Indians Finally Gain Recognition at George Custer's Little Bighorn Site in MT

LITTLE BIGHORN BATTLEFIELD NATIONAL MONUMENT, Mont. -- The words were angry, ugly. But to Tim Lame Woman, they were truth, and they nagged at him to be spoken whenever he passed the grassy battlefield where Lt. Col. George Custer became a legend.

On a June day in 1988, Lame Woman marched with other members of the American Indian Movement to the monument to the 7th Cavalry atop Last Stand Hill. They placed at its base a crudely engraved plaque honoring the "Indian patriots who fought and defeated the U.S. Cavalry in order to save our women and children from mass murder."

"To me, that was a continued insult, to see Custer idolized and his monument," Lame Woman recalled from his home on the nearby Northern Cheyenne reservation. "We wanted America to recognize our contributions. But nothing was up there, and it hurt."

This Wednesday, the 127th anniversary of Custer's defeat, formal recognition is coming to the Indian warriors who prevailed that hot day, June 25, 1876.

The granite obelisk and white headstones of the cavalry dead now share the battlefield with a sunken stone circle -- a sacred symbol to many tribes -- and an open-air space for tribal ceremonies.

Walls feature "interpretive panels" explaining the roles of the tribes that took part in the battle. And most strikingly, wiry sculptures of three warriors on horseback and a woman on foot beside them stand guard.

The dedication of the new monument Wednesday is a proud moment for Ernie LaPointe, who claims the Sioux leader Sitting Bull as his great-grandfather.

For most Indians, it is an honor. Some even consider it an apology of sorts for whites' treatment of Indians during the early settlement of the West. Others say it simply provides an important historical balance to the 400,000 tourists who visit each year.

But even among Indian tribes, there is not complete satisfaction in the memorial's design -- particularly its inclusion of the Arikara and Crow, who scouted for Custer and were enemies of the Sioux, Arapaho and Cheyenne.

Battlefield Superintendent Darrell Cook said he expected disagreement, even though tribal representatives helped pick out the design. The memorial, like any art, is subjective, he said.

William C. Hair, a Northern Arapahoe, said the memorial is difficult to interpret and doesn't reflect "the Indian society of yesterday, today and probably tomorrow." Still, he said, he's happy there's finally something recognizing the Indians' role.

"This memorial here is the closest acknowledgment or apology that we'll get from the people of the United States through their government for the atrocities and treatment of the Indians in the early settlement of the American West," he said.

On June 25, 1876, Custer attacked an Indian village along the Little Bighorn River, apparently miscalculating the resistance that he and his men with the 7th Cavalry would encounter. By some estimates, as many as 2,000 Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors fought back.

About 260 men, including Custer and Indian scouts with the cavalry, were killed in the battle. The Indians are estimated to have lost fewer than 100.

Within months of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the military renewed its campaign against the Indians and began forcing them onto reservations.

In 1881, the U.S. government built a granite obelisk to honor the military dead.

Barbara Sutteer, who was named superintendent of the battlefield only a year after the 1988 AIM march there, recalls the firestorm the march set off. It prompted the National Park Service to begin considering the idea of a memorial for the Indians.

In 1991, Congress authorized a memorial to the battle's "Indian participants," in a bill that also changed the battlefield's name from Custer Battlefield National Monument. But it was not until 10 years later that lawmakers finally approved the $2.3 million needed to build the memorial.

"People say it was just done because it was politically correct, but I don't think so," Sutteer said. "It goes back to timing and thinking at the time and the people wanted to see something done."

John Doerner, the battlefield's chief historian, said the Indian memorial is more than just a monument to their participation.

"We often think of it as Custer's last stand. But how many of us think of it as Sitting Bull's last stand, or the Indians' last stand?" Doerner said. "Custer gained an immortality in death that he probably wouldn't have gained in life, if he lived. The irony is, Sitting Bull's people won the battle but they lost the war."

Clifford Long Sioux said he hopes the memorial will mark a turning point in relationships both among tribes and between Indians and whites.

"It's time for healing, and this is part of the healing process, by finally honoring the Indians," he said. "Some people still have somewhat resentful feelings and are angry. Why? We need to start a reconciliation."

Lame Woman said he plans to walk to the ridge top again on Wednesday -- this time, he says, out of reverence, not frustration.

