Native Americans and Europeans had lived side by side ever since the Colonial era. Sometimes this coexistence was peaceful; often it was not. As both the republic and the white population grew, containment of the native peoples increasingly became a goal.
The government tried numerous policies. Trade. Treaties. Coercion. Their success was at best mixed. It was difficult to strike a balance between two very different cultures, and two essentially incompatible objectives.
The problem was that the lust for European expansion was very great, and very much at odds with the culture of the natives, who wished to maintain their tribal lands which, after all, had been theirs first. All the legislation in the world could do nothing to change human nature, but that didn't stop people from trying. As far back as 1763, the British had attempted to resolve the conflict by prohibiting white settlement west of the Appalachians, but that idea quickly faltered. The discovery of gold in California in 1848 and later in the Black Hills of South Dakota simply exacerbated the desire for white Europeans to head westward in search of better lives - often through incursion on native lands, despite treaties that had presumed to guarantee their sanctity. It's hard to grant protection of something over which you yourself have no control.
One by one, the well-intentioned, peace-loving policies failed and containment increasingly became a military affair. Sometimes this was accomplished with able volunteers. More often, it was conducted with full military regiments. Though certainly bloody and almost certainly immoral, the military solution proved to be the correct one in terms of its effectiveness. By 1890, when the last Sioux were defeated at the Battle of Wounded Knee, most of the Native peoples living in the United States had either been killed or relocated to reservations where, it was hoped, they could live without further interference from white settlers.
One of the most famous battles of these so-called Indian Wars was the Battle of Little Big Horn, which took place in Montana in 1876. Also known as Custer's Last Stand, it represented the last time that Native American peoples waged war against the U.S. Government with any success.
