Cheyenne Tribe

The Cheyenne tribe

The Cheyenne tribe are a tribe of the Great Plains. They are closely allied with the Arapaho and loosely allied with the Lakota Sioux. They are the most prominent out of the Great Plains tribes, where they mostly hunted on hills and prairies alongside the Missouri and Red Rivers. 

They originally lived in the great lakes area in Minnesota and on the Missouri River where they lived in earth covered log houses in permanent settlements, farmed and made pottery. In the late 1600s they had to migrate westward due to conflict with the Ojibwe, Ree and Mandan Indians. With them migrating westward it changed their lifestyle, they became hunters and gatherers. They managed to gain obtain horses from the Spanish in the 1700s. This led them to become expert buffalo hunters, which is the way they were living when Lewis and Clark encountered them in 1804 in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

The first Cheyenne territory was established in northern Colorado in 1851 due to the Fort Laramie Treaty, consisting of the present-day sites of Fort Collins, Denver and Colorado Springs. However, with more and more white settlers pushing west in the 1850s, the Cheyenne along with their allies, began to rebel against the pioneers and the US Army. Tensions grew stronger as when  in 1858 when the Pikes Peak Gold Rush happened the 1851 treaty was broken and the territory which was given to them was taken away. 

The following years entailed a string of violence and battles between Indians and white settlers. During the Battle of Washita River, cavalry attacked a band of peaceful Cheyenne where they were legally encamped on reservation land with Chief Black Kettle. More than 100 Cheyenne indians were killed, mostly women and children. Even though Chief Black Kettle had a white flag flying above his teepee, he was killed in the battle.

One of their greatest successes was the Battle of the Little Bighorn, which is known as the greatest Native American victory. 262 soldiers died in battle, while only an estimated 60 indian warriors were killed. However, following this battle the attempts to force the Cheyenne on to a reservation in indian territory intensified. 1,000 Northern Cheyenne were forced to Oklahoma, where they found dire condition and many became ill and died from malaria. An Executve ordering 1884 created a reservation for the Northern Cheyenne in southeast Montana.

At present, the Cheyenne occupy two reservations, one at Tongue River, Montana where some 6,500 people reside. The other reservation in southwestern Oklahoma is shared with their long time allies, the Arapaho and consists of around 11,000 members.