Original subtitles

Previously on "The American West"...

Not even 100 years old,

America finds itself in a crippling depression

and on the verge of a war on two fronts.

In Missouri, ex-Confederates like Jesse James

are terrorizing Northern banks and railroads...

C'mon, Frank.

...forcing businesses to hire

famed private detective Allan Pinkerton

to take him down.

He's ruthlessly violent and good with a gun.

When do I leave?

Further west,

George Armstrong Custer

has confirmed rumors of gold

in the Black Hills of South Dakota,

setting off a massive gold rush.

But the country's solution to its financial crisis

may lie in the heart of sacred Indian territory,

land that Lakota leaders Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull

aren't going to give up without a fight.

Midway through his second term as president,

Ulysses S. Grant has watched the push

to settle the West and heal the nation

come to a halt

as America suffers through a brutal depression.

If you are president during an economic depression,

your standing is gonna fall.

And this was the worst economic depression

in American history up to that time.

But Grant believes he's found a solution...

the gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

The only problem...

it's on land that Grant surrendered

to the Lakota Sioux nine years earlier.

The United States government wanted the Black Hills,

merchants wanted the Black Hills,

gold seekers wanted the Black Hills.

They had a treaty. They couldn't just take the Black Hills.

Maintaining a peaceful relationship with the Indians

has been one of Grant's proudest achievements

since taking office,

and he knows that going back on his peace policy

would only reignite the conflict.

In a last-ditch effort

to avoid all-out war with the Indians,

Grant proposes a deal.

The government offers to buy back the Black Hills

from the Lakota Sioux for six million dollars...

$100 million in today's money.

Over 1,200 miles away from Washington...

word of the offer soon reaches respected leader

Sitting Bull...

...who knows his people now need to make a decision.

He gathers a council of Lakota leaders,

including the fierce warrior Crazy Horse.

I think Native Americans' relationship with the land

was very tight and had a spiritual component

because they believed that they were connected

to the land, they came from the land.

So they had a very close relationship

with the land,

much more than people from outside did,

who looked at the land in a more superficial way.

To the Lakota, the Black Hills are more

than just a place to live and hunt...

they're essential to their culture.

The Black Hills is important and sacred to us

because that's where our creation story comes from.

There's a place called Wood Cave there

that many of us believe that's where we came from.

We value the land and the animals

just as much as we do people.

Gold had no meaning, no value to us.

Of all the places the United States

could've wanted the Lakota to sell...

the Black Hills were the worst place

that they could've chosen.

Sitting Bull famously picks up a little pinch of dirt

and he holds it up, and he says

"I don't wanna sell any more land,

not even as much as this little pinch of dirt."

These just came in.

The Lakota Sioux reject the government's offer,

and Grant's hope for peace is slipping away.

Grant sympathized with the plight of the Indians.

But he also understood that he was losing that battle.

He was losing the battle with respect to Indian policy.

Ultimately, unless the American people

were gonna tolerate this, it simply wouldn't stand.

With all due respect, sir,

you have exhausted every political option available

in dealing with the Sioux.

Our own people are starving.

It is no longer a sustainable objective.

It's time we start looking at military options.

Issue a proclamation.

All the members of the Sioux tribe

must report to an appointed Indian reservation

no later than February 1st, 1876.

And those that don't report?

They will be considered hostile

and treated as such.

After years of trying to establish peace

with the Indians,

President Grant is now provoking a war.

This was the administration's way of defeating

these uncooperative... at least in their mind,

uncooperative Indians

and bringing them to terms.

While the government prepares

for conflict with the Indians,

nearly 700 miles away

another battle is being fought.

Jesse James has been on a crime spree

across Missouri and Iowa...

Come on. Let's go, let's go.

...fighting for the Confederate cause

by robbing the Northern railroads

of their funds.

- Thank you. - In Chicago,

famed private detective Allan Pinkerton

is looking to put a stop to it.

He orders an ambitious agent named Joseph Whicher

to travel to Missouri

and track down the notorious outlaw.

Once the Pinkertons get on your trail, man,

they're not gonna stop

until you are done and out of business,

one way or the other.

Sir, may I trouble you for a moment?

Chicago. You're a long way from home.

There are wanted men in your area.

Jesse and Frank James,

they were spotted nearby recently.

- Is that right? - Have you seen them?

Afraid I can't help you.

Jesse and his brother are dangerous men.

I can't help ya.

I'm staying at Goodman's boardinghouse.

If anything occurs to you, I want to know.

With no help from the local law,

Whicher needs another way to learn Jesse's location.

