Activists’ Plaque at Little Bighorn Honors ‘Patriots’ Who Beat Custer

For the next few weeks, at least, tourists who visit the site of Custer’s Last Stand will have a new, but decidedly unofficial, memorial to ponder--a black metal plate that honors the “Indian Patriots” who defeated the U.S. cavalry here.

The memorial plaque was hurriedly installed June 25, the 112th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, by American Indian activists--despite the objections of the National Park Service rangers who administer the facility.

Park Service officials said no effort was made to prevent implantation of the plaque because of the potential for a violent confrontation at a time when the monument grounds were filled with weekend visitors. They said, however, that the plaque is unlikely to remain in its present site very long.

Last Stand Hill

The plaque is at the most prominent point in the park, Last Stand Hill, where the bodies of Gen. George Armstrong Custer and the remnants of his cavalry force were found two days after the historic battle. The plaque lies next to a 12-foot-tall granite pillar inscribed with the names of 220 of the U.S. cavalrymen who are buried here. The pillar marks the mass graves where their remains were interred several years after the battle.

The plaque is a steel plate about a yard square. It reads:

“In honor of our Indian Patriots who fought and defeated the U.S. calvary (sic). In order to save our women and children from mass-murder. In doing so, preserving rights to our Homelands, Treaties and Sovereignty. 6/25/1988 G. Magpie, Cheyenne.”

The plaque was placed by about 40 Indian activists, including members of the American Indian Movement and members of the Crow, Arapaho, Cheyenne and Sioux tribes.

They were led by longtime AIM leader Russell Means, a resident of the Navajo Reservation in Arizona.

Previous Attempts

Park Service officials said Means told them that he and other AIM leaders have tried three times previously to place a memorial to the Indians who fought at Little Bighorn somewhere on the 750-acre facility. Means told the current park superintendent, Dennis Ditmanson, that three different superintendents of the monument had promised in the past to begin the process of erecting an Indian memorial.

In an interview last week, Ditmanson, who has been the park’s superintendent for 1 1/2 years, confirmed that the Park Service and American Indian groups have been discussing for several years the possibility of putting a memorial to the American Indian somewhere on the monument grounds, which are on the Crow Indian Reservation, about 60 miles southeast of Billings, Mont.

Apart from the tall granite pillar inscribed with the names of cavalry dead, dozens of small white headstones are scattered about the monument grounds. They mark the spots where members of Custer’s punitive expedition fell during a series of fights with a superior force of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors.

Wants Proper Channels

“The Park Service has no objection to a monument for the Indians who fought here,” Ditmanson said, “but it is incumbent on them (American Indians) to first design something that is appropriate and then submit it to the Park Service for approval.”

Ditmanson said he will ask his Park Service superiors to keep the plaque in place until a suitable replacement can be designed, possibly in a competition among American Indian artists.

One of those who helped install the plaque was Richard Real Bird, chairman of the Crow Nation Tribal Council, who said he joined the protesters at the last moment and was unaware of precisely what they planned to do.

“There were Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho there,” Real Bird said, and they claimed to have a permit to put their memorial marker in the ground. Since they were Indians and they came to visit our reservation, I figured it was my duty to assist them.”

Annual Peace Ceremony

Ditmanson said the protesters entered the monument grounds with other American Indians from the surrounding Crow and the nearby Cheyenne reservations to participate in a traditional peace ceremony that takes place at the battlefield each June 25.

The Indian activists placed their memorial after the peace ceremony was completed. They used shovels to dig up the ground at the mass grave marker. They then used bolts and quick-drying cement to secure the plaque.

While his supporters were digging the hole for the plaque, Means delivered a speech to the crowd of Indians and a scattering of tourists who were in the area, reports in the local press said. In his remarks, Means reportedly explained that the men commemorated on the granite marker “came to kill our women and children. Can you imagine a monument listing the names of the SS, of Nazi officers, erected in Jerusalem? A Hitler national monument?”

“Archeologists, anthropologists and historians have produced a monument like that,” Means said, “a monument that was named for him (Custer), named for a mass murderer. Custer’s road to the White House was going to be paved with our blood.”

Support Held Not Unanimous

Some officials of the Crow Nation said there was far from unanimous support among local Indians for the plaque. One young Crow leader, who declined to be identified, said the misspellings on the plaque and its abrasive language have angered many local Indians.

“We are a very diverse people,” he said, “so I’m not going to say that everyone on the reservation approves of this.”

He said many Indians simply object to Means and AIM because of their “radical” reputation.

About 270 men in Custer’s 600-man force were killed at the Little Bighorn in a battle against an estimated 2,400 Indian fighters. Historians estimate that 100 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors were killed that day, although there is no accurate information about Indian losses because slain Indians were carried away by their families after the battle.

250,000 Visitors a Year

The battlefield was made a national cemetery in 1879. In 1946 it was rededicated as a national monument, and Park Service officials said it attracts about 250,000 visitors a year.

Ditmanson said that so far no visitors have objected to the plaque, although some local residents are angry about the manner in which it was placed and about the plaque’s “negative” language.

Several tourists who visited the site last week expressed only mild curiosity about it.

“I guess the other side is entitled to have its say,” one man from Illinois said.