THE BROADER CONTEXT: WOMEN IN PLAINS WARFARE

Moving Robe Woman’s action at Little Bighorn was unusual but not without precedent in Plains warfare.

The history of women’s participation in warfare on the Great Plains is more complex and more varied than the popular image of women as purely domestic figures waiting in camp while men fought.

Lakota and Cheyenne social structures created specific roles for women in the context of warfare — and in certain circumstances, those roles overlapped with what Western military tradition would classify as combat.

The most formally recognized category of Indigenous women warriors is represented by individuals like Woman Chief of the Crow — a Gros Ventre woman who was captured as a child and raised Crow, who became a renowned warrior and eventually achieved the status of chief within Crow society.