workingclasshistory:

On this day, 17 March 1876 US troops attacked sleeping Cheyenne and Oglala Sioux people in Montana in the Battle of Powder River, marking the beginning of the Sioux wars. They destroyed the village and stole large amounts of the Native Americans’ possessions.
However fortunately there were not many casualties, and the Cheyenne and Sioux managed to regroup and recapture 500 of their horses the next morning.
The US commanding officer, colonel Joseph Reynolds, was court-martialed following the failed assault, and suspended from duty.
The incident likely galvanised resistance to the enforced relocation of Native Americans from the Black Hills to a reservation.
Learn more about Indigenous resistance in the Americas in this book: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/books/products/500-years-of-indigenous-resistance-gord-hill
Pictured: Two Moons (Éše'he Ôhnéšesêstse), one of the Cheyenne chiefs https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1376843429167470/?type=3