Wild West Podcast

Raids and Retaliation in Northwest Kansas: A Deep Dive into the Cheyenne Raids and their Tragic Backstory

November 03, 2021 Michael King
Wild West Podcast
Raids and Retaliation in Northwest Kansas: A Deep Dive into the Cheyenne Raids and their Tragic Backstory
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What if the brutal raids by the Cheyenne Indians on Sapa Valley, northwest Kansas, were not just random acts of violence, but a response to prior attacks on them? Strap in as we take a chilling journey through the blood-streaked pages of history. Discover the tragic events that might have triggered these raids, from the devastating losses suffered at Punished Woman's Fork to an act of retaliation against an assault on the southern Cheyenne at the Battle of Sapa Creek. Through detailed investigations carried out by the Army and the State of Kansas, together with gripping firsthand accounts, we piece together the puzzle of the assaults on settlers and their property, linking them to an assault on a Cheyenne village four years earlier.

The trail doesn't end with the raids. Stay with us as we navigate the chaotic aftermath, starting from the Cheyenne's bewildering flight across Kansas to the contentious debate over their destiny. We bring to light the revolt at Fort Robinson, the fleeting taste of liberty, and the eventual return of the Cheyenne to Indian Territory. And then, the emotional climax: the poignant moment when Cheyenne leader Dolknife boldly stands before a council at the Darlington Reservation, demanding the return of his people to their ancestral lands. A tale of raids, revenge, and redemption awaits – are you ready for the journey?  Wild West Podcast proudly presents Cheyenne Exodus Part III: Raids on Sappa Valley. 

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Speaker 1:

The loss of horses and supplies at Punished Woman's Fork left the Indians in need of replenishment. Their path of flight took them through the Republican and Solomon River tributary system in northwest Kansas. The area which the Cheyenne crossed in northwest Kansas had a dense settler population. There were slayings and robbery in southwest Kansas during September, but the raids on the settlement in northwest Kansas, primarily in present-day Rawlins and Decatur counties, were mortifying. It is unknown why the northern Cheyenne became more violent than this part of the flight. Some theories argue that the Indians retaliated to gain horses and supplies to replenish their losses obtained at Punished Woman's Fork. Others state that they were taking revenge for an attack against the southern Cheyenne at the Battle of Sapa Creek during the last stages of the Red River War in April 1875. Whatever their motivation, on September 30th through October 1st they descended on the citizens along Sapa and Beaver Creek with blood in mind. Wild West podcast proudly presents Cheyenne Exodus, part 3, raids on Sapa Valley. Mock, now in command, pursued the Cheyenne until his troops reached Chalk Creek. There, at Chalk Creek, he saw cattle grazing the meadows. He halted his men and let them hobble the horses and turn them out to graze. The commissary's sergeants and cooks got busy and killed and butchered a few cattle for the men to eat. While he waited for his dinner, mock sat down and wrote the following letter to his superiors at Leavenworth, camp, chalk Creek, september 28th, we found the Indians waiting for us about five o'clock this evening in the canyon of Famished Woman's Fork Lieutenant Colonel W H Lewis of the 19th Infantry and three men wounded. We got one dead Indian, 17 saddle ponies and 62 head of stock. We were prevented by darkness from following up our success. I followed the trail this morning to the point where I detached Lieutenant Gardner and Sergeant Davis with 25 cavalrymen to escort Colonel Lewis and two wounded men to Fort Wallace. The Indians, I think, will cross the railroad track near Sheridan Station. I will be on the line of the railroad on their trail tomorrow, unless they again lay and wait for us. The whole outfit are together, I think, and we'll probably cross the railroad tonight.

Speaker 1:

The report that the Cheyennes had once more escaped was quickly carried to Fort Wallace and Fort Hayes. Additional troops were deployed along the Kansas-specific railroad from both posts to intercept the band. Shortly after the Indians' departure from Punished Woman's Fork, they split into two groups. One group was led by Dolnife and the other one under Little Wolf. In addition to the separation of horses, several small Indian scouting parties were sent out to inspect the escape path, in dire need of horses, harnesses and food.

