- 1876 - A hundred years after a group of white male slaveholders declared America’s independence from Britain before any actual American (Indian) would do it, the United States starts its final assault on the Plains Indians. On the Southern Plains, first the collaborators, then the resisters have been attacked and slaughtered by the Army. The Bison herds that could feed them are nearing extinction. The once free tribes have been ethnically cleansed from their homelands, their remnants are now confined to shrinking reservations in Oklahoma. In the north things haven’t been quite as catastrophic for the Indians. Fewer whites try to settle here, and in the 1860s an alliance of Lakotas, Cheyennes and Arapahoes has even forced the US to abandon three forts and close the Bozeman trail that cut through the Powder River Country. When a peace treaty is signed in 1868, which divides the contested land into one big “Sioux reservation” and another large “unceded territory” to the west of it, it looks as if the Whites would leave the people in peace. Red Cloud settles close to an Agency on the reservation while other “Non-Treaty”-Bands choose to ignore the deal into which the whites have written lots of provisions giving them undue advantages over the Indians and live peacefully on the “unceded territory”. Just five years later a massive military expedition invades the Yellowstone country, surveying a possible railroad route. The following year an equally massive military expedition marches into the Black Hills, prospecting for Gold. Predictably, the whites proclaim they have found gold which triggers an invasion by white gold seekers. The US government now seeks to buy the Black Hills from the Indians, but the Indians won’t sell their most sacred place. Then, on November 30th 1875, the US government issues an ultimatum, “ordering” all Northern Plains Indian bands to “their agencies” until January 31st 1876 in order to negotiate a “sale”. This ultimatum is not only a breach of the existing treaty, it is also so short that non-compliance is certain. Even if the various Lakota and Cheyenne bands were willing to acquiesce to the outrageous ultimatum, they wouldn’t be able to do this in the dead of winter. President Grant and Chief of Staff General Sherman have planned it this way. Their plan is to invade Indian Country with several attack columns while the Indians are still immobile in their winter camps. On February 1st 1876 the war department declares a state of war with the Northern Plains Indians – sidelining Congress and thus also violating the US constitution. Ulysses S. Grant chooses General George Crook to lead the winter campaign into the Indian Territory in southwestern Montana. Joining Crook on the Centennial Campaign is General Joseph J. Reynolds. On the bitter cold morning of 1 March 1876, 883 soldiers of the Big Horn Expedition set out from Fort Fetterman, Wyoming Territory, on the first leg of the Centennial Campaign. They begin to search for villages of Sioux and Cheyenne “Winter Roamers,” as they call the Indians who “refused to return to the reservations". Around the same time the Northern Cheyennes of the village of chiefs Little Wolf and Two Moons get the first news that soldiers have entered the land, searching for them. The first report is dismissed as vain and idle talk by a man of bad reputation. But when a second group of Indians enters the village, confirming the bad news, an emergency council is convened. The men sit all night in council, weighing the options. They finally decide to search for the soldiers. If they should find them, they will capture their horses, thus rendering the white soldiers unable to attack them. A less violent plan of defense is hardly imaginable. Unfortunately, the plan doesn’t work out as planned when Cheyenne scouts first shadow the advancing troops and see them veering back to Fort Fetterman but then miss the advancing column as it stealthily u-turns on the Cheyenne village. On March 16th. Crook’s scouts encounter two Cheyenne buffalo hunters who immediately turn back towards their nearby village. Crook now orders Reynolds to take three battalions and “capture the Indian village, kill or capture as many Indians as possible, run off their pony herd, and do them as much damage as possible“. He also orders him to “shoot everything in sight”. The weather is bone chilling cold with temperatures at thirty degrees below zero. Without warm winter clothing, shelter and a good fire, frostbite is a certainty and death by exposure only a matter of time. The Cheyenne hunters believe they have only seen a Crow war party. The villagers are concerned, yet they don’t envision imminent danger from the Army. Then, suddenly, on March 17th 1876, at 9:05 in the morning, all hell breaks loose! ________________ Marvellous Designer 4 - UV Mapper Pro - Gimp 2.6 - Poser Pro 2014 - Vue 2014 ________________ Weather conditions and the sun's position are exactly as they would have been at 9:05 A.M. on March 17th on the exact location of the Cheyenne village, looking south towards the charging cavalry.