WEBVTT - How Did Beer Help Sell the Myth of Custer's Last Stand?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey Brainstuff. Lauren

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<v Speaker 1>vogelbam here. In eighteen ninety six, twenty years after General

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<v Speaker 1>George Armstrong Custer was killed alongside two hundred and sixty

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<v Speaker 1>one of his cavalrymen at the Battle of Little Big Horn,

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<v Speaker 1>the beer company Anheuser Busch, brewed up a wildly popular

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<v Speaker 1>advertising campaign. The company produced one hundred and fifty thousand

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<v Speaker 1>copies of a chromo lithographic print called Custer's Last Fight,

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<v Speaker 1>and they plastered it in saloons and taverns across the

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<v Speaker 1>United States. The print, based on an eighteen eighty eight

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<v Speaker 1>painting by Cassiley Adams, depicts a chaotic battle scene on

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<v Speaker 1>the Montana Territory plains, with some dozen blue uniformed cavalrymen

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<v Speaker 1>laying dead or wounded on the ground as war painted

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<v Speaker 1>American Indians finished them off with clubs, spears, and rifles.

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<v Speaker 1>In the center of the violent scrum is a long

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<v Speaker 1>haired Custer, addressed in fringed buckskin, raising his saber skyward

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<v Speaker 1>to dispatch one last enemy warrior before succumbing to the

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<v Speaker 1>overwhelming force of his attackers. For the article, this episode

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<v Speaker 1>is based on how stuff works. Spoke with Tim Lahman,

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<v Speaker 1>a professor of history and political science at Rocky Mountain

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<v Speaker 1>College in Billings, Montana. He said, more people learned about

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<v Speaker 1>what they think happened at Custer's Last Stand from this

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<v Speaker 1>Anheuser Busch lithograph, and probably after a few Budweisers. Even today.

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<v Speaker 1>In American mythology, the popular notion of Custer's Last Stand

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<v Speaker 1>echoes the story told in this much reproduced painting. Custer's

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<v Speaker 1>Down to the Last Defeat ranks with the Alamo as

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<v Speaker 1>a tale of white heroism in the face of Native aggression,

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<v Speaker 1>of patriotic martyrs dying with their boots on to protect

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<v Speaker 1>colonists moving westward. But the real story isn't nearly so

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<v Speaker 1>cut and dried. Today, let's talk about what was really

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<v Speaker 1>going on with Custer's Last Stand. On June twenty fifth

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<v Speaker 1>of eighteen seventy six, the Civil War cavalry hero known

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<v Speaker 1>as the Boy General George Custer led a US army

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<v Speaker 1>attack on a Native village in the Black Hills in

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<v Speaker 1>violation of a treaty promising those lands to the Lakota people.

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<v Speaker 1>A Custer and his seventh Cavalry were clearly the aggressors,

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<v Speaker 1>and if the Battle of Little Bighorn was anyone's last stand,

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<v Speaker 1>it was that of a group of Plains Indians defending

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<v Speaker 1>their very way of life. Layman said it was crystal

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<v Speaker 1>clear to sitting bull in the Lakota that they would

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<v Speaker 1>be attacked that summer, and they saw the confrontation as

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<v Speaker 1>one last great fight for their free way of living

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<v Speaker 1>before they had to submit to agencies and reservations and

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<v Speaker 1>federal domination. Custer was a complex and controversial figure even

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<v Speaker 1>in his day. A brash troublemaker at West Point who

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<v Speaker 1>graduated last in his class a, Custer earned fame during

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<v Speaker 1>a series of heroic cavalry charges at the Battle of Gettysburg,

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<v Speaker 1>which landed him on the cover of Harper's Weekly and

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<v Speaker 1>propelled him to becoming the youngest general in US military history.

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<v Speaker 1>After the Civil War, Custer chased further glory on the

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<v Speaker 1>Western frontier and rebranded himself as an and I quote

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<v Speaker 1>Indian hunter, a complete with buckskin suits cut in European

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<v Speaker 1>styles with fringe on the callers and sleeves. In dispatches

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<v Speaker 1>that Custer wrote for newspapers and magazines back east, he

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<v Speaker 1>sold himself as a veteran frontiersman with intimate knowledge of

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<v Speaker 1>indigenous ways, but in reality, Custer didn't speak a lick

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<v Speaker 1>of Lakota or Cheyenne languages and had very little understanding

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<v Speaker 1>of the peoples he fought. After the eighteen sixty eight

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<v Speaker 1>Battle of Washida River, Custer bravely or foolishly went to

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<v Speaker 1>a Cheyenne encampment, nearly alone, to negotiate the relief of hostages.

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<v Speaker 1>The Cheyenne invited him to a pipe ceremony to settle

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<v Speaker 1>the agreement, which Custer took as a sign of respect,

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<v Speaker 1>but that wasn't the intended message. Layman explained. They understood

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<v Speaker 1>that Custer promised never to attack the Cheyenne again, and

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<v Speaker 1>if he did, he would be rubbed out. They took

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<v Speaker 1>the pipe, dumped out the ashes, and rubbed them into

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<v Speaker 1>the dirt as a sign of what would happen to him.

