During the 19th century, the United States strongly believed in a philosophy known as Manifest destiny which according to History.com, was the belief that “the United States was destined—by God, its advocates believed—to expand its dominion and spread democracy and capitalism across the entire North American continent.” This philosophy drove territorial expansion, however, as the United States continued trying to expand westward they kept running into settled tribes of Native Americans who had already been in theses areas for generations (History.com). Violent skirmishes broke out in the 1860s through the 1870s between the United States and Native Americans. The United States began passing treaties that required Native Americans to forfeit …show more content…
Custer led an expedition into the Black Hills along with a group of miners in hopes of finding gold. Shortly after gold was found, miners began moving into the Blacks Hills, violating the treaty and trespassing on sacred Sioux hunting grounds. The United States army began to move against wandering bands of Sioux and pushing them onto the designated reservation, which began the Great Sioux War of 1876. One of the most famous battles occured when General George A. Custer encountered a camp of Sioux and Cheyenne at Little Bighorn (National Archives and Records Administration). The Battle is known as the Battle of the Little Bighorn or Custer’s last stand. It occured on June 25, 1876 next to the Little Bighorn river in the Montana territory and is infamous as one of the most disastrous battles the American army has faced. Of the 647 U.S. soldiers, 268 were killed. The battle was led by General Custer and resulted in him and his 5 companies being killed. Custer led the 7th cavalry against the Native Americans, specifically the the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne, encamped off the reservation (Welch). Over the course history, historians have had differing opinions of General Custer and his role in this major defeat. Many believe that his personality and poor decision making skills are the main factors leading to the defeat however, others argue that there were separate larger factors that resulted in the severe loss of men. The disastrous defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn was partly due to the poor decisions and personality of Custer but also involved separate larger