Buffalo Calf Road Woman was a Northern Cheyenne warrior who lived during the 1870s, a period when the US government was forcibly removing Indigenous populations from the Great Plains. She played a pivotal role in the death of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. Her early life and background remain largely unknown, but she became a significant figure in the documented events that led to the devastation of the Plains Indians during the US government’s military actions against them. CONTENT:
A Cheyenne woman is credited with striking the blow that killed Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, according to an oral account that emerged more than a century after the clash.
Buffalo Calf Road Woman, a Northern Cheyenne warrior, knocked Custer from his horse during the 1876 fight, and her story challenges the long-standing American narrative of his final stand. Buffalo Calf Road Woman, also known as Buffalo Calf Road or Brave Woman, was likely born in the 1840s or early 1850s. She belonged to the Cheyenne tribe, one of many Indigenous peoples who populated the Great Plains, a vast region stretching across present-day US states including Kansas, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, and parts of Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, and Montana. When she was born, these Indigenous peoples were just beginning to face the encroachment of settlers from the east.
In the early 19th century, the United States expanded westward, and as cities like Chicago grew, waves of American and European settlers moved into the Great Plains in search of new territories. This marked the onset of a tragic decline for the Plains Indians. The first major discord between the US government and the Indigenous populations of the Great Plains emerged in 1854 during Buffalo Calf Road Woman’s childhood, sparking the First Sioux War, which lasted from 1854 to 1856. Conflicts escalated in the 1860s after the US government failed to honor agreements with certain Sioux tribes involving land sessions in exchange for compensation.
Tensions intensified after 1862, when a gold rush in Montana attracted thousands of prospectors migrating through the Plains. In 1868, the Treaty of Fort Laramie was established between the US government and numerous Indigenous groups, designating the Black Hills in Dakota and Wyoming for Indigenous peoples, along with several reservations extending into Nebraska and Montana. The treaty provided only a temporary cessation of hostilities, and Buffalo Calf Road Woman would play a pivotal role when conflict reignited in the 1870s. By the mid-1870s, Buffalo Calf Road Woman had married a man named Black Coyote, and together they had two children, likely born in the early to mid-1870s.
Little is known about her personal life before 1876, though a romanticized account later described her as riding into battle with her infant on her back. The events leading to her rise to prominence began in 1874, when the US government dispatched an expedition from Bismarck, North Dakota, into the Black Hills. The expedition, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, was tasked with identifying a suitable location for a fort, exploring the region, and assessing the potential for gold mining. The expedition breached the Treaty of Fort Laramie, though the Sioux and other Plains tribes did not respond immediately.
After the expedition, news spread about significant gold deposits in the Black Hills, prompting prospectors to flood the area within weeks. Some Sioux leaders, including Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, sought to negotiate with the US government, but others had grown weary of negotiations. Chief Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse united a confederacy of Sioux and Cheyenne to wage war against the US government in 1876. This conflict, known as the Great Sioux War, would see Buffalo Calf Road Woman emerge as a significant figure.
The first major engagement where she became prominent was the Battle of the Rosebud on June 17, 1876, in the Montana Territory. A force of approximately 1,000 to 2,000 Sioux and Cheyenne confronted around 900 American soldiers commanded by General George R. Crook near Rosebud Creek. During hours of sporadic fighting, the Sioux and Cheyenne attempted attacks against Crook’s troops before momentarily withdrawing.
As Crook began to gain the advantage, Buffalo Calf Road Woman returned to confront his forces. Her brother, the notable Cheyenne warrior Chief Comes in Sight, had been injured and needed assistance to avoid being left behind on the battlefield. Buffalo Calf Road Woman seized her brother and rode back to safety with him. Accounts suggest this act prompted the Sioux and Cheyenne to unite, and Crook was compelled to execute a tactical withdrawal to await reinforcements.
In recognition of her bravery, the people of the Great Plains came to refer to the battle as “Where the Girl Saved Her Brother. ”
The Battle of the Rosebud served as a precursor to a more notorious confrontation. On June 25, 1876, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse assembled a force of approximately 2,000 to 2,500 Sioux and Cheyenne along the banks of the Little Bighorn River within the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana Territory. Buffalo Calf Road Woman was among them, lying in wait for an expedition led by Custer, the same commander who had led the 1874 expedition into the Black Hills.
Custer commanded the Seventh Cavalry Regiment, consisting of around 700 men, but he made a grave mistake. Despite intelligence about the strength of the Sioux and Cheyenne forces, he divided his command. Observing this, Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse initiated an attack on Custer and his smaller contingent. They were encircled in the subsequent ambush, resulting in the death of Custer and 268 of his men.
It was one of the most significant victories achieved by the Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains against the US Army. Buffalo Calf Road Woman’s role in this battle is now believed to be that she was the person who killed Custer. The famous “last stand” narrative is fundamentally a construct of US history, as nearly all Americans present were killed, leaving only the Sioux and Cheyenne as surviving witnesses. In 2005, a remarkable disclosure emerged.
Cheyenne elder Frank Rowland told the Independent Record that the chiefs had instructed a vow of silence for 100 summers. “100 summers have now elapsed, and we are now breaking our silence,” he said. He described how several female warriors had been positioned at the edges of the battle when Buffalo Calf Road Woman advanced and struck Custer from his horse with a club. He may have been trampled or suffered a head injury from the fall, as it was reported that she ultimately killed him.
The Battle of the Little Bighorn became the most renowned event in the conflicts between the US government and the Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains. However, the victory marked the zenith of Sioux and Cheyenne fortunes during the Great Sioux War. Upon receiving news of Custer’s defeat, the government dispatched additional troops. As more military operations were initiated in the spring of 1877, several tribes began to capitulate.
In September 1877, Crazy Horse was captured and killed. Sitting Bull led some of his followers across the northern border into Canada. By 1878, the war was nearing its end, and many participants were being relocated to new reservations. A significant number of Cheyenne people, including Buffalo Calf Road Woman, her spouse Black Coyote, and their two children, were relocated south to Oklahoma.
Shortly after their arrival on the Oklahoma reservation, a measles outbreak began to ravage the Cheyenne population. In response, the chiefs initiated plans in August 1878 to guide their people back to their ancestral territories. On September 8, leaders Little Wolf, Dull Knife, Wild Hog, and Left Hand led around 350 Cheyenne northward from their reservation, including Buffalo Calf Road Woman and her family. This journey became known as the Northern Cheyenne Exodus.
The exodus concluded successfully for the main group, which returned north and was eventually allocated land in Montana by the federal government. However, Buffalo Calf Road Woman and her family did not reach that destination. During the journey, her husband Black Coyote became embroiled in a dispute with another man named Black Crane, resulting in Black Coyote shooting and killing him. He and his extended family, including Buffalo Calf Road Woman, were expelled from the group.
Their tragic end occurred in the late spring of 1879. At that time, they were involved in an altercation at Muddy Creek with US soldiers. Troops were dispatched from nearby Fort Keogh, and on April 10, 1879, the small group was apprehended and transported to Miles City, Montana. Black Coyote was charged with murder and found guilty, facing execution alongside three other males from his group in early June.
Buffalo Calf Road Woman would not survive that long. While in custody in Miles City, she fell victim to a Western illness her body could not combat, likely diphtheria or malaria. Days before his scheduled execution, Black Coyote took his own life.
The woman who had slain Custer at the Little Bighorn passed away not in battle, but due to one of the many diseases brought to the Americas by Europeans.