The Lakota Leader Who Forced The U.S. Army To Abandon Its Forts — And Won A War Most Americans Never Learned About

Which meant forts.

Which meant soldiers in the Powder River Country.

Which meant a direct confrontation with the people who were already there.

The 1862 Treaty of Fort Laramie, which superseded the 1851 agreement, had reduced Lakota territory considerably — partly in response to the Sioux uprising in Minnesota.

Some Lakota leaders had signed the 1862 treaty; others had not.

The question of which agreements the Lakota people as a whole regarded as binding was genuinely complicated, and different bands had different positions.

Red Cloud and the bands most associated with the Powder River Country had not ceded their claims to that territory.