"On Memorial Day, you can take flowers to a loved one's grave to remember them. There's something there," he said. "We finally have something, a place for our children to go and see, and it's long overdue."

"it's a long overdue memorial to the victors."

Alcoholism on Indian reservations runs as high as 90 percent among men between the ages of 18 and 25.
Unemployment is virtually total.
Illiteracy surpasses third world levels.
Life expectancy among Indian males is roughly that of Western Europeans in the Middle Ages.
Divorce, suicide, and domestic violence reach epidemic proportions.

Some "victors."

I'm saying that the "victory" at Little Big Horn was no victory at all, that in the end, Indian culture was crushed by the Whites. If the monument at Last Stand Hill celebrates the slaughter of Custer, the tragedies I cited "celebrate" the hollowness of that triumph, and stand as monuments to the final fragility of the Indian way of life.

Ultimately, the Indians would be better served by addressing the utter destruction of their culture than by reliving the dubious battlefield victory of the Little Big Horn.

There is not one square inch of North America, not Plymouth Rock, not Jamestown, not Manhattan Island, that was not at one point inhabited by the Indians prior to the arrival of the white man. The entire continent, and South America as well, was stolen from the previous inhabitants by Englishmen, Spaniards, Frenchmen, Portugese, and Dutchmen, and later by white Americans. Despite the image of maltreatment of Indians being confined to the West, what happened on the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains in the late 19th Century replicated the events on the Atlantic coastal plain and the Appalachian Mountains in the 17th and 18th Centuries.

However, the fact remains that the Indian nations themselves dispossessed each other. The Comanches, originally from Wyoming, invaded and occupied much of Texas in the 1700s. The Aztecs, who ruled much of Mexico at the time of Columbus' discovery of America, may have migrated to that country from Utah in the 11th Century. There is also evidence that the first human inhabitants of this hemisphere were not of the Northeast Asian stock from which today's American Indians are mostly descended.

This pattern is not confined to the Americas. The ancestors of the English migrated to Britain from northwest Germany, Denmark, and the Frisian Islands, expelling or killing the earlier Celtic inhabitants over a period of two centuries. The English lost control of much of their country to the Vikings in the 9th and 10th Centuries. In 1066, the English were conquered by the Norman French and became a subject race for several centuries.

The bottom line is that there is nothing unique in history about the defeat and subjugation of the American Indians by the whites. Any memorial at the Little Big Horn is nothing more than pandering to minority voters and yet another reason for liberals to trigger white guilt.

The Little Big Horn does not represent a victory for the Indians. It simply represents a postponement of the inevitable, if not an utter defeat. After Custer, the government's roundup of the Indians proceeded with obsessive vigor, and every arrow fired at Last Stand Hill pierced the Indian heart more than the cavalry's.

Victory for Indian culture lies in its drum ceremonies, its sweat lodges, its hogans and teepees and closeness to the land. Until they are free to hunt buffalo herds again -- which will be never -- that is all they can do to cling to a way of life that had its strengths and its weaknesses like every other.

And Southern heritage was never destroyed the way Indian culture was, because the Southern way of life -- despite its agrarian roots -- adapted (forcibly) to industrialization. It was still Western, after all. Indian culture is antithetical to industrialization; the two cannot co-exist.

One disagreement, though slight:

There were PLENTY of square inches of land that were not at one point inhabited by Indians. The latest estimates put the population of Indians at the arrival of the first whites in the lands above Mexico at less than 5 million.

That doesn't mean plenty of land wasn't stolen(or conquered is the better word, otherwise Alexander "stole" and Caesar "stole") but just that it's not even so simple as saying all the land here belonged to the Indians.

That's simply not true and it ignores the large segments of nomads that can never really lay claim to a land.

My guess is you'll be banned shortly, after essentially calling for genocide(or charitably ethnic cleansing.)

What's funny is, most whites in America are descended from people who were not involved in forming treaties or even living in the US. I do feel that existing treaties should be followed provided they are not completely out of step with US interests, but most aren't so this should not be an issue.

Leonard Peltier is a murderer, and his guilt is well-known to anyone with any knowledge of the case. The AIM was nothing but a Native Black Panthers, and was we know they were nothing but criminals and murderers themselves(excepting perhaps rank and file.)

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.