Title Thieves' road : the Black Hills betrayal and Custer's path to Little Bighorn / Terry Mort

Published Amherst, New York : Prometheus Books, 2015

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Description 1 online resource (336 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates ) Contents War, taxes, debt, and the resultant lure of gold -- Gold in Montana, disaster in Wyoming -- The adversaries -- The Gilded Age -- Politics, philanthropy, and corruption -- The Northern Pacific Railroad -- Custer agonistes -- The Yellowstone Expedition -- The Yellowstone battles -- Anatomy of a crash -- Build-up -- Soldiers, scouts and scientists -- Alkali and comets, grass and stars -- In the moon of black cherries -- Homeward bound -- Invasion Summary In the summer of 1874, Brevet Major General George Armstrong Custer led an expedition of some 1000 troops and more than one hundred wagons into the Black Hills of South Dakota. This fascinating work of narrative history tells the little-known story of this exploratory mission and reveals how it set the stage for the climactic Battle of the Little Bighorn two years later. What is the significance of this obscure foray into the Black Hills? The short answer, as the author explains, is that Custer found gold. This discovery in the context of the worst economic depression the country had yet experienced spurred a gold rush that brought hordes of white prospectors to the Sioux's sacred grounds. The result was the trampling of an 1868 treaty that had granted the Black Hills to the Sioux and their inevitable retaliation against the white invasion. The author brings the era of the Grant administration to life, with its "peace policy" of settling the Indians on reservations, corrupt federal Indian Bureau, Gilded Age excesses, the building of the western railroads, the white settlements that followed the tracks, the Crash of 1873, mining ventures, and the clash of white and Indian cultures with diametrically opposed values. The discovery of gold in the Black Hills was the beginning of the end of Sioux territorial independence. By the end of the book it is clear why the Sioux leader Fast Bear called the trail cut by Custer to the Black Hills "thieves' road." Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 323-324) and index Notes English Description based on print version record and CIP data provided by publisher; resource not viewed Subject Custer, George A. (George Armstrong), 1839-1876 -- Travel -- Black Hills (S.D. and Wyo.) SUBJECT Custer, George A. (George Armstrong), 1839-1876 fast Subject Indians of North America -- Wars -- 1866-1895. HISTORY / United States / State & Local / Southwest (AZ, NM, OK, TX) HISTORY / United States / State & Local / West (AK, CA, CO, HI, ID, MT, NV, UT, WY) Discoveries in geography Gold mines and mining Indians of North America -- Wars Travel SUBJECT Black Hills (S.D. and Wyo.) -- Discovery and exploration Black Hills (S.D. and Wyo.) -- Gold discoveries Black Hills (S.D. and Wyo.) -- History -- 19th century Subject United States -- Black Hills Genre/Form History Form Electronic book LC no. 2021678267 ISBN 9781616149611 1616149612

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