First Person: Remembering Little Bighorn

On June 25, 1876, Lakota and Cheyenne warriors overwhelmed General George A. Custer and the 7th Cavalry on the banks of the Little Bighorn River in present-day Montana. 

This event is well-known in U.S. history, but Native perspectives on the battle are less well known. Lakota artists Stephen Standing Bear (c. 1859-1933) and Amos Bad Heart Bull (c. 1868-1913) were both present at the battle, and recorded their experiences using traditional pictographs drawn on cloth and paper. These illustrations, large and small, detail eye-witness accounts of a significant event in American and Native American history.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website.