The Battle of Little Bighorn was fought between the U.S. Army and a coalition of Native American tribes along the muddy banks of the Little Bighorn River in Montana. The battle took place between June 25 and 26, 1876, and saw the virtual destruction of a poorly led U.S. Army detachment under the command of General George Armstrong Custer. Custer had been dispatched to the Black Hills region in Montana to try to force Native American tribes out of the land that had been granted to them under the terms of an 1868 treaty. The Lakota people (also known as the Teton Sioux) had been granted land in the Black Hills in an effort to reduce some of the tension on the Plains, but after the discovery of gold in the region, the U.S. government decided to force them off this land and make it accessible to American settlers and miners. Custer was given the task of forcing the Native Americans out of the Black Hills. In 1876, he led a column of the U.S. Army into Lakota territory.