My Life on the Plains: Personal Experiences with Indians

In 1874, just two years before General George A. Custer’s death at Little Big Horn, a collection of his magazine articles was published as My Life on the Plains. Custer, General in the U.S. Army’s Seventh Cavalry, wrote personal accounts of his encounters with Native Americans during the western Indian warfare of 1867-1869. The collection was a document of its time and an important primary source for anyone interested in U.S. military affairs and U.S./Native American relations. Custer’s references to Indians as bloodthirsty savages were tempered by his empathetic understanding of their reason for fighting: If I were an Indian, I often think I would greatly prefer to cast my lot among those of my people who adhered to the free open plains, rather than submit to the confined limits of a reservation…