Post by Dietmar on Jun 11, 2019 7:20:34 GMT -5
In May 1879, only shortly after the Cheyenne exodus of 1878/79 from Indian Territory, Northern Cheyenne band leader Little Chief and five other Cheyenne were en route to Washington to urge the President of the United States to allow them to return to their northern homelands.
Little Chief was not part of the group of Cheyennes under Little Wolf and Morning Star (Dull Knife), that fought their way from Indian Territory to the North the year before. When the latter broke out, he and his people were just on the way down to the dreaded southern country. But like the other Cheyenne, he and his people soon got dissatisfied under the conditions at the Darlington agency.
With Little Chief went Black Wolf, a Northern Suhtai council chief representing his own group of people, Eagle Feather, Laban Little Wolf (nephew of Chief Little Wolf), Porcupine and High Wolf. They were accompanied by John D. Miles, Indian agent of the Arapahoe and Cheyenne agencies, and interpreter Ben Clark.
The Cheyenne conferred with President Hayes in Washington and visited New York and Hampton Institute.
Eventually in 1881 Little Chief and his followers, who were extensively intermarried with Red Cloud´s Oglalas, got permission to move from Indian Territory to Pine Ridge.
Black Wolf´s group, who never agreed to remain at Pine Ridge, tried to be sent to Fort Keogh instead to join their relatives in Montana. As early as December 1882 he traveled to the Tongue River valley to convince General Miles to let him settle there and was successful.
It took until 1891 before Little Chief also moved his remaining followers to Tongue River to unite all northern Cheyenne on one reservation.
The Kansas Historical Society has pictures of the 1879 Northern Cheyenne delegates. One photo shows a group of four delegates and provides their names.
www.kansasmemory.org/item/304805
However, the identifications are in the wrong order, as Koos van Oostrom has just written in an e-mail exchange.
He corrects the names as follows:
Koos made the identifications by comparing further portraits of the photographer Abraham Bogardus of New York from the same delegation trip.
Eagle Feather
High Wolf
Porcupine
The Bogardus portrait for Black Wolf is still missing, but Koos compares him with Lawton A. Huffman´s picture of Black Wolf… and I think he´s right:
Black Wolf
There are some more pictures taken by Bogardus, showing the rest of the delegation:
Little Chief
Little Wolf
Little Wolf
from left to right: unknown boy, agent John D. Miles, Little Chief, interpreter Ben Clark
Finally, this tobacco bag now in the collection of Denver Art Museum has been identified by Imre Nagy as the one shown in the Huffman photo of Black Wolf:
Thank you Koos and Imre!!
Little Chief was not part of the group of Cheyennes under Little Wolf and Morning Star (Dull Knife), that fought their way from Indian Territory to the North the year before. When the latter broke out, he and his people were just on the way down to the dreaded southern country. But like the other Cheyenne, he and his people soon got dissatisfied under the conditions at the Darlington agency.
With Little Chief went Black Wolf, a Northern Suhtai council chief representing his own group of people, Eagle Feather, Laban Little Wolf (nephew of Chief Little Wolf), Porcupine and High Wolf. They were accompanied by John D. Miles, Indian agent of the Arapahoe and Cheyenne agencies, and interpreter Ben Clark.
The Cheyenne conferred with President Hayes in Washington and visited New York and Hampton Institute.
Eventually in 1881 Little Chief and his followers, who were extensively intermarried with Red Cloud´s Oglalas, got permission to move from Indian Territory to Pine Ridge.
Black Wolf´s group, who never agreed to remain at Pine Ridge, tried to be sent to Fort Keogh instead to join their relatives in Montana. As early as December 1882 he traveled to the Tongue River valley to convince General Miles to let him settle there and was successful.
It took until 1891 before Little Chief also moved his remaining followers to Tongue River to unite all northern Cheyenne on one reservation.
The Kansas Historical Society has pictures of the 1879 Northern Cheyenne delegates. One photo shows a group of four delegates and provides their names.
www.kansasmemory.org/item/304805
However, the identifications are in the wrong order, as Koos van Oostrom has just written in an e-mail exchange.
He corrects the names as follows:
Koos made the identifications by comparing further portraits of the photographer Abraham Bogardus of New York from the same delegation trip.
Eagle Feather
High Wolf
Porcupine
The Bogardus portrait for Black Wolf is still missing, but Koos compares him with Lawton A. Huffman´s picture of Black Wolf… and I think he´s right:
Black Wolf
There are some more pictures taken by Bogardus, showing the rest of the delegation:
Little Chief
Little Wolf
Little Wolf
from left to right: unknown boy, agent John D. Miles, Little Chief, interpreter Ben Clark
Finally, this tobacco bag now in the collection of Denver Art Museum has been identified by Imre Nagy as the one shown in the Huffman photo of Black Wolf:
Thank you Koos and Imre!!