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<v Speaker 1>In eighteen sixty eight, Fort Laramie Treaty created a reservation

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<v Speaker 1>of land for the Lakota people in the Black Hills

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<v Speaker 1>region of modern day Montana, But when gold was discovered

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<v Speaker 1>in the Black Hills in eighteen seventy four, Congress decided

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<v Speaker 1>it was time to rewrite that Treaty, Custer and the

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<v Speaker 1>seventh Cavalry were sent to Montana Territory under the pretense

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<v Speaker 1>of convincing resistance leaders like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse

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<v Speaker 1>to come to the nego otiating table, but the real

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<v Speaker 1>intention was a colonist takeover of the lucrative Black Hill's

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<v Speaker 1>gold deposits. In June of eighteen seventy six, Custer was

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<v Speaker 1>given orders to engage with the Lakota at the head

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<v Speaker 1>of the Rosebud River, but Custer decided to follow tracks

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<v Speaker 1>to the nearby Little Bighorn River. The preferred US Army

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<v Speaker 1>tactic was a dawn raid on Native villages, but Custer

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<v Speaker 1>worried that waiting for morning would sacrifice the element of surprise,

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<v Speaker 1>so he split his forces in three and ordered the

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<v Speaker 1>attack on Sitting Bull's encampment in mid afternoon. Under Custer's

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<v Speaker 1>battle plan, Major Marcus Reno led a direct charge into

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<v Speaker 1>the village while Custer and one hundred and twenty men

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<v Speaker 1>occupied a ridge where they could round up any escaping

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<v Speaker 1>women and children to hold his hostages. This was a

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<v Speaker 1>charming tactic Custer had used before to force surrender. Unfortunately

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<v Speaker 1>for Custer, the plan fell apart almost instantly. Arino's men

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<v Speaker 1>were easily repulsed by the Lakota and Cheyenne fighters, and

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<v Speaker 1>a contingent of Ogla La Lakota, led by Crazy Horse,

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<v Speaker 1>circled back on Custer's forces and trapped them on what's

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<v Speaker 1>now known as Last Stand Hill. A. Custer ordered his

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<v Speaker 1>men to shoot their horses and stack the carcasses for

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<v Speaker 1>a makeshift bunker, but it was hopeless. The end captured

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<v Speaker 1>in paintings like Custer's Last Fight show Custer and his

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<v Speaker 1>men bravely fighting until their last breath, but the archaeological

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<v Speaker 1>record and contemporary Native accounts say otherwise. Olayman said the

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<v Speaker 1>evidence suggests tactical disintegration, which is a nicer way of

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<v Speaker 1>saying that they got really scared and started to run

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<v Speaker 1>once the panic set in. Indian combatants said it was

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<v Speaker 1>like hunting buffalo. We just rode down and killed them.

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<v Speaker 1>The shocking news of Custer's death spread like wildfire, and

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<v Speaker 1>the newspapers immediately cast him as a martyr for manifest destiny.

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<v Speaker 1>The New York Herald published a wholly fictional account of

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<v Speaker 1>the battle's final moments, quote in that mad charge up

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<v Speaker 1>the narrow ravine with the rocks above, raining down, led

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<v Speaker 1>upon the faded three hundred, with fires spouting from every

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<v Speaker 1>bush ahead, with the wild swarming horsemen circling along the

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<v Speaker 1>heights like shrieking vultures, waiting for the moment to sweep

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<v Speaker 1>down and finish the bloody tale. Every form, from private

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<v Speaker 1>to general, rises to heroic size. They died as grandly

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<v Speaker 1>as Homer's demigods. Success was beyond their grasps, so they

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<v Speaker 1>died to a man. It's unclear where the particular phrase

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<v Speaker 1>Custer's last stand was first coin, but the mythology of

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<v Speaker 1>a last stand was well entrenched at this point in

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<v Speaker 1>the American Indian Wars. Custer himself had used the same

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<v Speaker 1>poetic language in a letter to the father of a

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<v Speaker 1>soldier whose company was by a Native ambush in eighteen

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<v Speaker 1>sixty seven. In the decades after Custer's death, the last

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<v Speaker 1>stand myth was popularized, and not only in beer advertisements,

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<v Speaker 1>but in Buffalo Bill Cody's immensely popular Wild West show,

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<v Speaker 1>in which the real sitting Bull actually participated for a time.

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<v Speaker 1>And Custer's widowed wife, Libby, spent the next fifty two

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<v Speaker 1>years of her long life writing books and giving lectures

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<v Speaker 1>about her heroic husband that cemented his legacy. This fictional

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<v Speaker 1>concept of Custer's heroism and his last stand was used

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<v Speaker 1>to justify unbridled westward expansion, despite the fact that there

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<v Speaker 1>was already a civilization there. It just didn't look like

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<v Speaker 1>what European Americans expected, and it had resources that they wanted.

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<v Speaker 1>Layman said. It created the image the Custer in a

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<v Speaker 1>last stand was simply defending himself, and that European Americans

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<v Speaker 1>more broadly, were defending themsel from these aggressive hordes of Indians.

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<v Speaker 1>People created the death that they wanted to imagine had

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<v Speaker 1>happened to their hero. It turned out that the last

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<v Speaker 1>stand story spread by the pro Custer press had its

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<v Speaker 1>intended effect. The army experienced a rush of recruitment of

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<v Speaker 1>so called Custer Avengers, who waged a series of brutal

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<v Speaker 1>campaigns over the following year that defeated the holdout Lakota

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<v Speaker 1>and Cheyenne resistance. Today's episode is based on the article

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<v Speaker 1>Beer Ads and wild West Shows hyped the myth of

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<v Speaker 1>Custer's heroic last Stand on how stuffworks dot com, written

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<v Speaker 1>by Dave Ruse. Brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio

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<v Speaker 1>in partnership with how stuffworks dot com and is produced

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<v Speaker 1>by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my Heart Radio.

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<v Speaker 1>Visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

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