Original subtitles

From their first move across the appalachians,

Americans pushed west driven by their desire

for opportunity and land.

At every step, they must contend

with the original occupants,

spurring generations of conflict with native nations.

When gold is found in Montana in 1862,

thousands of Americans charged through land

claimed by the lakota sioux.

As their leader red cloud,

and a young warrior named crazy horse fight back,

the lakota will take on the us army,

and win a victory that stuns the nation.

People live on myths,

and the myths that really stick in the American experience

are the myths of the west.

The mountains were taller, the deserts were harsher,

the snows were deeper.

The American west conjures wonder,

possibility, opportunity.

The figure of the mountain man.

Notorious outlaws.

The cowboy.

The discovery of gold in California.

This train of wagons trailing across the prairie.

Everybody has a reason for wanting this land.

But most of that land, was already occupied.

We have been residents for more than 10,000 years.

But this is a clash of two different ways

of seeing life itself.

Fighting for the future of your homeland on the one side,

and fighting for the destiny of the new republic

on the other side.

The history of the west is a creation story.

It's the creation of what we think of as modern america.

The west is a place where anything is possible.

It is the essence of the American dream.

The core of this is, what are we to be as a nation?

The reckoning is coming.

The west is this canvas on which

American dreams become larger than life.

In the summer of 1862,

the United States is consumed by a civil war.

The conflict plunges Washington into debt,

and with every bullet fired,

the federal government edges closer to a financial crisis.

Then, a potential solution arises in an unexpected place.

In 1862, when gold is discovered in Montana,

it's great news for Lincoln and for the entire union.

Lincoln later said that war is a terrible thing,

and this war is the most terrible of all,

and the heavens were hung in black.

But it was not simply the cost in lives,

it was the cost in sustaining the army.

California was already contributing

its gold to the union,

but now Montana could contribute its gold as well.

It was a major boost to the union,

when that boost was absolutely needed.

One of the most important factors

in the whole history of the west is gold discoveries.

Every time this happens,

white civilization goes mad briefly.

Thousands and thousands

and thousands of people rush for gold.

At the time of the gold strike,

Montana is not yet a state.

To Americans, it's unknown wilderness,

part of the vast, sparsely settled great plains.

The great plains has a forbidding image

in the minds of American settlers,

in the middle decades of the 19th century.

To American farmers, the great plains,

and you see this on many maps of the time,

is still part of the great American desert.

And Americans look out on this great grassland,

that's the middle of the north American continent,

and they see, that's land that can be left to Indians.

Forces transforming the west elsewhere,

have largely bypassed this part of the northern plains

and it's now dominated by the lakota sioux,

who control over 740,000 square miles of land,

an area almost as large as Mexico.

The lakota originally are from western Minnesota,

and they're not that strong, they're not that numerous.

But through the acquiring of the horse

in the early 1700s,

they're going to move out onto the great plains,

and they become very successful

in the harvesting of the bison.

Bison are the primary food source

for the plains Indians like the lakota,

and they use every piece of them.

Bones as tools and weapons, hides for clothing and shelter.

But all along the southern edge of lakota territory,

where thousands of migrants follow the Oregon trail west,

the bison population is dropping rapidly.

These wagon trains are chopping down trees,

they're muddying the water.

They're really destroying the bison migration zones,

and permanently altering the ecosystem for the worse.

In a treaty signed in 1851,

the lakota and other plains nations,

agree to let these migrants pass freely.

In exchange they were guaranteed permanent sovereignty,

over their lands by the United States.

At fort laramie,

the federal government begins a process of recognizing

indigenous control and authority across

vast portions of the northern plains,

and recognizing the boundaries of various native nations.

But in 1863, frontiersman John Bozeman

begins guiding miners along a new route.

Branching northwest from the Oregon trail at fort laramie,

it shortens the journey to the new gold fields by six weeks,

and cuts right through the lakota's most prized land.

The pristine powder river basin.

By the 1860s this region

has become the last best place for the lakota.

Not only does it have massive herds of bison,

but it also has rivers,

and it was a place that the lakota

were coming from all directions to live.

The Bozeman trail

transects some of the most valuable hunting territory

that the lakota had,

and when you create a trail like this,

it's really going to disturb the bison,

and it's going to make them leave.

And so, conflict arises between Americans seeking gold,

and the lakota who had been told in 1851

by the us government,

that this land was theirs forever,

and all of a sudden it's not forever anymore.

