Lt. Col. George Custer is so hated by Indians that it is time to change the name of the Montana battlefield honoring him, says the former chief historian of the National Park Service.
Robert Utley, considered an expert on the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the frontier military, didn't always feel that way. For many years, he resisted the idea.But he changed his mind as he learned more about the Indian view of their treatment by white men during the settlement of the West.
He would like to see Congress pass a bill changing the name from Custer Battlefield National Monument to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.
Utley, in Helena for the 18th Annual Montana History Conference recently, said the present name offends most Indians.
"They look upon Custer as a personification of all that was wrong in American Indian policy, all that was brutal, all that was unjust," he said.
"He is perceived as the great demon, and his name attached to this battlefield - which brings together all of their frustrations, all of their protests, in a symbolic way - has become deeply offensive to the Indian community."
While Utley recognizes the historical value of the battlefield's original name, "the time is now here to sacrifice that bit of history as a concession to Indian sentiment," he said.
The legislation passed the House in June but is being held up in the Senate. Its sponsor, Rep. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, D-Colo., says an unknown Republican senator has placed a "hold" on the bill.
A provision of the bill would establish a memorial to the Indians who died in the battle. Utley said the memorial should be carefully planned so it won't detract from the historic nature of the monument, which was created five years after the 1876 battle.
Utley, 61, has strong ties to the Custer Battlefield. After joining the Park Service in 1947, he worked six summers as a guide at the site. In 1969, he wrote the agency's first official version of the battle and rewrote it five years ago.
He was chief historian for the Park Service from 1972-1974 and then was the agency's assistant director for historic preservation for three years.
Custer and all 210 members of his 7th Cavalry were killed by thousands of Indian warriors on a hillside overlooking the Little Bighorn River in a battle that has always captured the nation's imagination.
"It's one of the most myth-laden events in all of American history," he said.
Americans have always been fascinated with Indians and flamboyant characters such as Custer, Utley explained. There's also a certain mystique about a man who died with all his men in a dramatic battle, leaving the world forever unsure of what precisely happened.
Utley said the Custer myth grew because of his bereaved widow, Libbie. For 57 years after her husband's death she was obsessed with creating an image of a "faultless, flawless, spotless American hero - a knight in shining armor - a brave, courageous man who laid down his life on the altar of patriotism that the West might be opened up.
"All of these have combined over the years to make `Custer's Last Stand' one of the most mythological (incidents) in American folklore but one of the most controversial in American history."
Among the myths: That Custer rode into an ambush, was the last one killed and the only soldier spared mutilation. The controversy: Should Custer have waited to attack the Indian village and did he disobey orders?
Historians are confident they know what led to the battle but little about the climactic fight itself, Utley said.
"Nobody is ever going to lay to rest all the assumptions and all of the beliefs of what happened and why, and who were the good guys and who were the bad guys," Utley said.
The battle has more legendary than historic importance, he added.
It did mark the demise of the free life of the Sioux and Cheyenne on the northern plains, because "a stunned nation was prepared to back any measure to exact retribution for the death of their hero."
Additional troops were sent and new forts built to force Indians onto agencies, although Utley said that would have happened anyway.