Tse-tsehese-staestse is what the Cheyenne call themselves. The word Cheyenne was believed to come from the French word chien for dog. The French traders called these people this because of the famous dog soldiers of the Cheyenne nation. This is erroneous. The now accepted etymology of the word Cheyenne is that it is the anglicized word Shyhela, which is Sioux.

The Cheyenne tribe first lived in the valleys of the upper Mississippi River but moved in the beginning of the 1700s out on the plains. As they got enough with horses they became experts in hunting buffalos. In the 1800s the tribe was divided into 2 groups. One group moved to the great plains in the south and the other group stayed in Montana, Wyoming and South Dakota. The ones in north were involved in fights with the Sioux indians and the southern group with Apache, Comanche and Kiowa. In these fights Cheyenne warriors showed to be very brave.

In 1867 the Cheyenne cooperated with the Sioux against the United States Army and attacked soldiers who tried to defend the Bozeman trail. The 2nd of August several thousands of Sioux and Cheyenne warriors attacked lumberjacks lead by Captain James W. Powell. The soldiers had new Springfield rifles which made them resist for 4 ― hours before the indians backed off. Six soldiers died and Powell stated that more than 60 indians were killed. Beside this victory, the army had problems to defend the Bozeman trail and the 4th of November 1868 Red Cloud and 125 other chiefs were invited to Fort Laramie to discuss the conflict. As a result of the conflict the army moved the soldiers from the Bozeman trail, the soldiers who protected settlers on their way to Montana. Red Cloud and his warriors then burned the Forts along the trail. The Cheyenne people played an active role in the indian wars and historians mean that they had to take the most of the consequences and losses of all tribes involved.

The 17th of June 1876 General George Crook and about 1,000 soldiers fought with the support of 300 Crow and Shoshone indians against 1,500 Sioux and Cheyennes in the battle of Rosebud Creek which lasted for more than 6 hours. General George A. Custer and 655 men were sent out to find the indians who took part in the battle of Rosebud Creek. The 25th of June they found a giant camp with about 10,000 men, women and children. Custer estimated the number of inhabitants to considerable less and ordered an attack, instead of waiting for support from General Alfred Terry. Cheyenne och Sioux warriors obliterated Custer and his men in the famous battle of Little Big Horn.

Black Kettle
??-1868

Very little is known about this Cheyenne chief. Black Kettle lived on the indian territory in western Kansas and eastern Colorado who had been guaranteed to the Cheyenne people in the Fort Laramie treaty of 1851. 8 years later in 1859, when the goldrusch at Pikes Peak started an enormous wave of settlers to Colorado, which lead to an increased white expansion in the indian territory. Instead of stopping white settlers, the governement suggested that the Cheyenne indians should accept a new treaty and move to the smaller reservation at Sand Creek in the southeast of Colorado. Black Kettle who was afraid of drastic measures from the United States Army if he didīnt obey orders accepted the new treaty in 1861.

The Sand Creek Reservation could not support the indians who were forced to live there. It was not a farming landscape and soon infectious epidemics came to the reservation. The nearest buffalo herd was in 1862 grazing more than 180 miles from the reservation. Many Cheyennes, especially young warriors, left the reservation and dtole caddle from nearby settlers to survive. Such a raid in the spring of 1864 made the white Colorado settlers so angry, so that the military opened fire as soon as they saw a Cheyenne. This increased the indian revolts around the plains. From the Comanches in the south to the Lakotas in the north was the armys engagement in the Civil war a possibility to more attacks on white settlers. Black Kettle however, took no part in those attacks. He talked to the local commendant in Fort Weld, Colorado and thought he had a promise that he should be safe if he stayed on the Sand Creek Reservation.

Colonel John Chivington, leader for the Third Colorado Volunteers, didīnt care about this at all. His troops could not find any Cheyenne bands in their hunt for indians, so when he heard that Black Kettle had returned to Sand Creek, he attacked the sleeping village in the dawn of the 29th November 1864. About 200 Cheyennes died in the massacre, many of them women and children. After the slaughter Chivington's men made use of the women sexually and scalped many of the dead people. Later on "the trophys" were shown to a screaming mass of people in Denver, heads and cut breasts from women.

In August 1868 Roman Nose lead a series of attacks on farmers in Kansas. This lead to more military escalation. Under General Philip Sheridan a winter campaign started against Cheyenne villages. Seventh Cavalry under George Armstrong Custer was leading in these campaigns. In a snowstorm Custer traced a smaller Cheyenne band to a village on the Washita River, where he ordered an attack in the dawn.

It was Black Kettle's camp, well inside the Cheyenne Reservation and with a white flag over the chiefs teepee. Although this, the 27th of November 1868, nearly four years after the Sand Creek Massacre, Custer's troops attacked and this time Black Kettle couldīnt escape. "Both the chief and his wife fell on the riverbank filled with bullets," a witness reported.. "The soldiers were riding straight over their bodies and their killed horse, and the mud splashed over their bodies." Custer reported later that an Osage scout took the scalp of Black Kettle.