Battle of the Little Bighorn

News of Custer’s cavalry defeat and his death on the Little Bighorn River in southern Montana reached the Centennial Exposition on 6 July. The massacre and ritual mutilation of white soldiers at the hands of Lakota and Northern Cheyenne warriors reinforced cultural stereotypes of American Indians as heartless savages and undermined the Exposition’s already clumsy efforts to accurately portray Native American cultures. The painting shown here is by Charles Marion Russell, who depicted the Indian perspective on the Little Bighorn fight.