The Northern Cheyenne Exodus: A Reappraisal of the Army's Response

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 thesis answers why it took the Army so long to subdue the outbreak and capture the fleeing Northern Cheyenne. The original document contains color images.