The exodus of the Northern Cheyennes in 1878 and 1879, an attempt to flee from Indian Territory to their Montana homeland, is an important event in American Indian history. It is equally important in the history of towns like Oberlin, Kansas, where Cheyenne warriors killed more than forty settlers. The Cheyennes, in turn, suffered losses through violent encounters with the U.S. Army. More than a century later, the story remains familiar because it has been told by historians and novelists, and on film. In The Northern Cheyenne Exodus in History and Memory, James N. Leiker and Ramon Powers explore how the event has been remembered, told, and retold. They examine the recollections of Indians and settlers and their descendants, and they consider local history, mass-media treatments, and literature to draw thought-provoking conclusions about how this story has changed over time. The Cheyennes’ journey has always been recounted in melodramatic stereotypes, and for the last fifty years most versions have featured “noble savages” trying to reclaim their birthright. Here, Leiker and Powers deconstruct those stereotypes and transcend them, pointing out that history is never so simple. “The Cheyennes’ flight,” they write, “had left white and Indian bones alike scattered along its route from Oklahoma to Montana.” In this view, the descendants of the Cheyennes and the settlers they encountered are all westerners who need history as a “way of explaining the bones and arrowheads” that littered the plains. Leiker and Powers depict a rural West whose diverse peoples—Euro-American and Native American alike—seek to preserve their heritage through memory and history. Anyone who lives in the contemporary Great Plains or who wants to understand the West as a whole will find this book compelling.

The exodus of the Northern Cheyennes in 1878 and 1879, an attempt to flee from Indian Territory to their Montana homeland, is an important event in American Indian history. It is equally important in the history of towns like Oberlin, Kansas, where Cheyenne warriors killed more than forty settlers. The Cheyennes, in turn, suffered losses through violent encounters with the U.S. Army. More than a century later, the story remains familiar because it has been told by historians and novelists, and on film. In The Northern Cheyenne Exodus in History and Memory, James N. Leiker and Ramon Powers explore how the event has been remembered, told, and retold. They examine the recollections of Indians and settlers and their descendants, and they consider local history, mass-media treatments, and literature to draw thought-provoking conclusions about how this story has changed over time. The Cheyennes’ journey has always been recounted in melodramatic stereotypes, and for the last fifty years most versions have featured “noble savages” trying to reclaim their birthright. Here, Leiker and Powers deconstruct those stereotypes and transcend them, pointing out that history is never so simple. “The Cheyennes’ flight,” they write, “had left white and Indian bones alike scattered along its route from Oklahoma to Montana.” In this view, the descendants of the Cheyennes and the settlers they encountered are all westerners who need history as a “way of explaining the bones and arrowheads” that littered the plains. Leiker and Powers depict a rural West whose diverse peoples—Euro-American and Native American alike—seek to preserve their heritage through memory and history. Anyone who lives in the contemporary Great Plains or who wants to understand the West as a whole will find this book compelling.

In 1877, after the defeat of Custer at Little Bighorn, the U.S. Government removed the Northern Cheyenne from their traditional homelands to a reservation in Indian Territory(Oklahoma.) This is the story surrounding the breakout of the Northern Cheyenne from Darlington Reservation in 1878 and their bloody but futile attempt to return to their homeland in Montana.

Taped recorded memories of Cheyenne Indian traditions, early history and exploits, with the memoirs of John Stands In Timber.

A Northern Cheyenne Album presents a rare series of never-before-published photographs that document the lives of tribal people on the reservation during the early twentieth-century—a period of rapid change. Reservation physician and expert photographer Thomas B. Marquis captured Northern Cheyenne life in numerous images taken from 1926 to 1935. After 1960, former tribal president John Woodenlegs and others interviewed tribal elders and, drawing on tape recordings, composed the photos' lively captions. Margot Liberty, editor of this volume, has added her own descriptions, filling in details of Northern Cheyenne culture and history from a scholar's viewpoint.

After spending approximately 13 months on a reservation with their Southern Cheyenne cousins in the Indian Territory of present-day Oklahoma, over 300 men, women, and children of the Northern Cheyenne, under Chiefs Dull Knife and Little Wolf, decided reservation life in the south did not suit them. They left the reservation in September 1878 without the US Government's permission hoping to return to their former homelands on the Northern Plains. Alerted to the escape, the US Army dispatched troops in pursuit and asked every military department in the Plains to assist, or be prepared to assist, in the containment of this group of escapees. A running fight ensued through Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska, and in every engagement, the Indians emerged either victorious or managed to escape the soldiers until one group, under Dull Knife, finally surrendered to the US Army in northwestern Nebraska, nearly two months and 700 hundred miles later. The last group, under Little Wolf, surrendered five months after that in southeastern Montana-a journey of nearly 1,000 miles. This study answers why it took the Army so long to subdue the "outbreak" and capture the fleeing Northern Cheyenne. CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION * CHAPTER 2 - THE CHEYENNE * Origins, Tribal Structure, and Tribal Split * Treaties and Agreements * Dull Knife, Little Wolf and the Fighting Cheyenne * Removal to the South and Reservation Depredations * CHAPTER 3 - THE FRONTIER ARMY * Army Demobilization and Reorganization * Training and Tactics, Techniques and Procedures (TTPs) * US Army's Indian Fighting Experience * CHAPTER 4 - THE EXODUS AND PURSUIT * Their Preparations and Departure * First Responders * Battle of Turkey Springs * The US Army's Contingencies * Captain Hemphill's Turn * Sandy Creek Fights * Battle of Punished Woman's Fork * The Pursuit Continues While Indians Raid the Northwest Kansas Settlements * The Band Splits and Dull Knife Surrenders * The Fort Robinson Outbreak and the Surrender of Little Wolf * CHAPTER 5 - EPILOGUE AND CONCLUSION * The Army's Reaction * Fate of the Northern Cheyenne * Successes and Failures The Northern Cheyenne, along with other tribes the US Government forcibly removed to IT, never considered it home. Their home was on the Northern Plains. Treaty misrepresentations had left the Northern Cheyenne tribe in limbo for most of the past decade because the past treaties did not deal with them as an individually separate tribe, independent from their cousins, the Southern Cheyenne. They never had a reservation of their own, but instead shared reservation lands with the numerically superior Lakota Sioux. The US Government's officials tended to deal with specific tribal chiefs as spokespersons for the entire tribe. Whether they were culturally ignorant or knew exactly what they were doing in their dealings with the various indigenous peoples is open for debate. This study has five chapters and multiple sub-chapters, including the introduction that answers the primary research question and the associated secondary research questions. The second chapter is entirely dedicated to the Cheyenne nation, their origins, tribal split, fighting experience, removal of the Northern Cheyenne to the IT, and reservation depredations. This chapter specifically answers these secondary research questions: What advantages and disadvantages did the Cheyenne have or overcome in their exodus from the IT reservation that thwarted the US Army's attempts to contain them? Moreover, why did the Northern Cheyenne opt to leave the Darlington Reservation? It is important to answer these questions to grasp the type of foe the US Army was up against and the motivation that drove the Northern Cheyenne to flee or fight when necessary.