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Famous Native People
Motavato
Black Kettle SOUTHERN CHEYENNE
Few biographical details are known about the Southern Cheyenne chief Black Kettle, but his repeated efforts to secure a peace with honour for his people, despite broken promises and attacks on his own life, speak of him as a great leader with an almost unique vision of the possibility for coexistence between white society and the culture of the plains. Black Kettle was reputedly born in the Black Hills and lived on the vast territory in western Kansas and eastern Colorado that had been guaranteed to the Cheyenne under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. This treaty did not relinquish any of the rights or claims to their lands, nor did they "surrender the privilege of hunting, fishing, or passing over any tracts of country heretofore described." Within less than a decade, however, the Pikes Peak gold rush of 1858 sparked an enormous population boom in Colorado, and this led to extensive white encroachments on Cheyenne land, and to the building in 1859 of the big village that was called Denver City. Even the U.S. Indian Commissioner admitted that "We have substantially taken possession of the country and deprived the Indians of their accustomed means of support." Ten years after the treaty signing the United States Government created the Territory of Colorado.
Rather than evict white settlers, the government sought to resolve the situation by demanding that the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho sign a new treaty, at Fort Wise on the Arkansas River, as this was supposed to be a grand gala affair and because of its importance, Colonel A. B. Greenwood, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, was there passing out medals, blankets, sugar and tobacco. When the Cheyenne pointed out that only six of their forty-four chiefs were present, the United States officials replied that the others could sign at a later date. (None of the other chiefs ever did sign, which is why the legality of the treaty remains in doubt.) Those who signed for the Cheyenne were Black Kettle, White Antelope and Lean Bear and for the Arapaho Little Raven, Storm and Big Mouth. The treaty gave away all their lands, which was quite different from what both tribes thought they were agreeing to, save the small Sand Creek reservation in south eastern Colorado. Black Kettle, fearing that overwhelming U.S. military power might result in an even less favourable settlement, agreed to the treaty in 1861 and did what he could to see that the Cheyenne obeyed its provisions. As it turned out, however, the Sand Creek reservation could not sustain the Indians forced to live there. All but unfit for agriculture, the barren tract of land was little more than a breeding ground for epidemic diseases which soon swept through the Cheyenne encampments. By 1862 the nearest herd of buffalo was over two hundred miles away. Many Cheyenne's, especially young men, began to leave the reservation to prey upon the livestock and goods of nearby settlers and passing wagon trains. During the spring of 1864, Reverend J. M. Chivington, an officer of the Colorado volunteer militia, reported that Cheyennes had stolen a number of cattle. The report may have been faked as an excuse to retaliate - which he did, attacking a Cheyenne camp near Cedars Bluffs, killing two women and two children. In the middle of May 1864 Black Kettle and Lean Bear heard that soldiers had attacked some Cheyenne on the South Platte River, they broke camp and moved northwards to join the rest of the tribe for strength and protection making camp at near Ash Creek. Next morning word was brought back by a hunting party that soldiers with cannons were approaching. Lean Bear liked excitement, and told Black Kettle he would go out and meet with the soldiers. He rode out to meet them decorated with the medal he had received from Abraham Lincoln, and with the papers that certified him to be a good friend to the United States. Below is the eyewitness account of Wolf Chief, one of the warriors that had escorted Lean Bear to the soldiers camp.
In the midst of the fighting, Black Kettle appeared on his horse and began riding up and down amongst the warriors. "Stop the fighting," he shouted, "do not make war!" It would be a long time before the Cheyenne would listen to him again. Being very angry over the death of Lean Bear and Star the Cheyenne warriors chased the retreating soldiers all the way back to Fort Larn. Black Kettle mourned his friend of fifty years standing. The artillery soldiers who had attacked Black Kettle's camp on May 16th were also Chivington's men, sent out from Denver with no authority to operate in Kansas. The officer in command, Lieutenant George S. Eayre, was under orders from Colonel Chivington to 'kill Cheyenne whenever and wherever found.' Black Kettle understood white military
supremacy too well to support a full out war. He sent out messengers to speak
with Major Edward W. Wynkoop at Fort Lyon so that a meeting could be arranged
between them. When Tall Chief Wynkoop learn that Black Kettle wanted him to go
to the Smoky Hill camp, and guide the Indians back onto the reservation, he was
suspicious. He ordered the Cheyenne messengers arrested and placed in the
guardhouse.
