The Beginning of the Great Sioux War In 1876, the United States started a new war with the Sioux Nation. They had been fighting off and on since the 1850s, but this was the final series of battles. Though the natives defeated Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn, slaughtering over half the troops who fought with him, a year later, in 1877, the United States military defeated them. Even though the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie guaranteed they could remain in the Black Hills in perpetuity, the Indians surrendered their lands and retired to the reservation. [1] So when did the hostilities start? Did this…