When those forces produced the next confrontation, as they inevitably did with the discovery of gold in the Black Hills, the United States was not willing to make another concession.

The 1868 treaty had paused the conflict but had not resolved the fundamental incompatibility between American expansion and Lakota territorial sovereignty.

That incompatibility would eventually produce the crisis of 1876, the breaking of the treaty, and the final reduction of Lakota autonomy that Red Cloud spent the rest of his life fighting against through political means.

The Allied Leaders

Red Cloud was the leader most associated with the resistance campaign, but he did not win the war alone.

The coalition that sustained the pressure on the Bozeman Trail forts was multi-national — Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho communities all contributed fighters and leadership to the effort.