November 27 is the anniversary of The Washita River Massacre in 1868. A day much celebrated in the US, Colonel Custer bravely launched a surprise attack on a Cheyenne camp on the move to their new reservation.
The trouble started with the Medicine Lodge Treaty in 1867, that the US regime had forced them into signing. As usual, the regime had already broken their end of the agreement. They withheld treaty payments, they were trying to prevent the Indians from hunting, and were trying to take even more land.
Of course, this would be met with armed resistance from the natives. Many young warriors were taking up raiding the invading white settlers in defiance. For the crime of resisting ethnic cleansing, the US regime decided "punishment must follow crime". They sent in Colonel George Custer.
Chief Black Kettle was a Cheyenne chief who had survived the Sand Creek massacre four years earlier, and was doing his best to avoid a repeat of that by being subservient to the invaders. He was camped in the tribe's traditional winter camp along the Washita River, flying a white flag. He had been in contact with Fort Cobb, and had explained that the raids were not done with his knowledge or consent, and was on his way to the reservation.
General Sheridan on the other hand, declared "total war", and commanded Colonel Custer to “to destroy villages and ponies, to kill or hang all warriors, and to bring back all woman and children survivors”. He was insistent that every Indian should experience the horrors of war. The Oxford English Dictionary defines terrorism:
The unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.
So Custer went out searching for Indians and found Black Kettle's village. He decided that the best course of action would be a sneak attack with no reconnaissance at dawn. And so he did. Black Kettle and his wife were shot in the back while attempting to escape. They killed everyone they could, then they slaughtered the band's horses, and razed their village, destroying their winter supplies. Custer took 53 women and children hostage. In his own words:
Indians contemplating a battle, either offensive or defensive, are always anxious to have their women and children removed from all danger.
For this reason I decided to locate our military camp as close as convenient to Chief Black Kettle’s Cheyenne village, knowing that the close proximity of their women and children... would operate as a powerful argument in favour of peace, when the question of peace or war came to be discussed.
The Indian Bureau called it cold-blooded butchery, and Colonel Wynkoop, their Indian Agent resigned over the incident. But the military and the public celebrated "the glorious victory" that Custer had achieved. The Cheyenne are still fighting to this day for the regime to recognise it as the massacre that it was.