Long Chin

[miller7513]

I received this some time ago with an after thought listed below
Does anyone know if Long Chin, the half-brother of the Brule chief Brave Bear (who died of wounds received in the Grattan fight), was the same Long Chin who was a noted Cheyenne warrior? Grinell and Hyde seem to differentiate between the Lakota Long Chin and the Cheyenne of that name, but it occurred to me that they might be one and the same person. Can anyone throw any light on this query?
There was an 84 year-old Long Chin in the Darlington Cheyenne census in 1887. Wouldn't this make a little old to be the Sioux? Of course, this depends on it being the same Long Chin!
In Life of George Bent, he makes reference to the Dog Soldiers and Spotted Tail's Brules trading with Little Gerry in 1863, noting that Long Chin was a leader of the Dog Soldiers and there's a footnoted reference to the fact that Gerry married one of (the Cheyenne) Long Chin's Sioux nieces... He was also an uncle of Bent.

There is much said about the Cheyenne Long Chin in Powell´s “People of the Sacred Mountain”, but there is no hint that he was related to the Sioux Brave Bear.
But Long Chin (ca 1800-ca.1889) was a half-brother to Tall Bull. Both were the leaders of the Dog Soldiers in the 1850s and 1860s. The mother of the two headmen was indeed a Lakota woman. Long Chin was a council chief in 1854. In 1863, when he was already 63, he still lead the Dog Men.
All in all, it seems to me that the Brule Long Chin and the Cheyenne were two different persons.
After thought
If George Bent was a nephew of Long Chin, then George’s mother was a Cheyenne & sister of Long Chin and if Elbridge Gerry married a niece (Gerry married three sisters-daughters of Brule Swift Bird) of Long Chin, then both Long Chin’s are the same person-did Hyde also get them mixed up?
I say it could be a niece of Long Chin's brother or sister OR of his WIFE'S brother or sister (which it turns out to be)
LaDeane

[kingsleybray]

I think you're correct, LaDeane, in thinking the Cheyenne and Brule Long Chins were two different persons. Grinnell, FIGHTING CHEYENNES (Univ. Oklahoma Press ed.), pp. 17-21, has a story called 'Long Chin's Strategy' set between "late summer" (p. 17) and "near the fall of the year" 1855 (p. 21). Long Chin is here placed as a leader in the Southern Cheyenne village moving from Bent's New Fort to the Smoky Hill river in western Kansas. He shows his wily skills in warfare against a Pawnee war-party.

This was the very period, say August-September, 1855, when Long Chin the Brule and his whole family were involved in the momentous events of the Blue Water battle with Gen. Harney, Sept. 3, then the negotiations leading to the surrender at Ft Laramie on October 26 of the warriors implicated in the mail coach robbery the previous November. These men were Scattering Bear's brother Red Leaf; his half-brother Long Chin; and their cousin Spotted Tail.

This points to Long Chin and his kinsmen being with the Brules in the summer-fall of 1855, not with the Cheyennes south of the Platte. During summer 1855 the main Brule village moved along the Niobrara valley, first eastward, before their clash with the Omahas (when Logan Fontenelle was killed), then back west until August, when the village divided. A total of 110 lodges answered the summons of Agent Twiss to come to the Ft Laramie vicinity and differentiate themselves from the 'hostile' Lakotas. 40 lodges went to Blue Water Creek and were whipped by Harney, the camp including our friends Red Leaf, Long Chin, and Spotted Tail. The rest of the Upper Brules, as much as 180 lodges, followed Black Horn (Wazhazha leader) north up the east side of the Black Hills to the Little Missouri, to get out of the way of Harney's march.

Fascinating information, LaDeane on Elbridge Gerry's Indian wives. Do you know anything more of the three sisters of Swift Bird? is this the same Swift Bird who was a brother-in-law to Antoine Janis? Do you know if there was a Gerry connection to Whirlwind (full name Fast Whirlwind) the chief met by Francis Parkman in 1846?