Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West

While Red Cloud was waging his war in the Powder River basin, new tensions arose among the nations further south, including with the Cheyenne members who had followed Black Kettle out of Colorado. A few discontented Cheyenne returned to their old hunting grounds north of the Arkansas River (in and around present-day Kansas). At the same time, Roman Nose and his band made renewed incursions into the same area, and US officials tasked with managing the situation—including General Winfield Scott and George Custer (“Hard Backsides”)—found it difficult to engage them. Although Indigenous leaders tried to explain that they did not want war, but only access to their own hunting grounds, the US responded with force. After a negotiation that went nowhere, Custer pursued all Indigenous leaders and destroyed all of their possessions in the encampments that were within his reach.

The US pressed a new peace plan, which established a major reservation south of the Arkansas River for the southern Plains nations. Roman Nose and others resisted the surrender of their Kansas lands. The majority, however, were abiding by treaty stipulations and had gathered with Black Kettle’s group. Eventually Roman Nose fell in battle; those with him had to flee to their last remaining refuge—their compatriots to the south who had taken no part in the violence.