Chief Black Kettle was a Southern Cheyenne.  He was a great leader, he also had unique vision of possibility for coexistence between white society and the culture of the plains.  He did many great things for his people, he was a true brave.  He lived on vast territory lands in western Kansas and eastern Colorado that had been guaranteed to the Cheyenne under the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. 
The 1859 Pikes Peak Gold Rush led to extensive white encroachment on Cheyenne land.  The southern Cheyenne signed a new Treaty ceding, all their lands save the small Sand Creek Reservation in southeastern Colorado.  He agreed to the Treaty in 1861.  The Sand Creek Reservation could not sustain the Indians, and they were forced to live there.  By 1862 the nearest herd of buffalo was over two hundred miles away.  Many young men began to leave the reservation to prey upon the livestock and goods of nearby settlers and passing wagon trains.
One such raid in the spring of 1864 angered white Coloradoans that they dispatched there militia which opened fire against the band of Cheyenne that happened to meet.   There leader was actually approaching the militia for a parlay when the shooting began.  He spoke with the local military commander at Fort Weld in Colorado and believed he had secured a promise of safety in exchange for leading his    
Colonel John Chivington leader of the third Colorado volunteer had no intention of honoring such a promise.  Troops had been unsuccessful in finding a Cheyenne band to fight .  When he learned that Black Kettle had returned to Sand Creek, he attacked the unsuspecting encampment at dawn on November 29, 1864.  Black Kettle escaped harm at Sand Creek Massacre.  He continued to counsel peace when the Cheyenne attempted to strike back with isolated raids on wagon trains and nearby ranches.  October 1865 he and other Indians leaders had arranged the Sand Creek Reservation in southwestern Kansas but deprived the Cheyenne of access to most of there coveted hunting grounds.  Part of the southern Cheyenne nation followed Black Kettle and the others to a new reservation.  Some headed north to join the northern Cheyenne in the Lakota territory.  Many ignored the treaty and continued to range over their ancestral lands.  Latter groups consisted mainly of young warriors allied with a Cheyenne war chief named Roman Nose.  He angered the government by there refusal to obey a treaty they had not signed.  General William Tecunch Sherman launched a campaign to force them onto there assigned lands.  Roman Nose and his followers struck back fiercely.                  
Government negotiators sought to move the Cheyenne once again this time onto two smaller reservations in Indian territory, they would receive annual provision of food and supplies.  Black Kettle was again among the chief who signed the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867.  But his people did not receive the provision they had been promised by years end.  More and more were to join Roman Nose and his band.  In August 1868 Roman Nose led a series of raids on Kansas farms that provoked another full-scale military response under General Philip Sheridan.   
"All we ask is that we have peace with the whites.  We want to hold you by the hand.  You are our father.  We have been traveling through a cloud.  The sky has been dark ever since the war began.  These braves who are with me are willing to do what I say.  We want to take good tidings home to our people, that they may sleep in peace.  I want you to give all these chiefs of the soldiers here to understand that we are for peace, and that we have made peace, that we may not be mistaken by them for enemies.  I have not came here with a little wolf bark, but have came to talk plain with you."    

-Motavato (Black Kettle) speaking to Gov.  Evans, Col.  Chivington, Maj.  Wynkoop & others in Denver, autumn, 1864
Accompanied by Lean Bear.  He had recently been to Washington and shook hands with the great father Lincoln.  Lean Bear and Black Kettle had been friends since babies.  Lean Bear rode to meet the Bluecoats as they approached the Cheyenne camp on Ash Creek.  He wore the medal and brought the papers to show the soldiers that he was peaceful.  When he got close enough they opened fire and killed him.  Colonel John M.  Chvington attacked and destroyed the Cheyenne camp of chief Black Kettle.   Chief White Antelope went out to meet them and the Bluecoats raised their rifles and White Antelope sang a death song as the bullets tore through him.  Colonel Greenwood commissioner of Indian affairs presented Black Kettle with his 34 star flag saying, soldiers would not fire upon anyone standing under the stars and stripes.                      
"Although the troops have struck us, we throw it all behind and are glad to meet you in peace and friendship.  What you have come here for, and what the President has sent you for, I don't object to, but say yes to it...  The white people can go wherever they please and they will not be disturbed by us, and I want you to let them know...  We are different nations, but it seems as if we were but one people, whites and all... Again, I take you by the hand, and I feel happy.  These people that are with us are glad to think that we can have peace once more, and can sleep soundly, and that we can live."    

-Motavato (Black Kettle), October, 1865 
"We were once friends with the whites but you nudging us out of the way by your intrigues, and now when we are  in council you keep nudging each other.  Why don't you talk, and go straight, and let all be well?"

-Motavato (Black Kettle) to the indians gathered at Medicine Creek Lodge, Octder, 1867
Black Kettle and his wife rushed out of the lodge at the first booming of the guns.  He mounted a horse and helped his wife up behind him and started to cross the Washita River.  Both chief and his wife fell at the River bank riddled with bullets.  The Lodges of Black Kettles people with there winter supply of food and clothing were torched.  Black Kettles Death was on November 27, 1868. 
Jeremy Foxhoven

8th American History

Rossville Jr. High

Plains History Project

2004

 

Bibliography
Revised: February 05, 2004 .