The lakota decide to make a stand,

among them is a war chief from the ogallala band, red cloud.

Red cloud says, we're gonna fight

to protect this homeland.

Red cloud is recognized

as one of the great leaders of the lakota.

He's one of the great leaders in American history.

Red cloud was orphaned as a young man,

when his father died from alcoholism.

He was raised by his uncles,

and driven to be the best man he possibly could

for the lakota.

He's going to rise to military success

through attacks on American settler trains,

in which he distinguishes himself

as a fighter at a very young age.

Over the next two years,

red cloud launches raids along the Bozeman trail,

sparking widespread fear amongst Montana-bound travelers.

And with union troops engaged fighting the civil war,

he's almost unopposed.

Infrastructural forms of the federal government,

basically don't exist,

in many places across western North America after secession.

That's how limited the federal government is,

at the time of the civil war.

But that begins to change

with the south's surrender in 1865.

At this exact moment,

the United States starts to turn its eyes westward,

and think about incorporating these vast spaces

into what is the United States.

And, the defining struggle for that,

is that it belongs to native peoples who live there.

By 1866, some 2,000 miners have already made their way

along the Bozeman trail to Montana.

And despite red cloud's raids, more are on the way.

To protect them, general ulysses s. Grant

assigns a union war hero,

to head the army west of the Mississippi.

William tecumseh sherman.

From the outset, sherman is short on soldiers.

At the end of the war,

the last thing that people want to do,

is support large armies either financially or otherwise.

They're also very much focused

on the reconstruction of the south,

that also included the occupation of the south

by us army forces.

And so, there was less political support

for maintaining a large army, and sending it out

to engage in warfare, in the west.

From a peak of over a million,

the us army has been reduced to around 38,000 men,

with most deployed to the south.

Even so, sherman decides to construct three forts,

at key points along the 500-mile Bozeman trail.

He assigns the task to a civil war officer

with a talent for engineering and no combat experience,

colonel Henry car ring ton.

He was great at recruiting,

he was great at administration.

What he never did during the civil war, was fire a gun.

American fighting forces come out of the civil war

with a sense of superiority.

They are a modern army, they have mechanized weapons,

and so the assumption is,

that it should be relatively easy

to dispatch a bunch of wild Indians.

In June of 1866,

car ring ton makes his way west along the platte river

with 225 wagons and an entourage of soldiers

and civilians.

One of the things that is very different

about this occupation by the us military,

is the military is bringing their families along with them,

women and children.

And what lakota leaders at the time realize is that,

they're coming to stay.

Plains Indians understand,

now is the moment we either turn this thing around,

or our ship is going down.

Red cloud draws a line,

and basically says, we're gonna fight.

Seeking to secure safe passage

for gold miners and settlers headed to Montana territory,

colonel Henry car ring ton plans to build three forts

along a key stretch of the Bozeman trail.

Fort Reno, fort c.F. Smith,

and at the foot of the bighorn mountains,

his regional headquarters, fort Phil kearny.

Colonel car ring ton is sent to the Bozeman trail

to establish these forts,

despite his lack of military experience.

And he is told by general sherman,

it's going to be a leisurely frontier assignment.

In this, you should bring your wife and children out.

He builds an amazing fort.

It's 17 acres, a huge amount of land,

all surrounded by an enormous wall of ponderosa pine.

And what's enclosed inside of this large wall,

is really a town.

It is a veritable community,

and it's built in a really short amount of time.

For red cloud,

the arrival of the us military is an act of war.

Knowing he can't fight alone,

he does something extraordinary.

So, what red cloud does is,

he's meeting with other tribal leaders.

He's urging them to combine their forces,

to deal with this new threat to them,

which is the us army coming into the powder river valley,

at an unprecedented level of force.

Red cloud finds his strongest allies

among bands of the a rap a ho and the Cheyenne.

Two years earlier, they survived a brutal massacre

at the hands of the us army, at sand creek in Colorado.

The sand creek massacre is probably

the seminal event on the northern plains

during this period.

In 1864, colonel chivington leads his troops

against the a rap a ho and Cheyenne,

and kills about 140 women and children

in this camp, led by two peace chiefs,

who had consistently tried to establish

peaceful relationships with the United States.

Their bodies are mutilated,

and they are shown off in Denver at the opera house.

The hatred

that this instills within the northern Cheyenne people,

is hard to calculate.

