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| Rain-in-the-Face,
born about 1835, was a warchief of the Hunkpapa tribe. He
was among the Native American leaders who defeated George
Armstrong Custer and the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment at the
1876 Battle of Little Big Horn. He first fought against the whites in the summer of 1866 when he participated in a raid against Fort Totten. In 1868, he again fought the U.S. Army in the Fetterman massacre near Fort Phil Kearny. He again was on the warpath during the Black Hills War, leading a raid near the Tonque River in which two white civilians accompanying Custer's cavalry were killed. He returned to the Standing Rock Reservation, but was captured by Custer after being betrayed by reservation Indians. He was taken to Fort Abraham Lincoln and incarcerated. However, he was freed by a sympathetic soldier and returned to the reservation, then fled to the Powder River. In the spring of 1876, he joined Sitting Bull and traveled with him to the Little Big Horn River in early June. At the battle of Little Big Horn, Custer and all his 264 men were killed. The soldiers under Reno and Benteen were also attacked and 47 of them were killed. It was claimed afterwards that Custer had been killed by his old enemy, Rain in the Face. However, there is no evidence to suggest that this is true. |
