BOOK
REVIEW By Nancy Ohnick
In
Dull Knife’s Wake
The True Story of the Northern Cheyenne Exodus of
1878
By Vernon R. Maddux & Albert Glenn Maddux
When I saw the colorful cover of this soft-cover book
on the shelf of a museum book store I was immediately drawn to it.
Having roots in Meade County I recognized the name of the Cheyenne
chief, Dull Knife, and I had always wondered about the details of
the “escape” of this chief and his people from the reservation that
had been created for them in Oklahoma.
Like a lot of Americans I have mixed feelings about
the plight of Native Americans and the way they were treated when
settlement came to this part of the country. Could have it been
handled better? Probably. But thankfully the authors of this book do
not debate that question, but lay out the facts of the incident
without bias, telling both sides and using records from everyone
involved, Cheyenne, settlers, soldiers and cattlemen to compile
their data.
This incident happened as the southern-most Kansas
counties of Clark, Meade, and Seward were starting to attract
“settlers.” The buffalo, the main food source of the Cheyenne, had
been all but eradicated in this area and the days of the vast open
range were numbered. Dodge City was still a popular destination for
cattle drives from Texas as the railroad had not yet been built to
the southwest. The Cheyenne had been driven from their native
hunting grounds and placed on a reservation called Darlington, to
the south of the Canadian River in what is now the middle of
Oklahoma.
I was surprised to learn that even though this
incident is credited to Dull Knife as the chief of this band of
Cheyenne, the chief was by this time old and really played a
subordinate role in the decisions and organization of the escape.
Wild Hog and Little Wolf were the most influential leaders in the
breakout from Darlington, and their objective seemed to be only to
return to familiar territory of northwest Nebraska and northeast
Wyoming.
As we read through the pages of this book we follow
the band of 346 Cheyenne from their escape from Darlington on
September 10, 1878, to their eventual capture in northwest Nebraska
on October 25. The text details the hardships of both the fleeing
Cheyenne and the soldiers that chased them north through Oklahoma,
Kansas and Nebraska. Both sides experienced challenging weather,
hunger and physical exhaustion. Many settlers in the wake of this
tribe were terrorized… men and boys were killed… women and girls
were tortured, raped and humiliated.
The Cheyenne were captured and placed at Ft. Robinson
located in northwest Nebraska. In January of 1879, however, they
escaped from their barracks and the chase was on again. Dull Knife
and his wife and two daughters managed to escape by hiding in a cave
for four days, then heading out in the opposite direction of the
rest of the tribe. This small group reached Pine Ridge reservation
in southern most South Dakota eighteen days later, starving and
exhausted.
Of the re-captured Cheyenne, seven men which included
Wild Hog were sent to Dodge City to stand trial. The only murder the
prosecution had enough evidence for was the killing of a mail
carrier, which took place in Meade County early in the exodus of the
tribe. The defense was granted a change in venue and the trial took
place in Douglas County. The reader is left unclear as to the
outcome of the trial, but eventually the Northern Cheyenne were
given their own reservation in their native territory in Montana.
The author explains the politics involved in all
corners of the nation in relation to the fate of Dull Knife’s
Cheyenne.
|
