The Custer Companion: A Comprehensive Guide To The Life of George Armstrong Custer And The Plains Indians Wars, Thom Hatch, c. 2002.

The Custer Companion: A Comprehensive Guide to the Life of George Armstrong Custer and the Plains Indians Wars, Thom Hatch, c. 2002. 973.8HAT.

If I ever take a touristy, cross-country trip through the northern Plains (again), this is the book I would take as my tour guide.

The major hostile Indian tribes on the Great Plains, pp. 43 - 49.

These five nations had been roaming western Kansas, incessantly menacing homeesteaders and workers on the Kansas Pacific Railway. Maj Gen Winfield Scott Hancock to be sent out to handle the situation.

• the Hancock Expedition
• March,1867
• 1,400 soldiers
• including eight companies of Custer's 7th Cavalry
• Companies: A, D, E, F, G, G, K, M

Arapaho.

• an Algonquin tribe 
• probably migrated from headwaters of the Mississippi in late 1700s or early 1800s
• migrated to Great Plains to become nomadic hunters
  
• split into five subtribes; one was the Gros Ventre of the Northwest
• two groups: the Northern Arapaho; the southern Arapaho
  

Cheyenne

• 1600s, an agricultural Algonquin tribe, tired of constant warfare with the Sioux and Ojibway in Minnesota, moved to the Great Plains; two distinct bands:
• the larger: the Southern Cheyenne
• the Northern Cheyenne
• assumed a lifesty similar to that of their allies, the Sioux
• the tribe had seven military societies, of which the Dog Soldiers was regarded as the most aggressve and feared, constantly waged war on Indian enemies
  

 

Comanche

• (?) separated from other Shoshonean-speaking peoples in the great Basin andwestern Wyoming and migrated southeastward
• late 1600s: had reeached the southern plains: northern Texas, eastern Oklahoma, SW Kansas, SE Colorado, easstern New Mexico
• perhaps the most skilled horsemen on the plains
  

Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache

• early 1700s
• had migrated south from the headwaters of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers, arriving in the region of the Red and Arkansas rivers -- present-day Oklahma, Texas, New Mexico, Kansas, and Colorado
• the Kiowa had seven mainly autonomous bands
• one was the Kiowa-Apache
• during the Indian wars, the iowa history mirrors that of the Comanche
  

Lakota Sioux

• Teton, or Lakota, Nation of the Sioux, along with their brethren the Dakota and Nakota Sioux, had migrated from the South in the 1500s to settle the headwaters of the Mississippi in northern Minnesota
• over time, the three groups split into distinct nations, each speaking a different dialect and occupying their own territory, although collectively known as Sioux
• Sioux: a French interpretation of the Chippewa word Nadoue-is-iw, meaning "eneemy," seerved only as a generic name for the three separate nations
• late 1700s, the Lakota Sioux became the final major group of Indians to arrive on the Great Plains; the Dakota and Nakota Sioux remained in Minneosta
• the Black Hills
• seven principal autonomouus Lakota tribes: the Blackfeet (not to be confused with the Blackfoot tribe to the north, related to the eastern Algonquin), Brule, Hunkpapa, Minniconjouu, Oglala, Sans Arc and Two Kettle, each of which establishhed its own territory throughout Montana, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, and The Dakota Territory but wouldcome together for hunts and annual ceremonies.
• Lakota: strongest, most feared tribe on the Great Plains; largest group, many allies; 

Military forts on the northern plains.

• Fort Abercrombie, Dakota Territory;
• Fort Abraham Lincoln, Dakota Territory; 
• Fort Berthold Indian Agency, Dakota Territory; 
• Fort Buford, Dakota Territory;  
• Fort Custer, Montana Territory; 
• Fort Ellis, Montana Territory;  
• Fort Fetterman, Wyoming; 
• Fort Keogh, Montana Territory; 
• Fort Laramie, Wyoming; 
• Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming; 
• Fort Rice, Dakota Territory;
• Fort (Camp) Robinson, Nebraska;
• Fort Stevenson, Dakota Territory; 
• Fort Totten, Dakota Territory; 
• Fort Yates, Dakota Territory;