture for their own gluttony. PBS historians described the Black Hills Expedition as: “After the Civil War…the U.S. government began to focus on its territories in the West. Thousands of white settlers set out to conquer the region, while the native populations were attempting to remain on the land they had occupied for centuries. Skirmishes between the U.S. government and the Native American populations grew increasingly frequent and brutal.” (PBS). Basically, thousands of white settlers moved out west in an attempt to conquer the region and be able to govern themselves, but the natives that had been there for centuries did not want to leave. This idea of “taking the land” caused disputes and tension between the races because of American and Indian cultural misunderstandings of the land. The Americans saw land as a prize while Natives thought of the land as a shared gift from God that everyone lived off of together. This ultimately caused frequent and brutal arguments between the U.S. Government and Native Americans. The natives saw the white Americans as disrespectful to mother nature and therefore there was no more respect between the whites and Indians. So at this point in time, tension is building up and there is no

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