In 1851, Morning Star represented his tribe at the signing of the Treaty of Fort Laramie. Following Custer's Last Stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn during the Great Sioux War of 1876, Morning Star allied with the Sioux and other tribes against the United States. However, after a destructive raid by American soldiers under Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie in which 200 lodges were destroyed and 700 livestock captured, most of the Cheyenne were eventually forced to surrender. They expected to live on reservations with the Sioux in the north, but were subsequently transported to the Darlington Agency in the Southern Cheyenne Reservation in the Indian Territory.