The Bozeman Trail (Bozeman Trail) was an overland route connecting gold rush territories in Montana to the Oregon Trail.
Traced in June 1865, it therefore went from Fort Laramie to the mining territory of Montana, thus cutting into the territory of the Lakota tribes along the Black Hills. This route encroaching on Indian lands, Chief Red Cloud called for its closure, although the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 allowed the Americans to build roads on these lands.
During the negotiations, the Americans build three forts (Reno, Phil Kearny and C.F. Smith) to protect the road; this construction triggers Indian reprisals, and triggers Red Cloud's War. During the Battle of Fetterman, which takes place near the trail, a body of 80 American soldiers is exterminated near Fort Phil Kearny by 500 Lakotas, Cheyenne and Arapaho.
In November 1868, the Americans agreed to abandon the track and the forts that had been built, and signed the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. But in 1876, after the Black Hills War, the American army reopened the track.