The Cheyenne Tribe
The Cheyenne tribe was one of the first Native American tribes in the Great Plains. Their language falls in the Algonquian language family. The Cheyenne is a mixture of two smaller tribes the Só'taétaneo'o and the Tsétsêhéstâhese. The Cheyenne lived in what is now Minnesota. Also, they were at times allied with the Lakota and Arapaho.
History and Migration of the Cheyenne
The earliest known record of the Cheyenne is when a group of Cheyenne visited the French Fort Crevecoeur during the mid-17th century. In 1811 the Cheyenne were being pushed south by the Lakota. They began to create a new territory and became allies with the Arapahoe Nation. The alliance helped the Cheyenne expand their territory which stretched from far western Kansas,…show more content… Northern Cheyenne developed a close association with the Sioux, and he Southern Cheyenne continued their close association with the Arapaho. Traders and explorers reported contact with Cheyenne in the early 1820’s on the Arkansas River next to Denver, Colorado. Their contact with white men was light, with most contact involving traders, explorers and mountain men. They escaped the smallpox epidemics by heading west to the Rocky Mountains; however, they were affected by the Cholera epidemic in 1849. By 1851 the Americans couldn’t distinguish the difference between Northern Cheyenne and Southern Cheyenne so they sent them all to a reservation in present day Oklahoma. Northern Cheyenne didn’t want to go south, so they went north where they affiliated themselves with the Lakota Sioux. After the Battle of the Little Bighorn, where the Sioux and Cheyenne defeated a surprise attack led by Lt. Colonel George Custer the Northern Cheyenne became scattered making it hard on Americans to put them in a reservation. The Pikes Peak Gold Rush in 1859 caused a lot of trouble for the Cheyenne; Efforts to make a wider peace continued, but in the spring of 1864, John Evans, governor of Colorado