Black Bear (chief)

People died, lodges were set on fire, and food was ruined, all of which made it difficult for them to survive as a unit.

[1] In the 1820s or the 1830s, at the beginning of contact with European-Americans, the Arapaho divided into Northern and Southern tribes based upon trading sources.

[3] The Arapaho sought to abide by the treaty, but they suffered from starvation due to the sharp reduction of buffalo herds.

[4] The United States government's strategy was to put Native Americans on reservations and convert them to agrarian and Christian societies.

Another band, located in Cache la Poudre River area (now Fort Collins, Colorado), was led by a man named Friday.

Medicine Man's and Black Bear's bands left their encampment near Fort Collins, Colorado, for the Tongue River area.

They decided to forgo any rations that would be provided by the government to follow their traditional way of life, which relied on hunting buffalo for food.

Following the lead of Cheyenne and Sioux natives, Black Bear and Medicine Man led their bands against Overland and Oregon Trail travelers beginning in June.

They returned to the Tongue River area in August, by which time they were blamed for "most of the outrages committed on the overland mail route west of Denver."

[11] In the early morning of August 29, 1865, at present-day Ranchester, Wyoming, 125 cavalry and 90 Pawnee Scouts, led by General Patrick Edward Connor, attacked an Arapaho village.

[12][13] Connor was sent into the Powder River area to fight against local Native Americans to prevent westward miners and settlers from being attacked along the Bozeman and other trails.

"[14] The offensive, called the Battle of the Tongue River, involved shotguns, bow and arrows, and hand-to-hand combat[13][12] — and the United States Army used howitzers, which was devastating to the band of 500[15] or 700 people.

[8] The Northern Arapaho joined forces with the Cheyenne and Sioux people and fought together in December 1866 against Sawyers' Expedition and in other battles over the next ten years.

[19] Black Bear was one of the signers of the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868, which allowed the Arapaho to continue to hunt in the Powder River Basin.

[8] Black Bear and Medicine Man continued to look for a solution for a reservation for the Northern Arapaho, such as a former Army post along the North Platter River in Wyoming Territory.

[21] The Northern Arapaho bands had an increasingly harder time hunting for sufficient game to feed its people and they began to rely on government rations.

[8][21] A voluntary group of soldiers left South Pass, Wyoming, in search of the Native Americans who participated in the attack.

A group of white people, along with Shoshone and Bannocks, attacked Black Bear, his family, and his unarmed band as they traveled to Camp Brown (Fort Washakie) for trading.

Some went to Colorado Territory, led by Chief Friday, and others went to the Milk River Agency to live among their relatives, the Gros Ventres.