THE GREAT NORTHERN CHEYENNE EXODUS FROM OKLAHOMA BEGINS
After the Great Sioux War, in 1877, 900 Northern Cheyenne were sent to the Darlington Agency (in modern Oklahoma) to join their kinsmen, the Southern Cheyenne. After measles killed 2/3 of their number, Little Wolf and Dull Knife led an escape from the agency through Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska. At the Platte River, Little Wolf’s band went to join Sitting Bull in Canada; Dull Knife’s band went to seek refuge from Lakota chief Red Cloud. Red Cloud’s people, however, had been relocated. At the old agency soldiers imprisoned Dull Knife and his band. Officials wanted the Cheyenne returned to Oklahoma. Dull Knife resisted and the Army starved the Cheyenne. On January 9, 1879, the Cheyenne broke out. Some 26 warriors were killed; about 80 women and children were recaptured though Dull Knife and family found their way to Red Cloud. The “Cheyenne Outbreak” brought a sympathetic outcry from the public. In 1883, a Northern Cheyenne Reservation in southeast Montana was established.
Source: ‘Northern Cheyenne Exodus,” SCRIBD. Retrieved 7/12/2019, https://www.scribd.com/document/283553876/Northern-Cheyenne-Exodus
Photo: William Henry Jackson (1843-1942), 1873. Photo of Little Wolf and Dull Knife, 1873. Public Domain in U.S.: Pre 1/1/1925. Public Domain elsewhere where copyright term is author’s life plus 70 years or less