Northern Cheyenne Tribe

Northern Cheyenne Tribe. The Journey of the Northern Cheyenne People. The ancestral relatives of the Northern Cheyenne, the Tsitsistas and Suhtai, merged as one tribe in the 1700s. The unified Cheyenne made their home in the Dakotas and Northern Plains. After signing of the 1825 Friendship Treaty, U.S. armed forces, led by John Chivington, attacked the peaceful camps of Chiefs Black Kettle, White Antelope, and Left Hand at Sand Creek, Colorado on November 29, 1864, killing more than 140 Cheyenne and Arapaho. The event united formerly divided tribes into a joint effort, resulting in the Great Sioux War of the 18702. , Northern Cheyenne leaders, Dull Knife, Little Wolf, and Two Moons fought to remain on homelands along the Tongue River of Montana. In November 1884, the United States government established the Tongue River Indian Reservation (Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation). The Cheyenne today are divided into two distinct federally recognized tribes; the Southern Cheyenne and the Northern Cheyenne. The Southern Cheyenne share a reservation with the Southern Arapaho in Oklahoma. The Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation, southeast of Billings, is 444,000 acres in size with 99% tribal ownership. The tribe has over 10,000 enrolled members with almost 5,000 residing on the reservation.