Speaker 1:

After the loss of Punished Woman's Fork, the Cheyennes, the warrior element, committed some of the worst depredations of their journey homeward after crossing the Solomon River. Mock and Dodge in their hurried pursuit through the area and, in command of two separate companies, saw havoc in the region. Rundlebrock described some of the carnage. On the evening of the 29th they, the Cheyennes, encountered a colony of Russian menonites and slaughtered about 40 men, but didn't hurt the women and children. Most of the killing was done on the two sappers, prairie Dog and Beaver Creek. We saw great many pitiful sights and once at night came on three small children asleep on the prairie in their nightclothes, four miles from any house. We fed them and turned them over to a good farmer.

Speaker 1:

October 4th pushed on early in four miles past the beaver, a beautiful valley dotted with ranches and cultivated fields. Not a living soul to be seen. At last, a party of one man and four women came to us. Three of the women mother, daughter and daughter-in-law live in a large ranch nearby. The three husbands had been butchered inside of the ranch and the women respectively violated. This is Bohemian Colony and the people are unarmed and unprepared. Twenty-five men were killed, two missing on the Sapa, twelve men killed and one missing on the beaver. Over fifty women were violated in all.

Speaker 1:

Gunther also testified to finding the children at a homestead in the Sapa Valley. There I saw in one place, about fifty yards from a house, three bodies. They were lying as close to each other as the length of this table. They looked to me as if they had been at work down in the field nearby the house and it started to run for the house when the Indians had cut them off and killed them. Within six hundred yards of where we found these bodies we found three little children who were in their nightclothes.

Speaker 1:

Reports of killings, rapes of women, theft of livestock and burning of houses along Prairie, dog Creek and the Sapa River in Decatur County flooded into Kansas newspapers. Although some reporting was exaggerated, many of the deaths and depredations listed in the stories were later verified by Army and State of Kansas Investigations and by witness accounts. A summation of the victims issued July 1879, contained twenty-six victims in Sheridan, decatur, norton and Rollins counties during September 30th and October 1st 1878. A addendum listed several more who died of wounds received during the raid, claiming a total of at least forty-one dead in Kansas. Some writers have linked the assaults committed against settlers and property along the Sapa to an attack by US troops on a Cheyenne village four years earlier.

Speaker 1:

In April 1875, a force of six cavalry under Lieutenant Austin Henley was ordered into the field from Fort Wallace, kansas. The troops were to look for and intercept some southern Cheyennes who were fleeing from Indian territory following their uprising and defeat by US forces under Nelson Miles. Henley discovered a Cheyenne camp of about 200 tribespeople under Bull Elk camped along the banks of the Sapa, attacked it and massacred nineteen men, eight women and seven children. A northern Cheyenne woman told an investigating board of officers that it was mainly little wolves men who committed the Kansas depredations in 1878. Old Crow also said that most of the murders on the trail were committed by men with little wolf, adding "'None of those who may have committed murders ever told me anything about it. I used to keep advising them to behave themselves as they went through the country, telling them that all we wanted to do was get north, that we wanted to commit no depredations, and young men who committed depredations and did mischief never told me anything about it. They concealed it from me'". Little Wolf told Grinnell. "'we tried to avoid settlements as much as possible. We did not want to be seen or known. I often harangued my young men, telling them not to kill citizens but to let them alone. I told them that they should kill all the soldiers they could, for they were trying to kill us, but not to trouble the citizens. I know they killed some citizens, but I think not many'". They did not tell me much of what they did because they knew I would not like it.

Speaker 1:

Newspaper reports, personal accounts and official investigations in Kansas gave the public a dire view of the ordeal. For example, a newspaper special from Buffalo Station reported the Indians crossed the Kansas Pacific on Sunday morning after killing Colonel Lewis in the Battle of the 27th. They crossed 20 miles south of Monument, struck northwest to the cattle trail in the north fork of the Solomon River and attacked the herders of Smith and Savage, driving them away and stampeding the cattle. They destroyed the Sheridan Post Office and Ranch of F Bayless beside several others in the vicinity. Going northwest to Prairie Dog Creek. On Monday September 30th they cleaned out J L Peck's store and post office in the ranches of A Robinson and James Gomer on Sapa Creek.