So he employs a tactic that the Pinkertons had perfected...

going undercover.

A key to the very long, successful career

of Jesse James is unless you grew up with him

or unless you fought with him in the war,

no one knows what he looks like.

All the authorities have are some eyewitness descriptions

which aren't very good.

He can't really be identified.

Good day, sir. How are ya?

I wonder if you could help me out?

I'm a little new to the area... I was looking for the James farmhouse?

It was very dangerous for Joseph Whicher,

this Northerner from Chicago,

to go into Clay County where Jesse had many friends

and try to somehow sniff out the James Gang.

To ex-confederates across Missouri,

Jesse's fight against the North has made him a hero,

and they'll do anything to protect him.

Pinkerton agent, Joseph Whicher,

is on the hunt for Jesse James,

hoping to end the outlaw's reign of terror

against the North.

Hey. Good day, ma'am. How are ya?

Uh, my name is Henry. I'm looking for

- the James farmhouse. - Oh, yeah, yeah.

- Do you know... yeah? - After days of searching with no luck,

Whicher finally lands a lead...

the location of the farmhouse

belonging to Jesse's mother, Zerelda.

Thank you so much, ma'am. You have a good day. Thank you, thank you.

Jesse's mother, Zerelda James,

was outspoken, dominating.

The neighbors referred to her as "Captain Zerelda."

There was a very, very strong bond

between her and her children.

Even the sheriff warned Joseph Whicher,

"If the James boys don't shoot ya,

Zerelda will shoot ya."

Yes?

Good day, ma'am. I'm Henry Johnson.

I saw your crops were nearly ripe.

I was wondering if you need an extra hand

for the harvest.

Come on inside and let's talk.

I remember the days when no self-respecting white man

would ever ask for farmwork.

Times sure have changed.

Yes... they have, ma'am.

Archie, will you fetch me the sugar, please?

This is Archie, my youngest.

Hello.

Archie, say hello to Mr. Johnson.

- Hello. - Thank you, dear.

- Sugar? - Yes, please.

Joseph Whicher had pale skin,

he had soft hands.

And he was going out to the James' farm

as some guy looking for work as a hired hand,

and he just did not fit that description.

Are you any good with a hammer?

I have a barn out back that needs some work.

Sure thing, ma'am.

Right this way.

Seems pretty straightforward.

I hear you've been looking for me.

Which is funny because I been lookin' for you.

I just wanna talk.

But we don't talk to Northern spies.

Jesse James and his brother Frank

have just killed top Pinkerton agent

Joseph Whicher.

They kill him for a couple of reasons.

They don't want anybody with any knowledge

of what Jesse looks like,

but he wants to send a message...

"Don't send these Northerners from Chicago

to intimidate me and my family.

Stay out of my turf."

As Jesse James claims another victory

in his personal war against the North...

nearly 1,000 miles away,

the Lakota Sioux have been given an ultimatum

by the U.S. government...

move onto a reservation immediately...

or risk war.

Lakota leaders Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse

defy President Grant's order to move onto reservations,

knowing full well that they'll now be considered enemies

of the United States Government.

In reality, they all wanted the same thing,

to protect their women and children.

We never wanted to fight anyone.

But when the government got involved

and the army came,

then it just became a right or wrong.

When President Grant learns

of hostile Indians refusing to move onto reservations,

he has no choice but to take action.

He orders General William T. Sherman

to mobilize the U.S. Army in the West,

preparing for an attack on the bands of Indians

led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

But one man won't be leading the charge this time.

After announcing gold in the Black Hills,

George Armstrong Custer

is barred from taking part in the upcoming battle.

Grant eventually came to conclude

that Custer thought more about himself

and the image that he cast than about the mission

or about the broader outline of policy he was pursuing.

Eventually, Grant just threw up his hands.

"There's nothing I can do with Custer."

Left out of the campaign against the Indians,

Custer begins to set his sights

beyond his military career.

It is a pleasure and a privilege as usual.

As Grant's disastrous second term nears its end,

Custer sees an opening

to advance his own political ambitions.

Using his celebrity, Custer begins meeting

with influential politicians in Washington,

forming powerful alliances that could help him

achieve his new goal of becoming president.

A decorated war veteran like myself

might well be able to pull off what you're planning.

Custer had a following all his own.

Members of Congress would invite him to come speak

and Custer would talk, and he would persuade them.

In some ways, he had political clout

that Grant and Sherman didn't.

Now, they both outranked him, but Custer had a following.

