"My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm-swept plain...There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell-paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory."
― Chief Seattle, The Chief Seattle's Speech
"And America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes--believes with all its heart--that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their brothers. This nation shouldn't exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are."
― Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railroad
"Indian warfare is, of all warfare, the most trying and the most thankless.... In it you are required to serve without incentive of promotion or recognition, in truth, without favor or hope of reward...."
— General George Crook
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One of the most crushing defeats recorded in US history. Custer's Last Stand. On June 25th in 1876, Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his army, would forever be remembered in U.S history. It was during this time that tension between the native people and white settlers was already beginning to build. During the mid 19th century, the established American government was trying to confine the native people to Indian reservations. Much had already been taken from the Natives. Land had been stolen away by the government already. Hunting lands had been taken and food sources were beginning to dwindle down until almost nothing was left. When gold was discovered in South Dakota's Black Hills in 1875, the U.S Army invaded the region despite a previous treaty agreement. This betrayal led many Sioux and Cheyenne tribesmen to leave their reservations and join forces in Montana. Tensions were continuing to rise beyond control and by the late spring of 1876 there was more than 10,000 native Americans that had gathered in a camp along the little Bighorn River in defiance of a US war order for the natives to return to the reservation or for them to risk being attacked. When these tribes refused to comply to this order and they missed the federal deadline to return to the reserves, the U.S Army dispatched Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his seventh Calvary men to confront the natives.
There was nothing that could have ever prepared Colonel Armstrong and his Army for what lied waiting in the shadows for both him and his men.
"Fort Lincoln. Dakota.
May 13. 1876.
My dear friends .
I Received your letter and was very glad to hear from you after so many years of silence.
If the Expeditions now about moving into the Big Horn or Yellowstone Country Succeed [sic] in
pacifying or driving out the Indians, I believe that opportunities will be found for accumulating
fortunes rapidly. But of course all this is problematical as much of this is new rumor. It is
represented to be richer in minerals than the Black Hills.
But I would hesitate to advise any person to cast their fortunes in an undeveloped or unknown
country until something more positive or reliable was known regarding its resources. I should be
glad if an opportunity would present itself in the future for us to renew the pleasant friendship
begun at Hopedale.
Yours truly
G.A Custer"
YOU ARE READING
The Dangers of Yellow Wildflowers
Historical Fiction"The Danger of Yellow wildflowers" is the story of a young half native american girl by the name of Josephine. Isolated from the rest of society, one afternoon while she was riding into town, a deputy is shot and killed leaving Josephine framed for...
