In the summer of 1874, George Armstrong Custer led a military expedition into the Black Hills to choose a site for a new Army fort and investigate the area’s natural resources. The expedition’s discovery of gold attracted thousands of whites to the Black Hills in violation of the 1868 Laramie Treaty which protected Lakota ownership and hunting rights.
In the new book Thieves’ Road: the Black Hills Betrayal and Custer’s Path to Little Bighorn, Terry Mort recounts Custer’s Black Hills expedition and illuminates the economic, political and social pressures that led up to it. Mort’s previous books include The Wrath of Cochise and The Hemmingway Patrols. He joined Dakota Midday and discussed Thieves' Road.