But Custer is convinced

that if he's going to secure a presidential nomination,

he's still missing one thing...

another big military victory.

You draw a picture of me?

Look at that.

Frank, come here.

Look at this.

Do you recognize that place?

Hey, man, I believe that is to scale.

That is perfect.

Good job, little brother.

After killing a top agent

from the most powerful detective agency

in the country,

Jesse James and his brother Frank

go back to life as usual.

Uh-oh.

Why am I frownin' and you smilin'?

I guess that is pretty accurate.

Thank you.

For Allan Pinkerton,

the brutal murder of his top agent

has turned his hunt for Jesse James

into a personal mission for revenge.

Jesse James is a symbol

of everything the Pinkertons are against...

lawlessness, unredeemed Southern insurrectionism.

If Jesse James was still out there

as a symbol that you can get away with this stuff,

he had to be killed.

If we can get to this area here,

the mother's farmhouse...

they all live there together...

we'll stage the final raid.

As a private enforcement agency,

the Pinkertons are able to operate

outside the limits of the law.

Once everything's in place, we'll drive them from the house

with this... a fire bomb.

A gift from an old Army friend at the Rock Island Arsenal.

We flush them out,

and we take them down, all of them.

Shoot to kill.

In many cases if you look back,

a lot of people that implemented law and order

were, in some cases, just as bad

as the criminal element themselves.

We're gonna burn that damn house down.

Wipe it from the face of the earth.

Do I make myself clear?

Yes, sir.

That defining line

between a lawman and a criminal,

I think is much more blurred

in the times of the James Gang.

A group of Pinkerton agents surround the James family home

after Jesse and Frank were spotted there

earlier in the day.

Pinkerton knew that the James boys

would at some point come to that house.

He had men ready, at least eight to ten.

Whenever they learned that Jesse and Frank were at that farm,

he was gonna send those men in.

What are we waitin' for?

Allan Pinkerton plotted to bring about

the demise of the James brothers.

His instructions were not just to attack

or kill or capture Jesse.

His instructions were to burn that house to the ground.

Archie, get back!

A late-night attack

ordered by Detective Allan Pinkerton

has destroyed the family farm of Jesse James.

But the intended targets are miles away.

All right, boys, I want to go over this one more time.

We're gonna start...

Damn it, Frank.

What the hell took you so long?

Them Pinkertons came by Mama's.

She's hurt.

Archie's dead.

The Pinkerton men threw this fireball

into the James family home.

It exploded.

It rips off part of Zerelda's arm.

It sends a fragment into the stomach of little Archie,

the half brother, who's only eight years old.

It's a mortal wound.

Jesse James, who really is already angry,

he's angrier now at the Pinkertons,

who he sees as representing Northern tyranny and oppressors.

So this gives Jesse even more cause to seek revenge.

Five hundred miles away in the heart of the West,

another conflict is escalating.

Led by their chief, Sitting Bull,

many Lakota have defied President Grant's order

to report to a reservation.

Sitting Bull knows Grant will see his actions

as a declaration of war,

so he begins building a unified war party,

gathering tribes from across the West.

At first it was individual tribes

that were protecting themselves against the government.

But, you know, at some point

they figure out, "Okay, we gotta work together now."

Nearly 4,000 warriors

from tribes like the Cheyenne and the Arapaho

flock from Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska,

and the Wyoming Territory

to band together at the Little Bighorn River.

It's the largest Indian force

the U.S. Army has ever seen.

Our reports indicate that around 1,000 Indian lodges

are based here.

We deploy Custer 1,200 men

to track down whatever remains

of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull's war party.

And if necessary, wipe them out.

Custer?

He has proven that he can take on these savages and win.

He's our best option.

Have Custer report to General Terry at Bismarck.

Grant thought Custer was a complete hothead.

He was a loose cannon.

He wasn't the military guy that Grant liked,

which was somebody who just followed orders.

But there's this popular outcry

to get Grant to reinstate Custer

for the big push into the Black Hills.

After months of building his political connections,

Custer is sent west to the Montana Territory

to lead a regiment against one of the largest Indian war parties

ever assembled in the U.S.,

giving him the opportunity that could carry him

all the way to the White House.

Custer was ambitious.

He had great dreams, he had the American dream.

There's been talk that Custer hoped to get

the Democratic nomination for president.

He needs a big victory to win glory once again

and, of course, move onward and upward.

After a botched raid has left his young brother dead,

Jesse James has declared a personal war

on the Pinkertons.

Jesse James sees the Pinkertons

as, like, the ultimate evil...

guys who are breaking constitutional law

in the interest of big business.