Red cloud brings together

an unprecedented coalition of plains warriors,

including fighters from the lakota, a rap a ho, and Cheyenne.

Red cloud even reaches out to the crow,

which were known as the historic enemy of the lakota.

It's a bridge too far for the crow,

but it shows you how creative he was

in thinking about this coalition

that was needed to fight against the us army.

Even with a 2,000-strong force behind him,

red cloud bides his time and gets to know his enemy.

Luckily, the inexperienced car ring ton

has chosen to build fort Phil kearny on open prairie.

From higher ground, red cloud and his men,

can see over the walls.

The place colonel car ring ton chooses

is several miles away from the nearest wood supply,

and that means he's gonna have to send

wood cutting expeditions several miles away,

every day.

As the fall brings cooler weather,

wood becomes even more vital, forcing carrington's men

to venture five miles from the safety of the fort

to the nearest forest.

Waiting for them there,

is one of red cloud's fiercest fighters,

a young warrior named crazy horse.

Crazy horse remains

the most mysterious plains Indian warrior of all time.

He had a vision as a young man,

that he could not be killed in battle by his enemies,

and he's already famous for fighting

with that sort of abandon.

Crazy horse is probably about 22 years old.

He embodied the character of a much older

and experienced battle leader.

And so, when red cloud sees this within crazy horse,

red cloud is going to give him a real leadership role

in this fight.

Surrounded by an endless sea of grass,

soldiers inside the fort live out each day under siege,

knowing that beyond the walls,

an invisible enemy lies in wait.

Red cloud takes a very calculated approach

to figuring his enemy out.

He doesn't mount big attacks,

he mounts instead, dozens of these guerilla-style attacks.

For car ring ton,

most of his soldiers were newly recruited.

They were immigrants,

who this was the next best job that they could get.

And so, when they see these wagons coming back

with the dead, who have been mutilated,

this is a very shocking and frightening thing for them.

For these soldiers,

who were sitting there watching these gold miners

stream by towards the Montana gold fields,

those gold fields had an extremely powerful lure.

Almost a man a day, by late fall, is deserting.

By the end of September,

red cloud and his allies have carried out

dozens of deadly raids around fort Phil kearny.

Colonel Henry car ring ton

has already buried eight of his men.

Carrington is writing lots of letters

to his commanding officers saying,

I need more men, I need more horses, I need better guns.

I think carrington's tone grows increasingly agitated,

and insistent over the course of the fall,

as these attacks build and build.

He's trying to put on the appearance of control,

while at the same time, fearing for his very life.

Colonel car ring ton did not have the resources

from the army that he was promised,

and there were moments in time

where car ring ton had less than 10 officers,

less than 20 serviceable horses.

And on top of this,

there were women and children at this fort as well.

How are they gonna protect them?

How are they gonna keep them safe?

America in 1866

is still rebuilding in the wake of a devastating civil war,

and Andrew Johnson is one year into his presidency,

having taking office after Lincoln's assassination.

This former slave owner

must now oversee the reconstruction of the south.

In the aftermath of the civil war, on the one hand,

you have a diminishment of federal authority

in many portions of the American west.

The other hand you have the growing,

mining extractive economies,

occurring across western Montana

that are bringing thousands of migrants

through Indian homeland.

With the army focused on rebuilding the south,

and protecting freed slaves,

western forces run short on troops and supplies.

But at the besieged fort Phil kearny,

carrington's desperate call for help is finally answered.

In September 1866, he welcomes fresh soldiers,

more horses, and a new second in command,

captain William j. Fetterman.

Fetterman is a genuine hero of the civil war.

He's cited for bravery.

He's with sherman during the march to the sea,

so he's kind of everywhere during the civil war,

and has this really remarkable military record.

Captain fetterman, when he arrives,

receives a hero's welcome from many of the younger officers.

And a little clique forms around him,

which kind of leads to some division

between himself and colonel car ring ton.

Colonel car ring ton is cautious.

He's a small human being who's never seen combat,

whereas captain fetterman is aggressive, brave, strong,

epitome of the cavalry officer.

And so, this contrast,

really leads to a certain division

within the officer corps at fort Phil kearny.

Among the soldiers arriving with fetterman,

is a hotheaded officer, eager for action.

Lieutenant George w. Grummond

had some discipline problems,

drinking, carousing, fighting, that kind of thing.

He was court martialed several times during the civil war,

and had a reputation of being very rash,

and jumping ahead of command

when he was supposed to be following orders.

