Custer Discovers North Dakota's Black Hills Gold!

Before coming to North Dakota, George Armstrong Custer fought valiantly in the Civil War, joined the Seventh Cavalry in Kansas and was court-martialed and suspended without rank or pay for a year as a result of driving his troops to exhaustion in a chase after Cheyenne.  In 1871 he and the Seventh Cavalry were sent to oversee post-war Kentucky reconstruction.  In 1873 they were then sent to Fort Abraham Lincoln near Bismark, North Dakota to protect railroad surveyors and enforce reservation policy.

In an expedition to the Black Hills in 1868, he and his troops discovered gold - on a Sioux reservation.  Uh-oh...

Spotted Tail

By treaty the Black Hills belonged to the Sioux and there were sacred burial grounds in there.  For awhile the army sort of tried to keep the gold diggers out.  A couple of Sioux chiefs went to Washington (Red Cloud and Spotted Tail) in 1875 to negotiate.  They talked about leasing Black Hills land to the government for $400,000 a year, but never reached an agreement.

Red Cloud, Ogala Sioux

Later that year, President Ulysses S. Grant, the Secretary's of War and the Interior, Commissioner of Indian Affairs and Generals Sheridan and Crook decided (un-unanimously) to have the Army withdraw from the Black Hills, leaving the land open to miners.  (Bummer.)  Instead, they ordered non-reservation Sioux to get back to the reservation by January 31, 1876.  (You don't think maybe there was a plan to start them warring and give the government an excuse to force the Sioux to surrender the Black Hills, do you?  Nah.  Government wouldn't do that!!)

This was the beginning of the end for Custer and eventually the Sioux.

The Bible doesn't say money is the root of all evil; the Bible says that the LOVE of money is the root of all evil.  (1 Timothy 6:10, 3:3 and Hebrews 13:5)  This is a pretty good example of what that means -- and it turns out badly for everyone!!