As news of the raid on the James' home

spreads throughout Missouri,

one man sees an opportunity to use the tragedy

to rally the South together for the Confederate cause.

I want to run this front page tomorrow.

"Men from Missouri...

who fought under Anderson...

it is not because of the robberies

for which they are accused.

It is because, like you,

they fought for the South.

Newspaper editor John Newman Edwards

frames the story of Pinkerton's raid

as a direct attack on the South

by a Northern enemy.

The Pinkerton raid

turns all kinds of sympathy to the James family.

They already had a little sympathy from Southerners.

But now they see an eight-year-old boy has been killed,

a mother has lost her child,

so the press, including John Newman Edwards, have a field day

over what this Chicago private firm has done

here in Clay County, Missouri.

The articles appeal to loyal southerners

and support for Jesse James and his cause

is at an all-time high.

To show their support,

Missouri residents give Edwards and his newspaper

the names of anyone who may have aided the Pinkertons

for him to print in his paper.

And it isn't long before Jesse tracks them down.

One man who's revealed to have helped Pinkerton

was Daniel Askew.

Pinkerton had a man there acting as a hired hand

keeping watch on the house.

Daniel Askew makes the mistake of not leaving Clay County.

Can you fetch us some water for the dishes?

Daniel Askew.

Do you know who I am?

- Yes. - That's good.

That seems like a nice family you got in there.

Please.

Please what?

Whatever you do,

just please don't hurt my family.

That'd be...

that'd be pretty low, wouldn't it,

murder innocent women and children?

Yeah, I don't know if I could stoop to something like that.

But I guess, uh...

...you're gonna have to take me at my word.

No one is ever brought to trial

for the murder of Jesse's half brother,

which, again, gives Jesse a reason

to seek his own justice.

If the law is not gonna bring these guys to justice,

then Jesse's gonna do what he can.

Five hundred miles away,

Allan Pinkerton is dealing with the fallout

from his botched raid.

It was Allan Pinkerton's greatest defeat,

his greatest humiliation.

Pinkerton's reputation

for relentless justice is ruined.

And he's forced to back away from the outlaw

he's been pursuing for the past year,

giving up on Jesse James for good.

General, we found them.

Where?

Camped along Little Bighorn.

Good job, soldier.

Hyah!

In hopes of securing a presidential nomination,

George Armstrong Custer is on a mission

to track down and defeat a band of Sioux Indians.

Custer's leading one of three columns of U.S. troops

heading toward battle against Sitting Bull.

The campaign on the Northern Plains in 1876

is one of the largest

the army had ever engaged in in the Indian Wars.

Three great columns went forward...

one coming up from the South,

another coming out of Montana,

and then Custer's column

coming from Fort Abraham Lincoln.

Together the battalions make up a force

of nearly 1,500 troops...

with one goal in mind...

to destroy Sitting Bull's army.

But what the commanders don't realize

is that Lakota chief Sitting Bull

has gathered nearly 4,000 Indian fighters...

including the fearless warrior Crazy Horse.

After hearing reports that the U.S. Army is closing in,

Sitting Bull calls together other Lakota leaders

and tells them of a powerful vision he's had.

There's certain ceremonies

where you go without food and water,

sometimes for four days.

During those times because of what your body's going through,

people call it a vision

and because Sitting Bull is the chief,

a medicine man, and a healer,

his vision we all agreed and honored and respected.

He knew they were gonna win.

That's a powerful thing to know,

it's a powerful faith to have.

Where can we cross the river?

Down south here. Up here, further north.

How many warriors?

I've never seen a gathering this large.

Sitting Bull's tribe, Crazy Horse's, too.

Also Arapaho, Cheyenne.

Do they know we're here?

I don't think so.

One hour. Get the men ready.

I will not let Sitting Bull slip through my fingers.

Yes, sir.

Instead of waiting for the remaining

two columns of U.S. troops to arrive,

Custer orders his regiment

ofjust under 500 men to move out.

He leaves all his heavy artillery behind,

determined to get all the glory

for defeating Sitting Bull and his warriors.

Custer is a very ambitious man.

He thinks if he goes up there, eliminates the Indians,

the windfall of all that gold comes into the economy,

everybody sees him as a great hero

who bailed out the federal government

and now he can position himself

to become the commander-in-chief.

"President Custer"... just think about that.

As Custer rides out,

the Indians prepare for battle,

determined to fight for their people's survival.

They're defending their territory,

but they're also more immediately

defending their families.

They're trying to protect all of them

from the United States.