But he does not have experience.

None of these men had experience

in fighting against native Americans.

Remember, these are a bunch of civil war veterans

and their expectation of war

is lining up in front of each other on battlefields,

and they're just kind of hammering away at each other.

In the past,

when the military is facing native peoples in the east,

they're dealing with peoples who are largely sedentary.

Suddenly, when you move out west,

you're dealing with peoples who are semi-nomadic.

They're always on the move.

The lakota light cavalry

was probably the finest in the world at this time.

These men could do anything on horseback.

They had been in combat since they were in their mid-teens,

and they had been trained for combat

since they were young children.

Their knowledge of the landscape,

where the hills are, where the valleys are,

unparalleled.

So, they really have every advantage

against any kind of incomer to their territory.

After he arrives,

captain fetterman sets about drilling

his ragtag collection of soldiers.

They're now eager to bring the fight to their enemy,

so too are commanders in St. Louis,

who order car ring ton to attack the lakota

in their winter camps.

But car ring ton gets a report that confirms his fears.

An old scout tells car ring ton

that there are villages and villages

of northern a rap a ho, northern Cheyenne,

and lakota bands just north of where they are,

1,000 to 1,500 teepees,

and it says a lot about red cloud at that time,

being able to assemble such a large,

and pretty diverse group of bands.

Outnumbered by red cloud's forces,

car ring ton calls off the attack.

Instead, he hunkers down,

using his troops only to protect the teams of woodcutters,

who still must venture miles to gather fuel.

After months of skirmishing

and picking off individuals here and there,

red cloud decides

he's going to attack not just the woodcutters themselves,

but when the relief force comes out,

they're going to engage with them as well,

and try and draw them apart.

On December 6th, red cloud gets his chance.

The signal comes

that the wagon train that is out trying to get the wood

is under attack.

At the first sign of the enemy,

lieutenant grummond and a handful of other soldiers

break formation,

and gallop after a group of lakota led by crazy horse.

They were all excited about their first opportunity

to actually go on the offense,

and so, these officers basically took off on their own.

And this is when soldiers are actually attacked.

Grummond soon discovers, he's not only surrounded,

but he's forgotten his gun.

He manages to fight his way out with only a saber,

but two other officers are shot dead,

and their bodies mutilated.

One is found impaled on a tree stump,

the other with his head cut in half.

Red cloud loses 10 men, but gains a valuable insight.

The lakota realize that the United States military

can't resist a retreating native force,

because of that mentality of superiority,

the perfect example of just underestimating your opponent.

By the winter of 1866,

a native coalition led by lakota warrior red cloud,

is harassing fort Phil kearny almost daily.

The American commander, colonel car ring ton,

is down to six officers, overseeing 300 soldiers.

At fort Phil kearny, by December,

more than a hundred people,

between soldiers and travelers have been killed.

The bodies were usually mutilated.

It created this sense of fear

among the soldiers and travelers.

It also created a lot of pressure on car ring ton.

He's beginning to receive other orders

that he should be more aggressive.

His own officers are telling him

that he should be more aggressive,

and so, he's trying to juggle all of that.

Colonel car ring ton will not bravely go forth

and attack native forces as he was ordered.

Instead, he is going to be ringed in,

in a siege by the lakota.

He sleeps in his uniform at night,

because he knows that there's a force out there,

that may wipe him off the map.

After their successful ambush of December 6th,

red cloud and his allies begin to work

on an even bolder plan,

red cloud's already created this coalition of

Cheyenne, a rap a ho, lakota, about 2,000 warriors

hidden in these valleys, that are about three miles away.

He wants to shock and scare the us army

so significantly that they will abandon this fort.

He decides to create something completely unanticipated,

and to create this enormous ambush.

The only problem, is how do you get

a big group of us soldiers out of the fort?

Over the next two weeks,

red cloud's scouts study the fort from the high ground,

using mirrors and smoke signals

to relay messages about troop movements inside.

Red cloud is probing,

and he's learning about his enemy,

how his enemy will react in different situations.

But as red cloud gathers intel,

car ring ton gives strict orders.

No us forces should venture beyond lodge trail Ridge,

the elevated rise between the fort

and the Bozeman trail to the north.

So, lodge trail Ridge

is inside of the range of the cannons.

It's also the last thing

that the army can see from the fort looking to the north.

Once you lose sight of your forces,

you have lost command ability for the field of battle.

