ABSTRACT
Sioux treaty rights to the Black Hills, agreed upon in the second Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. The Sioux, responding to the transgressions of the United States, factionalized. Ordered to move to their reserved tracts by the United States, the Sioux responded in two ways. Red Cloud and his followers accommodated and settled near the Red Cloud agency, a precursor to the Sioux reservations, located along the Platte River, just south from Fort Laramie. Red Cloud agency, staffed by American field agents, doled out weekly rations and annuity payments to Red Cloud and his Oglala followers. The militant Sioux led by Sitting Bull (Hunkpapa Lakota Sioux) and Crazy Horse (Oglala Lakota Sioux) stalwartly refused, and the Sioux under their leadership went to war with the United States. In a tactical maneuver to try for a swift victory over the Sioux, the United States turned to Crow and Shoshone warriors whose enmity against their Sioux rivals stretched back generations, and who were emboldened by the idea of eliminating the Sioux to elevate their own status and power on the plains. Both Crow and Shoshone warriors therefore joined the ranks of General George Armstrong Custer’s army.
