TUESDAY, JUNE 24

TUESDAY, JUNE 24:

     Cool, crisp Wyoming morning.  Fixed breakfast. 

    Drove about 15 miles up I-25 and stopped at Ft. Phil Kearny Historic Site.  This was the site of a well-known fort which was established in 1866 to help protect & supply those travelling on the Bozeman Trail. 

.  This trail was almost exclusively used by gold-seekers who were trying to strike it rich in Virginia City, MT, just southwest of Bozeman.  It was located in the heart of the last great hunting grounds of the Sioux, Cheyenne, & Arapaho tribes, and so was a focal point of much violence between the U.S. Army and the Native Americans.

 

 

 

      The most well-known of these battles was the one involving Capt. William Fetterman, in which he led 81 men over a ridge trail while rescuing a besieged wagon train. He  ignored explicit orders to NOT  cross over the ridge because they could then no longer be seen by the sentries at the Fort. Once Fetterman and his men were over the ridge, the Indians lay waiting in ambush and all of Fetterman’s command were killed within 30 minutes.  This was one of the very rare instances in which Native warriors organized themselves and prepared a planned attack ahead of time; the majority of their fighting was either spontaneous, opportunistic attacks, or defensive fighting.  This was the second worse defeat for the U.S. Army in the Plains Indians war which stretched across the late 1860’s until the 1890’s at Wounded Knee; only Little Big Horn was worse for the U.S.

     The Fort only existed for 2 years.  By 1868, the transcontinental railroad had been completed, and travelers could now bypass the Bozeman Trail (as well as others).  This was one of the factors leading to the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, in which the U.S. government designated the western half of what’s now South Dakota as a permanent reservation for the Great Plains Indians, for their exclusive use.   That treaty also set aside millions of acres west of the reservation in present day Wyoming & Montana as “unseeded” land, meaning that it belonged to no particular tribe, but could be used as hunting grounds by all Northern Plains tribes.  White men were forbidden to trespass on either the reservation or the unceded territory.

     That brought about 6 years of peace.  Until gold was discovered in the Black Hills, right in the heart of the reservation.  All promises & provisions of the treaty were cast aside.   To paraphrase a Watergate slogan – if you want to trace the history of Western U.S., follow the gold strikes.  In response to whites invading their lands and showing total disregard for the treaty, Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, & others, inspired by Chiefs Sitting Bull (who was considered a political and spiritual leader, as well as a warrior) & Crazy Horse, began to defy the treaty as well,  resisting the encroaching westward expansion, and leaving the reservation to live in their traditional ways in the unceded lands, resuming raids on white settlers and travelers.  In Dec 1875, the U.S. government ordered all tribes to return to the reservation, or be considered as hostiles.  When they didn’t comply, the U.S. Army was called in to enforce the order. 

     Which is what brought General George A. Custer to the area in June 1876.  We’d visited the Battle of Little Bighorn Battlefield last year, and spent several hours there. 

 But since it’s right off the Interstate, we decided to pay another short visit there.  We mainly wanted to hear the ranger interpretive talk & view the video again, now that we had an enlarged context for our understanding of the background of this legendary battle.  As I think I mentioned before, it’s thrilling in its own way when you see things inter-connect as you travel.  The same ranger was giving the outside talk today as was last year . . .  we recognized him by his introduction - former high school history teacher & coach.  But even if he didn’t identify himself that way, we would have recognized him by his dramatic style of telling the story.  He becomes totally immersed in it – as he presents both sides’ perspectives.  We think it’s very healthy for our understanding of American history, especially that of the Western states, that we’re getting more and more of a balanced view in the last couple of dozen years.  We (the public in general) are getting more & more exposure to the concept of the enormous clash of cultures which took place ever since Euro-Americans first set foot on the continent in the16th century. 

     Grabbed burgers to go in Billings, and continued on to Bozeman, where we stayed for the night.  Transitioned from rolling high plains to foothills of the Rockies.  The peaks we saw ahead of us had snow!  Wonder if that’s from the same big storms Glacier had last week.  Anxious to see how much snow is left there, after hearing that last week they received 14 inches!  By this time tomorrow, we’ll be settled in our first real destination – Glacier National Park.