And so, car ring ton is worried that

if any of his forces go beyond this point,

he won't be able to send assistance in time.

After two weeks of waiting,

red cloud finally decides it's time to strike.

On the morning of December 21st, there was a storm coming.

They had to get another load of wood,

and pretty soon pickets on pilot hill,

give a sign that says,

there are Indians attacking the wood train.

Fetterman volunteers to lead a relief force,

and car ring ton reminds him of his orders.

Carrington says,

whatever you do don't go beyond the Ridge line.

You mustn't go beyond the Ridge line, three times.

They can see that these raiders

who are attacking the wood train are pulling back.

And it plays into the belief of the army,

that they're scaring them away.

At fort kearny,

grummond comes running up to colonel car ring ton

and grummond says, allow me to take out the cavalry,

the man who was clearly so aggressive

and inflamed to get out into battle.

And he did allow grummond to take about 25 cavalry men

out to accompany the men on foot.

Crazy horse pretends his horse is lame,

and rides to the top of the Ridge.

He's trying to draw both fetterman and grummond

to follow him

and grummond immediately begins pursuit.

At that point, fetterman faces this quandary,

do I let them go off on their own,

or do I try and rejoin our forces and keep them together?

Captain fetterman has no choice,

but to follow behind and support him.

And so, all 81 of these soldiers and men

end up in the valley,

on the other side of lodge trail Ridge.

This massive trap that red cloud has set is sprung.

Carrington is at the fort

and all of a sudden they start to hear

gunshots over the hill.

They don't see anything,

but they know something is going on.

From where fort Phil kearny is, it's impossible to see

any further than a mile to the north.

This is what red cloud used to his advantage.

It was easy to hide in that hillside landscape.

Ya!

Once fetterman and his infantry

are sufficiently descended into that valley,

he looks back at lodge trail Ridge,

and sees that the tribes have already closed

his escape to the fort.

The tribes close in from all three sides.

Once they're in the middle of the trap, it's over.

And all 81 men who rode out a fort Phil kearny that day

are killed in that battle.

Everybody is horribly desecrated.

Scalped, stomachs are cut open,

entrails are pulled out, limbs are hacked off.

The mutilation of enemies that you've killed in battle

for the lakota,

it had very specific meanings in a spiritual context.

Because once you killed an enemy,

you'd kill their body here,

but that didn't necessarily mean

you'd killed them in the next life.

So, maybe in order to do that,

you would take out their eyes so they couldn't see,

or cut off their hands so they couldn't fight.

But one body is spared,

the bugler, who used his instrument

as a weapon in a desperate fight for his life.

And his bravery was such that the lakota,

decided that he deserved not to be mutilated.

And so, he was honorably laid on the ground

and a buffalo blanket laid over the top of him.

The lakota and their allies lose 65 men.

One estimate puts the number of arrows fired at 40,000,

1,000 for every minute of the battle.

Back at the fork, car ring ton sends a rider,

John "portuguee" Phillips,

into a gathering storm to fort laramie, 250 miles south.

Before the day is up, he makes one final order.

Colonel car ring ton is absolutely terrified

that the fort is going to come under attack next.

Their best fighters are dead, their best officers are dead.

He orders all the men to emergency stations.

He orders the women and children

into the ammunition storage area,

so that they can be blown up rather than be captured.

This is the end.

The night of red cloud's ambush,

a blizzard rolls across the northern plains,

towards fort Phil kearny.

Red cloud just delivered

what would turn out to be a shocking blow to the us army

and his goal was to deliver

a political signal to the us,

about the wisdom of maintaining the Bozeman trail.

The storm blankets the powder river country

in deep snow.

But on December 25th, 1866,

John "portuguee" Phillips emerges,

and enters fort laramie.

His journey almost 250 miles.

Completed in four days of sub-zero temperatures,

kills his horse on arrival.

And he walks into a Christmas ball

being held at fort laramie,

with the news that there has been a massive defeat

at fort Phil kearny and captain fetterman is dead.

As reinforcements race to carrington's aid,

the war department in Washington gets a telegram.

It's the worst defeat in us army history

to that point in the west.

Never before had a force that large

been destroyed to the man.

It was a shock to the American psyche.

People just couldn't wrap their minds around the fact

that fetterman's troops had been dispatched in this way.

The idea that this pre-industrial,

quote "savages", could defeat the United States army,

and not only defeat an army of the United States,

but defeat it where the entire regiment was eradicated,

really clashes with the idea

of the United States emerging as this great power.

