Remembering the Rosebud, 150 years of Courage and Legacy

ROSEBUD BATTLEFIELD STATE PARK, Mont. — Gathered on the valley floor below the high ridges where Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors once swept over the crest to surprise an unsuspecting U.S. column, park officials, tribal leaders, descendants and members of the family who donated the land met Wednesday, June 17, for “Remembering the Rosebud: 150 Years of Courage and Legacy” to honor the land and the history it carries.

The commemoration opened with a Presentation of Colors by the Northern Arapaho Warriors and Cpl. Billy Farris, setting a solemn, military tone that tied contemporary Native service to the warriors who once fought on those surrounding ridges.

Oglala Sioux Tribal President Frank Star Comes Out, who was not listed on the official program, stepped forward to ensure the Lakota story was part of the commemoration. Framing his remarks as an affirmation of Lakota presence, he highlighted the importance of honoring Lakota history and voices alongside those of the Cheyenne and Arapaho.

“It’s time to tell our story. It’s been a long time coming, and that needs to happen. You need to hear our side of the story, and it all started right here with our great leaders, our war chiefs,” Star Comes Out said.

He then introduced Wíchaša Wakhá. Rick Two Dogs, who offered a prayer and sang in Lakota, grounding the gathering in ceremony and song.

Star Comes Out also introduced John Eagle Shield, a Hunkpapa descendant of White Bull. White Bull, a Hunkpapa and Mniconjou warrior, is credited in oral histories with killing General George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Greasy Grass. Eagle Shield and his son sang a war song composed specifically for this event.

Carrying in the staff and representing the Hunkpapa and Cuthead warriors who fought at the Rosebud was Tim Mentz, Standing Rock Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, whose role and presence helped weave spiritual leadership, lineage and cultural expertise into the day’s program of remembrance.

Welcome remarks were then presented by Kqyn Kuka, FWP Tribal Liason.

Raymond Schell, FWP Park Manager, recounted how “the Lakota and the Cheyenne warriors came…over the hill” and engaged General Crook’s forces in “six hours of intense fighting.” Though “militarily, you may say, [it] is inconclusive,” he noted that Crook “headed back down to his camp on Goose Creek” and was “stopped from moving forward and finding the village that they were looking for.” Schell highlighted individual heroics, Two Moons rescuing Limpy, a warrior standing over Captain Guy Henry, and “the most memorable one, where Comes Inside and Buffalo Road Calf Woman rode down the hill and she rescued her” and closed by urging people to “get to know this battle” and hoping they would “leave with more than [they] came.”

Brig. Gen. George Crook, who led the southern arm of the Army’s three pronged 1876 campaign against the Lakota and Cheyenne, entered the Rosebud Valley with roughly 1,300 men, ten companies of the 2nd and 3rd Cavalry and five companies of the 4th and 9th Infantry, along with scouts and civilian packers. His mission was to push north and link up with columns under Gibbon and Terry, but the combined Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho force struck first, stopping Crook cold and forcing him to retreat back to Goose Creek. That single defeat shattered the Army’s coordinated plan and left Custer’s column isolated days later on the Little Bighorn.

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks Director Christy Clark used her remarks at Rosebud Battlefield to honor both the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Rosebud and the much older tribal histories embedded in the land. She thanked tribal representatives, partners, community members, and visitors for coming together, and pointed to the extensive work by Region Seven crews, mowed parking areas, graded roads, cleared paths, repaired fences, new signage, and a new bridge, as a visible sign of shared stewardship. Clark underscored that Rosebud’s power lies not in its 3,000 plus acres but in the depth and complexity of its story, from buffalo jumps, petroglyphs, teepee rings, eagle catch sites, and vision quest sites to its role as one of the greatest victories for the Northern Cheyenne, and a place of enduring significance for the Lakota, Crow, Shoshone, and others. Acknowledging the vision of the Montana legislature, the coal tax fund, and Elmer “Slim” Kobalt and his family for ensuring the land’s protection, she reaffirmed the park’s mission to conserve its archaeological, historical, natural, and scenic resources “in perpetuity,” not only for today’s visitors but for generations yet to come, concluding:

“As we commemorate the anniversary of the Battle of the Rosebud, let us also recommit… to protect and to learn and to share these stories with care and with respect.”

A statement from U.S. Senator Steve Daines was read recognizing the Battle of the Rosebud as a pivotal moment in Western and Montana history. He noted that Native warriors “successfully challenged U.S. Army forces” and that the battle “played a key role in the events leading up to the Battle of the Little Bighorn,” calling it a lasting reminder of the “struggles between Native American tribes and the United States government.”

Patricia Lockwood, granddaughter of Slim and Rose Kobalt offered a reflective land acknowledgment and family tribute grounded in gratitude and responsibility. She explains that her family lived on this land for nearly seven decades and, when coal mining threatened it in 1978, transferred the property to the state of Montana “to preserve it in perpetuity,” creating what is now Rosebud Battlefield State Park, “the site where the girl saved her brother.” Lockwood centers Native sovereignty and stewardship, recognizing the property as lying “within the ancestral territories and tribal nations” and honoring Native peoples as “original stewards of this land, whose resilience, their histories, and their ongoing connections with this place” endure. She affirms her family’s commitment to “relationships of mutual respect and admiration” and pledges “to remember and share these stories with great reverence.” She closes by honoring her ancestors by name and wishing that “everyone here, regardless of circumstances, find peace in their hearts and within their families.”

