1865
Three columns of soldiers under the command of General Patrick Conner invade the Powder River Basin and are given the order, “Attack and kill every male Indian over the age of twelve.” Conner builds a fort to protect the wagon trains crossing the Powder River to get to the Montana gold fields.
Armed with only bows, lances, and old guns, Chief Roman Nose of the Cheyenne and hundreds of warriors lay siege to the exhausted and starving soldiers struggling to return to Fort Laramie. This was revenge for the Sand Creek Massacre of Indians.
As the result of the Sand Creek Massacre, Southern Cheyenne Chiefs sign a treaty giving up their claim to ancestral homeland, most of Colorado territory the U.S. government.
Red Cloud and his warriors keep the soldiers isolated and without supplies all winter at the fort Connor built at the fork of th Crazy Woman Creek. Malnutrition, scurvy, and pneumonia do the killing for the Indians untill Colonel Carrington relieved them.
None of the nine treaties that were widely advertised as the signifying end to the Indian Plains wars were never singed by any of the chiefs of the Brule, Hunkpapa, Oglala and Minneconjou Indian tribes.
The U.S. government cuts the Oregon Coast Indian Reservation land in half with an Illegal executive order.
1866
Navajo peoples are allowed to return to their traditional homes only if they stop raiding white settlers, and they become ranchers and farmers.
The Cheyenne and Lakota Indians fight together to control the area around the U.S. army’s northern outpost and massacre a wagon train and the solders sent to excort them in the Battle of the Platte Bridge
Connor’s column kill over 50 Arapaho villagers and destroy their food, shelters, and cold weather clothes in retaliation, at the Battle of Tongue River.
The U.S. army starts constructing forts on the Bozeman Trail, the route to Virginia City and the gold fields, angering the Sioux Indians. Captain Fetterman disobeys orders as rides out of site of the fort and he and 80 soldiers are victims of the Fetterman Massacre.
President Johnson vetoes the Civil Rights Bill but Congress overrules, giving equal right to all persons born in the U.S. except Native American Indians, and authorize the President to use the U.S. Army to enforce the law.
Treaty negotiations at Fort Laramie with chiefs Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, Standing Elk, and Jull Knife only lead to Red Cloud’s War when it is clear to the chiefs that forts will be built along the Bozeman Trail whether they like or not.
Oglala Sioux chief Red Cloud continues to fight to keep Sioux lands, from Fort Laramie to Montana gold fields, that are on the Bozeman Trail.
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