The women who rode into battle

The summer of 1876 is remembered for the thunder of hooves and the defiant stand of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho along the Greasy Grass. But woven through the stories of Sitting Bull, White Bull, One Bull, Crazy Horse, Gall, Two Moons, and Lame White Man are the quieter, often-erased histories of the women who rode into battle beside them.

They were sisters, daughters, wives, and mothers, but they were also warriors. Their courage shaped the outcome of the Battle of the Rosebud and the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and their lives carried the weight of exile, surrender, and survival in the years that followed.

This is their story, Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho together, as they were in 1876.

A world of women warriors

In the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho world of the 19th century, women held political, economic, and spiritual authority. They were keepers of the home, but also riders, hunters, strategists and when needed, fighters.

Among the Northern Cheyenne, women like Buffalo Calf Road Woman, Elk Woman, and Standing Woman grew up in societies where courage was not bound by gender. Among the Lakota, women such as Moving Robe Woman, Minnie Hollow Wood, and One Who Walks With the Stars learned to ride and defend their families. Among the Arapaho, women like Pretty Nose carried warrior honors and fought beside their allies.

By 1876, these women had lived through broken treaties, the theft of the Black Hills, and the tightening grip of U.S. military campaigns. They knew what was coming.

‘The Fight Where the Girl Saved Her Brother’
June 17, 1876

The first major clash of the 1876 campaign erupted in the Wolf Mountains. When General Crook’s Crow and Shoshone scouts attacked the Cheyenne and Lakota camp, chaos swept through the valley.

Into this confusion rode Buffalo Calf Road Woman, Northern Cheyenne.

When she saw her brother Comes In Sight thrown from his horse and surrounded, she charged through gunfire, leaned from her saddle, and pulled him onto her horse. Cheyenne warriors rallied at the sight, shouting, “The woman saved her brother!”

The battle turned. Crook retreated. The Cheyenne renamed the fight in her honor.

Other Cheyenne women, Elk Woman, Many Magpies Woman, Spotted Rabbit Woman, Whirlwind Woman, also fought that day, riding with their husbands and brothers, firing rifles, carrying messages, and rescuing the wounded.

The Rosebud was the first sign that the women would not stand aside.

Eight days later, The Greasy Grass
June 25–26, 1876

The camps along the Little Bighorn were alive with summer, children playing, women tanning hides, men returning from hunts. No one expected Custer to strike the way he did.

When the alarm came, the women moved first.

They grabbed children. They grabbed weapons. They mounted horses. They rode into the fight.

Lakota Women

Moving Robe Woman (Hunkpapa): When she learned her brother One Hawk had been killed by soldiers, she painted her face red, the color of vengeance, and rode into the valley fight. She fought beside the Hunkpapa warriors who broke Reno’s line.

Minnie Hollow Wood (Lakota): She rode into the thick of the fighting, capturing two cavalry saddlebags. Her bravery earned her the right to wear a war bonnet, a rare honor for a woman.

One Who Walks With the Stars (Lakota): Preserved in oral history, she fought with a rifle and is remembered as one of the women who saw Custer fall.

Northern Cheyenne Women

Buffalo Calf Road Woman: Fresh from her heroism at the Rosebud, she fought again at the Greasy Grass. Cheyenne oral tradition holds that she struck the blow that unhorsed Custer.

Twin Woman, Elk Woman, Standing Woman, Many Magpies Woman, Spotted Rabbit Woman, Whirlwind Woman: These women, remembered through Cheyenne families, fought in both battles, riding with their relatives, rescuing the wounded, and helping secure the final victory.

Arapaho Women

Pretty Nose (Northern Arapaho): Wearing a red trade cloth dress, she rode into the valley fight beside the Cheyenne and Lakota. She lived into her 90s or 100s, remembered by her grandson, Korean War veteran Mark Soldier Wolf, as a warrior of the Greasy Grass.

Other Arapaho Women (oral history) Arapaho families remember additional women who rode with the small Arapaho contingent that fought with the Lakota and Cheyenne. Their names survive in family memory, even when written records do not.

After the battles, exile, flight, and survival After the Battle: Northern Cheyenne Women

After the Great Sioux War, Northern Cheyenne families, including Buffalo Calf Road Woman, were forced to surrender and were sent to the Southern Cheyenne Reservation in Indian Territory.

Conditions were deadly. In 1878, many fled north in the Northern Cheyenne Exodus. Buffalo Calf Road Woman died near Miles City in 1879.

Lakota Women

Lakota bands surrendered at Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, Standing Rock, and Cheyenne River Agencies. Moving Robe Woman and One Who Walks With the Stars entered reservation life, their stories carried forward by family memory.

Minnie Hollow Wood

She and her husband surrendered at Fort Keogh and later lived on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, where she was photographed in old age wearing her war bonnet.

Arapaho Women

Pretty Nose lived on the Wind River Reservation, where she welcomed her grandson home from war with a warrior’s song.

Why their stories matter 150 years later

For generations, historians erased these women. Their names were left out of textbooks. Their courage was dismissed as legend. Their lives were overshadowed by the men whose stories were easier to fit into the myth of the West.

But the truth is this:

The Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho won those battles as their women fought beside them.

Not behind. Beside.

Their stories belong at the center of the 150th Anniversary, not as footnotes, but as pillars of the history of the Great Sioux War.

They remind us that courage is not bound by gender. That resistance is a family act. That Nations survive because women stand up when the world tries to break them.

(Contact Ernestine Anunkasan Hopa at editor@nativesunnews.today)

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