Black Kettle

This treaty guaranteed the Cheyenne and other tribes (including Sioux, Shoshones, Crows, Arapahos) a vast territory (the Great Plains) and a renumeration of $50,000 a year for 50 years, in exchange for allowing the safe passage of settlers and the construction of roads and forts. When ratifying the treaty, the Senate changed the 50 years to 10 years. Most of the tribes never saw the money, and in 1859, the treaty was broken, as gold was found on the territory and a large number of settlers (about 100,000 in one of the biggest gold rushes in North America) emigrated on the Indian territory during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush.

1861 - Treaty of Fort Wise

Was signed by only four Arapaho and six Cheyenne chiefs. They ceded most of the land promised to them in the Fort Laramie Treaty, now reducing their territory to the Sand Creek Reservation (southeast Colorado), approximately one thirteenth of what they had 10 years before. A large number of Cheyenne bands were angry as the Treaty had been signed by a small number of Indians; they refused to abide by it and abandoned their hunting territories. The Government's representative considered them as hostiles planning a war. The situation grew more and more tense between the Indians and white settlers, each believing the other to be trespassing on their land. Things escalated as each responded to the other's attacks, becoming what is known as the Colorado War. 

1863 – Visit to Washington D.C.

Black Kettle, along with other Cheyenne chiefs, as well as his friend Lean Bear (Dog Soldier) and Arapaho, Comanche, Kiowa and Caddo chiefs, was brought to Washington to meet with President Lincoln, the so-called Great White Father. They assured him they wished for peace, and would try and convince the others to agree to living on reservations, and in return asked Lincoln to calm his white children. He promised to help build settlements and teach farming, gave a friendly speech, shook hands with each of them and gave them peace medals and papers declaring them friends of the United States. They left with again a hope for a peaceful future.

But convincing the Cheyenne was difficult; they were nomads, following the buffalo herds through the Great Plains, and the Sand Creek reservation wasn't good land for farming. More and more people were leaving and joining the nomadic bands. 

1864 – Sand Creek Massacre

Seeking battle against Indians and not being able to find them in the wild, Colonel Chivington's Third Regiment rode out to the camp near Fort Lyon, where Black Kettle, Lean Bear and about 700-800 Indians were staying (mostly Cheyenne and Arapaho). On November 29, as the soldiers were arriving, Chief Lean Bear rode out to meet them, holding the medal and papers given to him by Lincoln, and was shot down. What followed is described as a massacre: between 70 and 163 Indian men, women and children slaughtered and heavily mutilated.

Black Kettle was waving both a white flag and an American flag; as they were being ignored, he fled, but came back for his injured wife, shot 9 times. He threw her over his shoulder and ran. They were among the nearly 500 survivors that managed to flee to the Smokey Hill camp. He later extracted the bullets and his wife lived.

Though he continued to ask for peace and encouraged the others not to retaliate, the suprise attack on a peaceful camp, the massacre and the exhibition of scalps and body parts in Denver, drove more and more Indians to join the rebellious bands. Many Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho smoked the war pipe and began to attack white settlements.

1865 – Little Arkansas Treaty

Black Kettle along with other chiefs (Cheyenne, Comanche, Arapaho, Apache, Kiowa) met with Commissioners for the United States at Little Arkansas River. This treaty once again declared peace between Indians and white settlers and soldiers. The US representatives asked for unmolested traffic (Indian bands were attacking wagons), the release of white prisoners and limitation of the Indian territory to reservations south of Arkansas, forbidding them access to the Platte. The Indians asked for unlimited hunting grounds and reparation for the Sand Creek Massacre. Often described as one of the shortest treaties, it lasted less than two years.

1867 – Medicine Lodge Treaty

Acutally this was a set of three treaties, each signed between US representatives and leaders from different tribes between October 21 and October 28.

The first one, signed by Kiowa and Comanche chiefs, arranged them to give up 160,000km² of traditional lands in exchange for 12,000km² in the southwest of Indian Territory (Oklahoma), as well as houses, barns and schools which they hadn't asked for.

The second treaty was the same but included the Plains Apache chiefs.

The third treaty was signed by Cheyenne and Arapaho chiefs; it cut their territory to less than half of what it was after the Little Arkansas Treaty; they were also permitted to keep hunting north of the Arkansas river for as long as the buffalo were there, if they stayed away from white settlements, roads and trails. This concession was made so that the Dog Soldiers would agree to the treaty, for they refused to leave their hunting grounds.

But the tribes's system was democratic; ¾ of the adults of each tribe had to agree in order for the treaty to be ratified, which didn't happen.

In 1903, the US Supreme Court concluded that the tribes had never agreed to the treaty but that it didn't matter as the American Indians were wards of the nation that depended on the country for their daily food. As such the tribes didn't merit the protection of the Bill of Rights, but had the same status as the criminally insane and mentally retarded, unable to make decisions for themselves.

This Court decision hasn't been overturned yet and is still part of the US government's position towards aboriginal tribes.

1868 – The Battle of Washita

Under the orders of the U.S. Military, Black Kettle joined other Indian camps at the Washita river, camps that ran for ten to fifteen miles along the river. His was a few miles west of the other camps and comprised 250 inhabitants, mostly Cheyenne,and a few lodges set up by visiting  Arapahos and Lakotas. This camp was on government Indian land.

On November 20, Black Kettle went to Fort Cobb along with Cheyenne Chief Little Robe and Arapaho Chiefs Big Mouth and Spotted Wolf, to talk about making peace and settling there, saying they didn't wish to go back north for the situation was too hostile, and would rather go south. But they were sent back to Washita as the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes had been declared hostile by General Sheridan (who was stationed north of Arkansas), and they feared that their being there would jeopardize the peace of the Kiowa and Comanche, who were already encamped at Fort Cobb. Sheridan had a winter attack strategy: by attacking Indians during the winter and taking their horses and food supplies, it would draw more and more Indians to agree to life on reservations.

The Indian chiefs left the next day with food provisions and reached Washita on November 26.

The day before, a war party of 150 Indians (from several tribes and villages) had joined the Dog Soldiers for a raid in the Smokey Hill River country; as they were coming back, they left a trail in the one-foot deep snow, leading right to Washita.

The night he came back, Black Kettle held a council informing the others of Sheridan's war plan; they decided they would move their camp closer to the other camps the next day.

On November 27, at daybreak, Lt Custer's 7^th Cavalry attacked the Cheyenne village in four columns, and rapidly took control of the village. Black Kettle and his wife, Maiyuna (Medicine Woman), were shot in the back while trying to flee on a pony, and fell by the riverbank.

A white flag was waving above his tent.



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