WEST YELL - on line

From the halls of our rustic, (some would say 'dilapidated,) office in beautiful downtown West Yellowstone comes a phoenix. 

...It happened just as reported. "We saw it all and there was just no escaping." What would Grandpa Do? ...
Life was not easy for the Sioux and other Indians settled on reservations in the Dakotas and Montana. Crops failed, there was much disease and poverty, and pressure to sell land to the whites mounted year by year in the 1880s. To help make life bearable, many of the Sioux turned to a new mystical religion that predicted that an Indian messiah would come in the spring of 1891 and would unite all the Indians in an earthly paradise. Believers practiced a ghost dance that produced trances, visions, and mass frenzy. Indian agents for the US government grew alarmed at these practices. When the military was called in to stop the dances, the Sioux rebelled in anger. At Grand River, Chief Sitting Bull (1834-90) was shot dead by Indian police for resisting arrest. Two weeks later, on December 29, 1890, the US Seventh Cavalry fought and defeated the Sioux on the Black Hills reservation at Wounded Knee Creek (South Dakota); more than 200 Indian men, women, and children were massacred; the cavalry had gotten its revenge for its defeat at Little Bighorn. After a few more skirmishes, the Sioux surrendered on January 16, 1891. This was the last major Indian conflict, and like all the others it ended in defeat for the Indians.

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Posted by Admin | 02-29-08 | No Comments

New Concerns & Old Concerns

x-15By 1876, gold had been discovered in the Black Hills (southwestern South Dakota), a region the Sioux Indians considered sacred and the US government had promised to respect. Although it tried, the US Army count not keep white prospectors out of the area; the Sioux's legitimate grievances against the whites increased. Many roving Indian bands refused to go by the government deadline of February 1, 1876, to the reservations set aside for them. A military expedition was sent out against them. One column under General George Crook (1829-90) destroyed the village of Sioux chief Crazy Horse (1849?-77), but shortly<p>Da 'Burbs: See it now.</p>
 afterward it was defeated by the Indians. Crook retired briefly to obtain reinforcements and then moved north again. Meanwhile, another column under General Alfred Howe Terry (1827-90) was advancing westward from Dakota; it included the Seventh Cavalry led by Colonel George Armstrong Custer (1839-76). When a large Indian band was reported on the Rosebud River (southeastern Montana), the cavalry were sent ahead as scouts, but Custer disregarded his orders and pursued the Indians south to the Little Bighorn River. There, not waiting for reinforcements and unaware or heedless of the numerical superiority of the Indians (about 2,500 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors under Chiefs Sitting Bull (1834-90), Gall (1840?-94), and Crazy Horse), Custer decided to attack immediately and vaingloriously. He divided his command into three units, sending two units farther upstream to encircle and attack the Indians and led the third unit of 266 soldiers in a direct charge on the morning of June 25, 1876. The Indians surrounded Custer on a hill and killed him and every one of his men (later called "Custer's Last Stand"). The two other units failed to relieve Custer; they were attacked and forced to retreat but were saved from annihilation by the arrival of Terry and his troops. Terry and Crook continued their campaign against the Indians, especially the Sioux, with vigor. Crazy Horse was defeated and surrendered in 1877; he was presumably killed while trying to escape. Sitting Bull and Gall and other warriors fled to Canda, and most of the other Sioux were either slain or captured and forced to settle on reservations. In 1881, both Sitting Bull and Gall returned, surrendered, and were pardoned.

Posted by Admin | 02-29-08 | No Comments