Speaker 1:

The diffusion of the Indians intensely complicated the task of the searching troopers. The confusing flood of reports that reached the cavalrymen as to the location of the Cheyennes indicated they spread along a route of travel roughly 50 to 75 miles wide. Before either major ban could be found, they crossed the Kansas Pacific and quickly escaped into Nebraska. The departure of the Indians across the prairie and the frustrating attempts of the army to corral them drew increasing attention from newspaper editors and humanitarians across the country. The temptation to support the courage of the underdog undoubtedly vivified the debate, and considerable evidence was made public that the Indians had been driven to escape from the Indian Territory by the deplorable conditions they had experienced near Fort Reno. Amos Chapman, a respected frontiersman who spoke with considerable authority on matters recounted to the Indian, stated that upon visiting the reservations shortly before the flight of the Cheyennes, he had found them existing on the carcasses of petrified horses. Others argued that the gallant struggle of the Indians deserved something better than being forced to return to Indian Territory and that the army should give up the search and allow the Cheyennes to remain in the north. The residents of Southwest Kansas were less sentimental in their proposal. Several settlers and cattle-dovers had died at the hands of the migrant red men, and they were unwilling to settle for anything less than an eye for an eye. Moreover, the Cheyennes had murdered within the borders of Kansas. Therefore, it was argued that they should be returned to the state to stand trial for their atrocities, as would other criminals.

Speaker 1:

While the debate over the thorny problem continued, little Wolf's band, settled down on Lost Chokecherry Creek in Central Nebraska, were undiscovered by the army. They subsisted on small game and waited for the coming of warm weather. But unfortunately, dole Knife's people were less fortunate. After having traveled several hundred miles, they were discovered in extreme northwestern Nebraska by two companies of cavalry from Fort Robinson. Ironically, the Indians were within 50 miles of the Wyoming Territory's safety and the Sioux Reservation of the Dakota Territory. Dole Knife's warriors were convinced that once they had reached the far north, the government would relent and agree to allow them to remain on their old hunting grounds.

Speaker 1:

The band was quartered in empty barracks at Fort Robinson while the War Department wrestled with what to do with them. If they were sent back to the Indian Territory, the army could anticipate an offensive barrage of public condemnation. However, suppose the Cheyennes were permitted to rejoin their northern kinsmen. In that case a dangerous precedent might be set and every disappointed band in the south could be expected to take note of the Cheyenne's successful flight and attempt to escape to the north the following summer. Thanks for watching.

Speaker 1:

After two months of debate, the army reached a decision On January 3rd 1879, orders were received at Fort Robinson to escort the unhappy planesman back to the Indian Territory. The Cheyennes accepted the news of their fate stoically. However, they refused to leave their barracks to assemble for removal back to the Fort Reno Agency. Food, blankets and firewood were withheld from the determined band. Even though the temperature sank to several degrees below zero, they stubbornly remained huddled in the barracks. On January 10th, two of their chiefs, wild Hog and Old Crow, were placed in solitary confinement, convincing their remaining kinsmen that they were shortly to be forcibly taken southward that night, armed with several rifles they had concealed.

Speaker 1:

After their arrival at Fort Robinson, a party of braves attacked the guards and held off pursuit until the main body of Cheyennes had escaped to the frigid bluffs north of the post. The Indians paid a bitter price for their short-lived freedom Of approximately 170 men, women and children who had fled. 35 were killed during the first hours after the revolt, and a like number were brought back to the Fort wounded. It was not until January 21st that the last party was captured, and at that Dole Knife and his family had escaped to the Pine Ridge Agency of the North. A final tally indicated that only 58 of the Cheyennes had survived the struggle with the army. Most of these were women and children, and many were sick or wounded by the hardships of the stay at Fort Robinson. Only seven warriors were considered fit to stay in trial for the transgressions of the band.

Speaker 1:

The story of the Cheyenne Exodus ends when Dolknife's words began in council, at the Darlington Reservation. He said in brief I am going back to where my children were born, where my father and mother are buried according to Indian rites, where my forefathers followed the chase, where the snow waters from the mountains run clear toward the white man's sea, yes, where the speckled trout leaps, the swift running waters. You people have lied to us here. Your streams run slow and sluggish. The water is not good. Our children sicken and die.

Speaker 1:

My young warriors have been out for nearly two moons and find no buffalo. You said there were plenty. They find only the skeletons. The white hunters have killed them for their hides. Take us back to the land of our fathers. I am done With this little robe. Head chief of the southern Cheyennes knocked him down with a loaded court handle. After regaining his feet, he shook the dust from his blanket, then, folding it around himself, walked out of the council lodge and said I am going and go. He did. If only the government had fulfilled their promises to let the northern Cheyenne return home, the atrocities played out in the Cheyenne exodus would never have occurred.

Cheyenne Raids in Northwest Kansas
Cheyenne Indians' Flight and Capture
Cheyenne Exodus and Broken Promises