The Cheyenne Nation is a Native American group with two distinct bands living in Montana and Oklahoma. They speak a derivative of the Algonquian language and descended from the Great Lakes region. They united in the 1800s and adopted the ways of the Plains Indian tribes. They were central to the Native American War and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation was chartered in 1884, while the Southern Cheyenne faced poverty after the Dawes Act dissolved their reservation in Oklahoma.
The Cheyenne Nation is a Native American population in the United States. Located on the Great Plains, they comprise two distinct bands in different parts of the country. One group lives on a reservation in the Black Hills of Montana, while the other forms a federally recognized tribe of Cheyenne and Arapaho. This close-knit band lives on government funds or among the general population in Oklahoma. According to the federal government, approximately 4,400 people live on the Cheyenne Reservation, while 8,000 live in the Oklahoma area.
The Cheyenne Indians speak a derivative of the Algonquian language and are believed to have descended from their mother nation in the 1500s. Anthropologists trace them to the Great Lakes region around Minnesota. After moving to the Dakotas, they united into a single tribe in the 1800s to leverage their numbers against invading white Americans. At the same time, they found themselves entrenched in conflict with the Kiowa and Lakota tribes. At that time, the Cheyenne Nation adopted the ways of the Plains Indian tribes, a portion moved south to Colorado.
In the late 1800s, the Cheyenne Nation became central to the Native American War under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. US troops attacked a reservation on November 27, 1868, killing over 100 Cheyenne, including many women and children. Eight years later, the tribe united with the Lakota and Arapaho to form a force of approximately 900-1,800 warriors and built a camp on the Little Bighorn River. On June 25, 1876, Custer led 700 troops of the 7th Cavalry Regiment into battle against the tribes at the Battle of the Little Bighorn. The cavalry was effectively wiped out by the Cheyenne and their allies in what became known as Custer’s last stand.
After the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the Northern Cheyenne were heavily pursued by US forces. Eventually, they gave in to the demands and were given a booking relatively close to the battlefield. The Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation was chartered on November 16, 1884 by President Chester A. Arthur. It measures approximately 371,200 acres (about 1,502 square km) and contains about half a dozen towns and Chief Dull Knife Community College. Much of the area is used for coal mining.
The Southern Cheyenne were not involved in Custer’s last stand. Instead, they formed an alliance with the Arapaho for the combined hunting territories. Threatened by the US government, both signed treaties that placed them near Fort Reno in Indian Territory, which eventually became Oklahoma. In 1887, the Dawes Act dissolved the reservation and divided the lands among the individual members. This created a situation of poverty among many in the Southern Cheyenne Nation tribe that continues today.
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