Vincent Goes Ahead Jr, a Crow and direct descendant of Chief Plenty Coups, speaks as both veteran and historian, welcoming listeners to Crow Country and revisiting the tribe’s complex role in the 19th century conflicts on this land. He explains that Plenty Coups was “our last head chief,” who represented all nations at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in 1921, and recalls the Crow’s 1851 friendship treaty with the U.S. government. Because of that promise, he says, the Crow allied with the cavalry in 1868, not against other Native nations, but “for our survival, we fought for our homeland, and this was all it right here.” Goes Ahead underscores that the Crow were condemned by some tribes for “fighting for the wrong side,” yet insists their guidance, urging the soldiers to “take high ground in any battle” and later warning, “if you continued this, you’re all gonna lose your lives” was ignored at great cost. He closes by thanking the audience for allowing him “to say these words to let people realize” the Crow were fighting to survive in their own country.

“We fought for our survival, we fought for our homeland, and this was all it right here.”

Dr. Leo Killsback, Northern Cheyenne, opened his keynote by grounding himself in story, lineage, and place. Raised in Busby, Montana, on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation, he described himself not simply as a tribal member, but, in his words, “a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation,” a nation that signed treaties and exercised its own governance and law. He traced his lineage back six generations to Chief Dull Knife (Morning Star) and reminded listeners that the land beneath their feet is sacred, land the Cheyenne sought as a reservation long before war and removal. Through humor and oral tradition, he illustrated how his ancestors understood law and treaty rights, including the story of his grandfather in Washington, D.C., who, when pressed about the Cheyenne word for “law,” replied that it was already written in the treaty and then remarked, through the interpreter, that Cheyenne people had thought it was the United States that had no laws.

Killsback framed the Great Sioux and Cheyenne War as far more than a simple clash between “Indians and whites.” He emphasized that history often begins Native stories at the point of conflict with the United States, rather than acknowledging the long eras of peaceful, healthy, and law-governed lives that the Cheyenne, Lakota, and Arapaho lived before invasion. He walked the audience through the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 and the traditional Cheyenne ceremonial treaty-making involving the sacred arrows and sacred buffalo hat ceremony “sanctified by the highest political and religious authorities” of the tribal nations. Broken promises, from the killing of a stray cow in Conquering Bear’s camp to the Bozeman Trail, to gold in the Black Hills, became the backdrop for a half-century of war, genocide, and displacement. These were not random outbreaks of violence, he argued, but the predictable result of treaty violations and greed.

At the heart of his talk was the Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother at Rosebud. Killsback described the Rosebud landscape as a place of profound cultural and spiritual power, buffalo jumps, rock art, ceremonial sites, eagle pits, a “place of transition” where Native people moved from buffalo jumps to horse hunting, and then were forced into yet another transition by U.S. expansion. He recounted how Buffalo Calf Road Woman rode into the middle of intense gunfire from “the United States’ most advanced snipers,” soldiers backed by “America’s 100 years’ worth of wealth, colonial power, and legacy of empire.” Wearing an elk-tooth dress and Cheyenne finery, she charged into the line of fire to rescue her brother and rode out again under a hail of bullets. In his vivid words, this was not just an act of courage, but “an entire way of life, a culture, a society, a way of living, and more importantly, a way of thinking” made visible in one decisive act of resistance.

Killsback did not romanticize war. He spoke of the burning of Cheyenne villages, the destruction of buffalo robes, beadwork, ceremonial lodges, and spiritual property in the Bighorn Mountains, and of his ancestor’s people being driven south, then making the desperate return north that ultimately secured today’s Cheyenne reservation. He described how younger Cheyenne’s, raised in constant war and broken promises, sometimes turned to violence because “treaties, peace, any agreements between their leaders and the government probably seemed meaningless.” He warned of a way of living that “devours souls, even the souls of its own children,” and expressed his hope that young people would not be consumed by that same cycle. Deconstructing long-standing myths, he insisted that the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho were not lawless or perpetually warring peoples: they knew peace, they knew how to keep it, and they were often the ones whose villages were attacked and burned. As he put it, his people “never lost a battle, they never lost a fight, and they never lost the war. But they did lose that peace, not because they did not know peace, but because the people that we were making peace with did not know it.”

He closed by turning toward the present and a shared human future, reminding both Native and non-Native listeners that “we all want to live peaceful and affordable lives,” to feed our children and secure their futures, even as power and greed continue to threaten that hope. Echoing the wisdom of the old leaders he carries in his stories, Killsback left the audience with the words of Chief Sitting Bull, a line he clearly embraced as a guiding principle for our time:

“Let us all put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.”

The program continued with recognition of descendants who gave their familial accounts and concluded with the laying of wreaths ceremony and a victory song by the Northern Cheyenne Drum.

As the program concluded, the horseback riders arrived from Trail Creek, having followed the same route their ancestors rode into the valley 150 years ago. They joined the gathering for the reenactment of Buffalo Calf Road Woman’s rescue of her brother, Comes In Sight, bringing the story back to life on the very ground where it happened. Afterward, guests shared a community feast at 2:00 p.m., closing the day in a spirit of remembrance and connection.

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

The post Remembering the Rosebud, 150 years of Courage and Legacy first appeared on Native Sun News Today.

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