Cheyenne and Arapaho
chiefs meeting at the Camp Weld Council on Sept 28th 1864. Two Natives standing
at the rear are White Wing and Bosse. Seated left to right
Neva,
Bull Bear, Black Kettle, One Eye and unidentified native. But Colonel John Chivington, leader of the Third Colorado Volunteers, had no intention of honouring such a promise. His troops had been unsuccessful in finding a Cheyenne band to fight, so when he learned that Black Kettle had returned to Sand Creek, he attacked the unsuspecting encampment at dawn on November 29, 1864. Some two hundred Cheyenne died in the ensuing massacre, many of them women and children, and after the slaughter, Chivington's men sexually mutilated and scalped many of the dead, later exhibiting their trophies to cheering crowds in Denver.
Black Kettle miraculously escaped harm at the Sand Creek Massacre, even when he returned to rescue his seriously injured wife. And perhaps more miraculously, he continued to counsel peace when the Cheyenne attempted to strike back with isolated raids on wagon trains and nearby ranches. By October 1865, he and other Indian leaders had arranged an uneasy truce on the plains, signing a new treaty that exchanged the Sand Creek reservation for reservations in south western Kansas but deprived the Cheyenne of access to most of their coveted Kansas hunting grounds. Only a part of the Southern Cheyenne nation followed Black Kettle and the others to these new reservations. Some instead headed north to join the Northern Cheyenne in Lakota territory. Many simply ignored the treaty and continued to range over their ancestral lands. This latter group, consisting mainly of young warriors allied with a Cheyenne war chief named Roman Nose, angered the government by their refusal to obey a treaty they had not signed, and General William Tecumseh Sherman launched a campaign to force them onto their assigned lands. Roman Nose and his followers struck back furiously, and the resulting standoff halted all traffic across western Kansas for a time. At this point, government negotiators sought to move the Cheyenne once again, this time onto two smaller reservations in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) where they would receive annual provisions of food and supplies. Black Kettle was again among the chiefs who signed this treaty, the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867, but after his people had settled on their new reservation, they did not receive the provisions they had been promised, and by year's end, more and more of them were driven to join Roman Nose and his band. In August 1868, Roman Nose led a series of raids on Kansas farms that provoked another full-scale military response. Under General Philip Sheridan, three columns of troops converged to launch a winter campaign against Cheyenne encampments, with the Seventh Cavalry commanded by George Armstrong Custer selected to take the lead. Setting out in a snowstorm, Custer followed the tracks of a small raiding party to a Cheyenne village on the Washita River, where he ordered an attack at dawn.
Cheyenne prisoners from Washita at Fort Hays, Kansas, 1869: Fifty-three women and children were held as captives until the late spring of 1869. It was Black Kettle's village, well within the boundaries of the Cheyenne reservation and with a white flag flying above the chief's own tipi. Nonetheless, on November 27, 1868, nearly four years to the day after Sand Creek, Custer's troops charged, and this time Black Kettle could not escape: "Both the chief and his wife fell at the river bank riddled with bullets," one witness reported, "the soldiers rode right over Black Kettle and his wife and their horse as they lay dead on the ground, and their bodies were all splashed with mud by the charging soldiers." Custer later reported that an Osage guide took Black Kettle's scalp.
Osage Scouts: In addition to employing a few civilian scouts for the campaign, Custer also relied heavily on these Osage scouts. They discovered Black Kettle's campsite and were eager for the attack to begin. Not wanting to be shot by accident as hostile, they stood with the colour guard until after the attack.
This photograph was
taken just before the start of the Washita Campaign near Fort Dodge, Kansas. For
Maj. On the Washita, the Cheyenne's hopes of sustaining themselves as an independent people died as well; by 1869, they had been driven from the plains and confined to reservations.
Estimates of casualties of the Washita massacre
Note: In April 1996, the United Methodist Church, at its national convention in Denver, formally apologized to the Arapaho and Cheyenne Indian tribes for the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864. Washita today
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