Native Americans commemorate victory at Little Bighorn

Native Americans have come together to mark the 150th anniversary of one of the most famous events in US history - the Battle of Little Bighorn.

Allied tribes handed the US Army a rare defeat on the banks of the Little Bighorn river, as they fought to preserve their way of life in the face of westward expansion.

Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and more than 200 of his troops were killed in the conflict.

Horse riders from the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota and elsewhere travelled hundreds of miles to the Crow Agency area in Montana to mark the occasion.

Gathering at the battlefield area in Montana means "we're still here," said William Good Bird, a traditional singer from the Spirit Lake Dakota Nation in North Dakota.

"Today I am celebrating the victory of our people, celebrating my life as a human being and my spot on this earth," he said.

The discovery of gold in the Black Hills in what is now South Dakota by a Custer expedition just years earlier spurred a military campaign against Great Plains tribes that aimed to push them onto reservations, said historian Dakota Goodhouse.

There were bigger, longer battles and other Native victories between March 1876 and June 1877, but Goodhouse said only the Battle of Greasy Grass — named by Native Americans for the slick grass along the river — gained national recognition because the commanding officer was killed.

At the time, the Lakota were one of the largest and most powerful tribal nations, with strong leaders in Sitting Bull and warriors like Crazy Horse. Native warriors quickly overwhelmed Custer's men as the US forces were spread miles apart over the hilly area.

The federal government accelerated efforts to subdue resistance, bringing years of hardship and upheaval for Native Americans. Crazy Horse was killed in 1877, and starvation brought about the surrender of others in 1881.

Sitting Bull was killed with about a dozen other people when agency police attempted to arrest him in 1890.

Custer was seen in the US as a tragic hero and memorialised for his military feats, Custer could also be considered progressive even as the federal government sought to displace Native Americans and stamp out Native languages through boarding schools, Goodhouse said. He learned to speak Arikara and Lakota and became fluent in sign language used by tribes in the region.

Still, as many Americans are celebrating the 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, for many Native Americans it's not a reason to rejoice.

"It's just a mark to me of 250 years of injustice to the Native people," Crow tribal member and reenactment coordinator Jim Real Bird said.

The atmosphere at the battlefield area was celebratory as hundreds of people from numerous tribes had gathered. Several hundred horse riders charged up a hill and circled at the top as they whooped and yelled.

People sang and played drums as flags flew from various tribal nations. The camp with dozens of tepees stood along the Little Bighorn River, with people there from tribes in the Dakotas and as far away as Washington state.

At Standing Rock, Eagle said the races honour the horse nation that carried their ancestors to victory 150 years ago.