The Battle of Greasy Grass and other acts of Native resistance during the time broadly referred to as the Plains Indian Wars were primarily direct responses to attempts by the federal government to restrict Native Americans to reservations throughout the West. The “big picture” of Native resistance was characterized by an all over determination of Native communities to resist confinement to reservations, failure of the federal government to fulfill their side of treaties guaranteeing Native communities access to food, hunting lands, monetary compensation, protection from settlers and homesteaders, and other terms, as well as a repeated effort by Native communities to solve conflict diplomatically which was responded to with manipulation and/or violence by the federal government.
Despite a decisive Native win at the Battle of Greasy Grass, the federal government continued military action in and around the reservation and the Black Hills. Despite the fact that the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho army defeated Custer’s army, the historical depiction of the event portrays Custer as a hero, who despite having miscalculated his military strategy leading to defeat, still acted heroically. In the “Custer’s Last Fight” lithograph, he is depicted as a hero last standing, and Native peoples are depicted in a decidedly unflattering light, whereas in Native pieces of art, like “Custer’s War” by Henry Oscar One Bull, a more realistic and truthful story appears to be depicted about what happened.
The federal government’s continued pursuit of Native leaders like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse to me shows a lack of acknowledgement of the Battle of Greasy Grass as a “legitimate” defeat and a lack of respect for Native military victory. This seems like a sort of obvious conclusion, but I think it’s an important one. I think often when we look at the history of Native oppression, we forget to look at the moments of resistance because dominant history erased the legitimacy and significance of those victories and successful moments of resistance even as they were happening. Things like the depiction of Custer as a hero who made fatal mistakes leading to the defeat at the Battle of Greasy Grass, rather than depicting the Native army as a highly strategic and well prepared military force is an example of how we still remember things in a warped way (even, often, when we are trying to look at it in a just way) because of how attitudes were preserved in the historical “canon,” so to speak.
This sentiment seems to be echoed by Native figures of the time, as well. In Geronimo’s 1886 statement, he describes his desire for peace being disrupted over and over again by agents and interpreters. He explains that “The agents and the interpreter hear that somebody has done wrong, and they blame it all on me. Don’t believe what they say. I don’t want any of this bad talk in the future. I don’t want those men who talked this way about me to be my agents any more. I want good men to be my agents and interpreters; people who will talk right. I want this peace to be legal and good.” While Geronimo was somewhat of a celebrity sensationalized by the media before and after his capture, all he ever requested was peace, negotiation, and the right to stay on his homelands. So, even when there was even an acknowledgement of Geronimo’s military strategy, the attitudes at the time still reduced him to a celebrity (particularly after his capture) and never really granted him rights with the US government, which I think still affects the way that we talk about Native resistance today. It is hard to have the tools to properly talk about Native resistance when it has been misrepresented and misdocumented since the very beginning.