Three weeks after the battle,

car ring ton is relieved of duty.

Army commanders in Washington open an inquiry.

Carrington, as you can imagine,

receives enormous criticism,

and the biggest thing that he does

as part of defending himself,

is to create someone else to blame for what's happened,

and he settles on fetterman.

Carrington pushes back with this narrative that, you know,

fetterman didn't obey orders.

And fetterman has been written about as a

glory hound with no respect,

became the basis for all future historians

to write the narrative of the fetterman fight,

and it could not have been more untrue.

One of the things that all of that speculation and debate

about who's wrong and who's to blame

ignores is the fact that there was a remarkably

brilliant plan executed by red cloud

that worked almost beyond how they could have imagined.

Fetterman's fight communicates

a level of indigenous capability

that few American policymakers believe possible.

It's always seen as how did the us military fail,

not how did the native Americans win?

As the fetterman fight prompts outrage back east,

red cloud takes his war beyond the powder river country.

He targets the most visible symbol

of American power in the west,

and a dire threat to lakota lands,

the transcontinental railroad.

One of the things that red cloud is very aware of,

is that the railroad has already come

into what's now Kansas, Nebraska,

and through tribes like the southern Cheyenne.

He's aware of the impact that that can have

on their whole culture and economy.

On August 7th, 1867,

Cheyenne and lakota allies attack a union pacific train

in Nebraska,

500 miles east of the powder river country.

This attack underscores the fact

that native tribes remain formidable forces,

and that this idea that modern machinery

is going to somehow facilitate

an easy end to native conflict, is a fantasy.

Many in Washington believe it is simply easier

to diplomatically treat with native peoples

than to fight them,

especially after the carnage and destruction

of five years of the civil war.

With its thousand-mile route

cutting through the northern plains,

the railroad is highly vulnerable

to red cloud's hit-and-run attacks,

and the only way to keep it safe, is to make peace.

Red cloud comes to the negotiations

with the United States in 1868 from a position of strength.

Red cloud insists that the Bozeman trail be abandoned.

The us army, they agree to all of that.

They abandon the Bozeman trail,

they abandon the forts.

In the spring of 1868,

general sherman returns to fort laramie

with a peace commission, appointed by president Johnson,

and offers the lakota a new treaty.

It closes the Bozeman trail to miners and settlers,

and shutters the three forts built by car ring ton.

But for five months, red cloud will withhold his signature,

until he sees the forts burn to the ground.

It's one of the most decisive victories

for native peoples in American history.

It makes red cloud the most important

northern plains native American,

and maybe the most visible native American in the country,

and it proves the level of lakota resistance.

The same treaty creates the great sioux reservation,

giving the lakota exclusive control

over 48,000 square miles of land,

an area five times the size of Connecticut.

The fort laramie treaty of 1868 is unprecedented.

The federal government is committing itself

to a new vision of Indian affairs,

in which it recognizes autonomy and jurisdiction

of Indian nations across vast portions

of their former homelands.

The treaty proves the power of the lakota nation,

and red cloud becomes the only native leader in history

to win a war against the us.

After red cloud's war in 1868,

after the signing of the fort laramie treaty,

he promised never to take up arms

against the United States again.

And as a man of his word, he never did.

And so, he's often seen as a peace chief after this,

and never gets his real due

as the military genius that he was.

Red cloud remains true to his word,

but the disaster at fort Phil kearny

prompts a shift in us policy towards the plains nations.

For some, any Indians outside the reservation

will be considered hostile, and at war.

It's after the fetterman fight

that you have William tecumseh sherman

using the term extermination,

to talk about dealing with the lakota,

and other so-called troublesome tribes.

The fetterman fight is the moment

in which the power of the lakota nation

is clearly communicated to the federal government.

Very few native nations

would ever obtain that level of federal recognition

and supposed protection.

And sadly, very few native nations would ever suffer

such betrayals of those commitments thereafter.

Today, red cloud is celebrated

as the leader who outsmarted the us army

as he fought to preserve his people's way of life.

Eventually though the treaty he won is broken.

The lakota will continue to fight the us without him,

most famously when sitting bull defeats

general George custer at the little bighorn.

But in time their resistance will be suppressed,

and the vast grasslands that the lakota once roamed freely

are now taken over

by cattle ranchers sparking a new conflict,

over who gets control of these last wide open spaces.