Fetterman Massacre

As many as 3,000 Anishinabe soldiers took part in the annihilation of Captain J Fetterman’s small force of American soldiers. On December 21, 1866, 81 American soldiers left Fort Phil Kearny, which was constructed in 1866 to protect invading whites trying to make it to the southwestern Montana gold fields, by way of the dangerous (the Montana Anishinabek were protecting their kingdom) Bozeman Trail and Missouri River. Either the white invaders came up by way of south Wyoming to the Big Horn Mountains, or left the steam boats they sailed up the Missouri River then joined large wagon trains, to eventually go to the gold fields of southwestern Montana. In the battle that followed, the brave Anishinabe soldiers killed every American soldier under Fetterman’s command. They also mutilated every American soldiers body, excepting the bugle boys body. They were extremely enraged with the whites brutally killing 100s if not 1,000s, of their women and children. This battle was fought a few miles south of Montana.