And he was a key leader — though not the only leader — in the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25-26, 1876, where Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer’s 7th Cavalry was decisively defeated.

The Little Bighorn And Its Aftermath

The Battle of the Little Bighorn is the most famous engagement in the history of the American West, and Crazy Horse’s role in it is part of what made him famous to American audiences.

The battle was the result of a massive coalition of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho people who had gathered in the Montana territory in the summer of 1876.

The gathering was the largest concentration of resistance the United States had faced on the Northern Plains, and it reflected the depth of anger and desperation among peoples who were watching the violation of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty — which had guaranteed the Black Hills to the Lakota in perpetuity — proceed with the U.S. government’s tacit support for the gold seekers who flooded into the Hills after Custer’s 1874 expedition confirmed the presence of gold there.