Final answer:
The Battle at Little Big Horn further deteriorated Native American and U.S. relations as it intensified U.S. military campaigns against Native American tribes, leading to loss of life, autonomy, and territory for the tribes involved.
Step-by-step explanation:
The impact of the Battle at Little Big Horn certainly did not improve Native American and U.S. relations. Instead, it had the opposite effect. The correct answer to the student's question is B. It further deteriorated Native American and U.S. relations. Following the battle, in which Colonel George Custer and his men were defeated by a coalition of Native American forces, the U.S. government increased its military campaigns against the Plains tribes, which led to more violence and the subsequent subjugation and forced removal of native peoples from their ancestral lands. The battle, which saw a monumental victory for Native American forces under leaders like Sitting Bull, actually intensified efforts by the U.S. to control the territory and suppress Native American resistance, resulting in loss of life and autonomy for various tribes.
In the aftermath, tribes like the Lakota Sioux were forced to flee or face extermination. The U.S. Army advanced in greater numbers, undermining treaties, and seizing lands, such as the Black Hills, that were sacred to the Native Americans. Sitting Bull eventually fled to Canada, though he would return and later participate in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, a symbol of the complex interplay between Native American sovereignty and American cultural and territorial expansion. The encounter at Little Big Horn became emblematic of the wider conflicts between the U.S. government and Native Americans during the westward expansion and was wrapped in a narrative that often depicted the Native Americans as aggressors, though modern scholarship recognizes their defensive position.