Black Elk is eleven years old. It is 1874, and his people are camped in the Black Hills, in what is now South Dakota. At times, Black Elk remembers his vision. He sees a flock of swallows before a storm, for example, and cannot stone them as other boys are doing because he remembers that the Grandfathers of his vision told him that he is a relative of the birds. One day, he goes hunting for squirrels with the other boys, and he hears a voice telling him to go back. He and his friends return and find that their people are breaking camp because Chips, the medicine man, heard a voice telling him that the Indians are being threatened, and they must move. They move camp several times, finally locating at Fort Robinson (Soldiers' Town).
Later, Black Elk learns that the threat came from General Custer (whom he calls Pahuska or Long Hair) who had entered the Black Hills. The terms of the 1868 treaty that Red Cloud signed with the U.S. government, giving the land to the Sioux, forbade Custer's advance into the Black Hills. But Custer discovered gold in the Black Hills and the Indians hear that white men from around the Missouri River came to the Black Hills looking for gold. The Indians are divided as to how to respond. Red Cloud, who is at Fort Robinson, is more moderate than Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, who are in different locations, and the Indians at Fort Robinson think that Red Cloud and his people are defending the Wasichus; they call them the "Hang-Around-the-Fort" people.
In the spring (1875), when Black Elk is 12 years old, more soldiers come up from Fort Laramie and go into the Black Hills. Neihardt adds in a footnote that Col. Dodge with 400 men and 75 wagons came on a geological expedition and stayed through October.
