Cheyenne
Over the past 400 years, the Cheyenne have changed their lifestyles from Great Lakes woodlands to Northern Plains and by the mid-19th century, the US government forced them onto reservations.
Having settled the Black Hills of South Dakota and the Powder River Country of present-day Montana and Wyoming, they introduced the horse culture to Lakota people around 1730.
The main group of Cheyenne, the Tsêhéstáno, was once composed of ten bands that spread across the Great Plains from southern Colorado to the Black Hills in South Dakota.
According to the Cheyenne dictionary offered online by Chief Dull Knife College, there is no consensus and various origins and translation of the word have been proposed.
Grinnell's record is typical and states, "They call themselves Tsistsistas [sic, Tsitsistas is the correct pronunciation], which the books commonly give as meaning "people".
[12] According to tribal history, during the 17th century, the Cheyenne were driven by the Assiniboine (Hóheeheo'o) from the Great Lakes region to present-day Minnesota and North Dakota, where they established villages.
Their oral history relays that both tribal peoples are characterized, and represented by two cultural heroes or prophets who received divine articles from their god Ma'heo'o, whom the Só'taeo'o called He'emo.
The latter was formed from four véhoo'o (chiefs or leaders) of the ten principal manaho (bands) and an additional four ″Old Man″ meetings to deliberate at regular tribal gatherings, centered around the Sun Dance.
The Só'taeo'o prophet Tomȯsévėséhe ("Erect Horns") received the Ésevone (aka Is'siwun – "Sacred (Buffalo) Hat Bundle") at Tȯhóonévose (″Stone Hammer Mountain″) near the Great Lakes in the present state of Minnesota.
They replaced their earth lodges with portable tipis and switched their diet from fish and agricultural produce, to mainly bison and wild fruits and vegetables.
In 1997 the Oklahoma Historal Society negotiated with the Northern Cheyenne to return the pipe to the tribal keeper of the Sacred Medicine Hat Bundle James Black Wolf.
Numerous battles were fought including a notable fight along the Washita River in 1836 with the Kiowa which resulted in the death of 48 Cheyenne warriors of the Bowstring society.
[22] In summer 1838, many Cheyenne and Arapaho attacked a camp of Kiowa and Comanche along Wolf Creek in Oklahoma resulting in heavy losses from both sides.
Among the losses were White Thunder (keeper of the Medicine Arrows and Owl Woman's father), Flat-War-Club (Cheyenne), and Sleeping Wolf (Kiowa).
The new alliance allowed the Cheyenne to enter the Llano Estacado in the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles and northeastern New Mexico to hunt bison and trade.
The enemies of the Cheyenne included the Apsáalooke (Óoetaneo'o – "crow (bird) people"), Shoshone (Sósone'eo'o), Blackfeet (Mo'ȯhtávėhahtátaneo'o, same literal meaning), Interior Salish and Kuntenai (Kȧhkoestséataneo'o – "flat-headed-people"), Nez Perce (Otaesétaneo'o – "pierced nose people"), Arikara, Gros Ventre (Hestóetaneo'o – "beggars for meat", "spongers" or Mȯhónooneo'o – lit.
[26] To the east of Cheyenne Territory they fought with the Lakota, Dakota, Pawnee, Ponca, Kaw, Iowa, Ho-Chunk, and Omaha (Onéhao'o).
Some of their enemies, particularly the Eastern Plains tribe such as the Pawnee and Osage would act as Indian Scouts for the US Army, providing valuable tracking skills and information regarding Cheyenne habits and fighting strategies to US soldiers.
In the summer of 1825, the tribe was visited on the Upper Missouri River by a US treaty commission consisting of General Henry Atkinson and Indian agent Benjamin O'Fallon, accompanied by a military escort of 476 men.
[30] Increased traffic of emigrants along the related Oregon, Mormon and California trails, beginning in the early 1840s, heightened competition with Native Americans for scarce resources of water and game in arid areas.
The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 affirmed the Cheyenne and Arapaho territory on the Great Plains between the North Platte River and the Arkansas.
The Indian agent at Fort Laramie negotiated with the Cheyenne to reduce hostilities, but the Secretary of War ordered the 1st Cavalry Regiment (1855) to carry out a punitive expedition under the command of Colonel Edwin V. Sumner.
The troops continued on and two days later burned a hastily abandoned Cheyenne camp; they destroyed lodges and the winter supply of buffalo meat.
Many Cheyenne did not sign the treaty, and they continued to live and hunt on their traditional grounds in the Smoky Hill and Republican basins, between the Arkansas and the South Platte, where there were plentiful buffalo.
[38] On November 29, 1864, the Colorado Militia attacked a Cheyenne and Arapaho encampment under Chief Black Kettle, although it flew a flag of truce and indicated its allegiance to the US government.
The Cheyenne, together with the Lakota, other Sioux warriors and a small band of Arapaho, killed General George Armstrong Custer and much of his 7th Cavalry contingent of soldiers.
Historians have estimated that the population of the Cheyenne, Lakota and Arapaho encampment along the Little Bighorn River was approximately 10,000, making it one of the largest gatherings of Native Americans in North America in pre-reservation times.
The Cheyenne wanted and expected to live on the reservation with the Sioux in accordance to an April 29, 1868 treaty of Fort Laramie, which both Dull Knife and Little Wolf had signed.
[41] As part of a US increase in troops following the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the Army reassigned Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie and his Fourth Cavalry to the Department of the Platte.
When the Northern Cheyenne arrived at Indian Territory, conditions were very difficult: rations were inadequate, there were no buffalo near the reservation and, according to several sources, there was malaria among the people.
