Cheyenne (tribe)

Cheyenne (tribe)
Name	Cheyenne
Native name	Tsé'énėstse (Tsitsistas)
Caption	Cheyenne leaders
Population	Approx. 12,000
Regions	Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Oklahoma, South Dakota
Languages	Cheyenne language (Numic), English
Religions	Native American Church, traditional spirituality

Cheyenne (tribe) The Cheyenne are a Plains Indigenous people historically centered on the Great Plains whose communities now reside in Oklahoma, Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota. Noted for their role in 19th-century Plains conflicts and diplomacy with the United States, the Cheyenne maintained vibrant military societies, oral histories, and seasonal bison-based lifeways that intersected with neighboring nations such as the Lakota, Arapaho, Kiowa, Comanche, and Crow.

History

Cheyenne oral traditions and archaeological connections place ancestral groups in the Western Great Lakes and northern Plains before the historic period, moving across routes near the Missouri River and interacting with the Sioux Nation, Arapaho Nation, and Blackfoot Confederacy. Contact-era encounters with Lewis and Clark Expedition, Meriwether Lewis, and later William Clark presaged intensified relations after the Louisiana Purchase. During the 19th century Cheyenne leadership figures like Black Kettle, Little Wolf, Two Moons, and Dull Knife negotiated, resisted, and fought in engagements such as the Sand Creek Massacre, the Battle of Summit Springs, the Hayfield Fight, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn alongside allied groups including the Lakota Sioux. Treaties including the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1851), the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), and agreements at Fort Laramie and Fort Laramie (1868) shaped territorial cessions and reservation placements, while federal policies like the Indian Removal Act era pressures and later Dawes Act allotment altered land tenure and sovereignty. The 1870s and 1880s saw campaigns by the United States Army under officers such as George Crook, Nelson A. Miles, and Ranald S. Mackenzie that compelled many Cheyenne into reservation life, though resistance and flight, including movements to Canada to join Sitting Bull, continued.

Language and Culture

The Cheyenne language, a branch of the Algonquian languages family, remains central to identity; scholars such as Franz Boas and George Bird Grinnell documented vocabulary and narratives while modern revitalization efforts involve institutions like tribal colleges and programs comparable to those at Haskell Indian Nations University and Oklahoma State University. Cultural expressions include feathered regalia used in ceremonies connected to the Sun Dance, decorated tipi designs comparable to those collected by Edward S. Curtis, and ledger art traditions preserved in museums such as the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum of the American Indian. Seasonal songs, powwow dances, and oral histories recount alliances and conflicts with the Comanche, Pawnee, and Cheyenne Dog Soldiers military society traditions as recorded by ethnographers including James Mooney.

Social Organization and Leadership

Traditional Cheyenne social structure centered on two principal divisions, the Morning Star (Sweet Medicine) founded bands and the Lone Horn bands, organized into ten principal bands with warrior societies like the Dog Soldiers (Hotamétaneo'o) and the Fox Warriors. Leadership roles included civil chiefs such as Little Raven and military leaders like Roman Nose, with council deliberations resembling intertribal councils observed among the Sioux and Arapaho. Gender roles, kinship ties, and clan-like groupings informed responsibilities for ceremonies, hunting, and diplomacy practiced at gatherings comparable to those at Council Bluff and encoded in customary law analogous to adjudication practices later affected by Indian agency superintendents.

Economy and Subsistence

Pre-reservation Cheyenne subsistence relied heavily on bison hunting across the Rolling Plains and Great Plains using communal drives, travois technology, and horse culture linked to introductions by Spanish colonists and intertribal trade networks that reached Santa Fe and the Missouri River. Trade items included horses, buffalo robes, beads acquired via Hudson's Bay Company traders, and metal goods obtained from contact with traders like William Bent and posts such as Bent's Fort. Resource access disputes with agricultural settlers along routes like the Bozeman Trail and overlands to Fort Laramie intensified during the westward Oregon Trail migration and railroad expansion by companies including the Union Pacific Railroad.

Religion and Spirituality

Cheyenne spiritual life features ceremonial practices like the Sun Dance, buffalo elder commemorations, and rites associated with the sacred arrow traditions attributed to the culture hero Sweet Medicine. Syncretic participation in the Native American Church combined peyote rites with Christian influences encountered via missionaries from denominations such as the Methodist Episcopal Church and Roman Catholic Church. Sacred landscapes on the Plains included sites along the Platte River, Big Horn River, and buttes recognized in oral geography and treaty negotiations, mirroring place-based spiritualities recorded by ethnologists and historians.

Relations with the United States and Treaties

Diplomatic and military relations with the United States involved treaty negotiations at posts including Fort Laramie and incidents such as the Sand Creek Massacre that prompted calls for congressional inquiries and reshaped federal Indian policy. Cheyenne representatives engaged with federal officials like Brigadier General George Meade and agents operating under the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and legal outcomes from allotment policies under the General Allotment Act affected land holdings. Legal and political actions in the 20th and 21st centuries involved litigation and negotiations over water rights, land restoration, and recognition comparable to cases involving other nations such as the Crow Nation and Otoe-Missouria Tribe.

Contemporary Communities and Governance

Today Cheyenne people primarily reside on the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma with governmental institutions that operate tribal councils, enterprises, and cultural programs informed by models at institutions like the American Indian Movement and intertribal collaborations with the Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona analogs. Contemporary leaders, educators, and artists maintain language revitalization, legal advocacy in federal courts and the Indian Health Service, and cultural preservation through museums, powwows, and partnerships with universities such as University of Oklahoma and Montana State University. Prominent Cheyenne figures in modern history include veterans and activists engaged in land, health, and education issues alongside pan-Indigenous movements connecting to organizations like the National Congress of American Indians.

Category:Plains Indians Category:Native American tribes in Montana Category:Native American tribes in Oklahoma