Dog Soldiers

This article is about Cheyenne warrior society. For other uses, see Dog Soldiers (disambiguation).

The Dog Soldiers or Dog Men (Cheyenne Hotamétaneo'o) was one of six military societies of the Cheyenne Indians. Beginning in the late 1830s, this society evolved into a separate, militaristic band that played a dominant role in Cheyenne resistance to American expansion in Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado and Wyoming. Its members often opposed policies of peace chiefs such as Black Kettle. Today the Dog Soldiers society is making a comeback in such areas as the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana and among the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma.^{[citation needed]}

Cheyenne tribal governance

Main articles: Council of Forty-four and Cheyenne military societies

The two central institutions of traditional Cheyenne tribal governance were the Council of Forty-Four^[1] and the military societies, including the Dog Soldiers. The Council of Forty-Four was the council of chiefs, comprising four chiefs from each of the ten Cheyenne bands, plus four principal^[2] or "Old Man" chiefs, who had previously served on the council with distinction.^[1] While chiefs were responsible for overall governance of individual bands and the tribe as a whole, the headmen of warrior societies maintained discipline within the tribe, oversaw tribal hunts and ceremonies, and provided military leadership.^[1]

Dog Soldiers

Dog Soldiers were noted as both highly aggressive and effective combatants. One tradition states that in battle they would "pin" themselves to a "chosen" piece of ground, through an unusually long breech-clout "rear-apron", by use of one of three "Sacred Arrows" they would carry into battle.

Emergence as a separate band

Porcupine Bear

Prior to the peace council held at Bent's Fort in 1840, the Algonquian-speaking Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho were allied against their traditional enemies, the Comanche, Kiowa, and Plains Apache. In 1837, while raiding the Kiowa horse herds along the North Fork of the Red River, a party of 48 Cheyenne Bowstring Men were discovered and killed by Kiowa and Comanche warriors.^[3] Porcupine Bear, chief of the Dog Soldiers, took up the war pipe of the Cheyenne. He carried it to the various Cheyenne and Arapaho camps to drum up support for revenge against the Kiowa. He reached a Northern Cheyenne camp along the South Platte River just after it had traded for liquor from American Fur Company men at Fort Laramie.

Porcupine Bear joined in the drinking. He sat and sang Dog Soldier war songs to himself. Two of his cousins, Little Creek and Around, became caught up in a drunken fight. Little Creek got on top of Around and held up a knife, ready to stab Around; at that point, Porcupine Bear, aroused by Around's calls for help, leapt up in a rage, tore the knife away from Little Creek, and stabbed him with it several times. He forced Around to finish off Little Creek.^[4][5]

By the rules governing military societies, a man who had murdered or even accidentally killed another tribe member was prohibited from joining a society. A society member who committed such a crime was expelled and outlawed.^[6] For his murder, Porcupine Bear was expelled from the Dog Soldiers. He and his relatives had to camp apart from the rest of the Cheyenne.^[6][7] The Dog Soldiers were disgraced by Porcupine Bear's act. They were deprived of leading war against the Kiowa.

Wolf reformed the Bowstring Society, which had been nearly annihilated in the fight with the Kiowa. The Bowstring Society took over leading the effort against the Kiowa.^[7][8] Though outlawed by the main body of the Cheyenne tribe, Porcupine Bear led the Dog Soldiers as participants into battle against the Kiowa and Comanche at Wolf Creek. He and his warriors were reportedly the first to strike the enemy.^[7][9] Due to their outlaw status, however, they were not accorded honors.^[7]

Dog Soldier band

The outlawing of Porcupine Bear, his relatives, and his followers led to the transformation of the Dog Soldiers from a warrior society into a separate division of the tribe.^[7][10] In the wake of the cholera epidemic in 1849 which greatly reduced the Masikota band of Cheyennes,^[11] the remaining Masikota joined the Dog Soldiers.^[10] When the Cheyenne bands camped together, the Dog Soldier band took the position in the camp circle formerly occupied by the Masikota.^[12] Prominent or ambitious warriors from other bands also gradually joined the Dog Soldier band. Over time the Dog Soldiers took a prominent leadership role in the wars against the whites. The rest of the tribe began to regard them with respect and no longer as outlaws.^[10]

The Dog Soldiers contributed to the breakdown of the traditional matrilineal clan system of the Cheyennes. Customarily when a man married, he moved to the camp of his wife's band. The Dog Soldiers dropped this custom, instead bringing wives to their own camp.^[10] Other elements contributing to the breakdown of the clan system were the 1849 cholera epidemic, which killed perhaps half the Southern Cheyenne population,^[13] particularly devastating the Masikota band and nearly wiping out the Oktoguna;^[11] and the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864. The Third Colorado Cavalry caused heavy casualties among the Wutapai (Black Kettle's band); and killed perhaps half of the Hevhaitaniu under Yellow Wolf and Big Man and the Oivimana under War Bonnet. They also killed many among the Hisiometanio (Ridge Men) under White Antelope. The Dog Soldiers and the Masikota, who had by that time joined the Dog Soldiers, were not at Sand Creek during the massacre.^[14]

The Dog Soldiers band took as its territory the headwaters country of the Republican and Smoky Hill rivers in southern Nebraska, northern Kansas, and the northeast of Colorado Territory.^[12][15][16] They were allies of Sioux -speaking Lakota and Brulé Lakotas, who also frequented that area, and often intermarried with the Lakota. Many Dog Soldiers were half-Lakota, including their chief Tall Bull.^[12] During the mid 1860s, Dog Soldier leaders, including Tall Bull and White Horse, frequently called on the great warrior Roman Nose, a Crooked Lance society member, to lead Dog Soldier strikes against white civilian and military assets. He led an attack on Fort Wallace in June 1867.

Due to an increasing polarity between the Dog Soldiers and the council chiefs with respect to policy towards the whites, the Dog Soldiers were somewhat divorced from the other Southern Cheyenne bands.^[16][17] They effectively became a third division of the Cheyenne people, between the Northern Cheyenne who ranged north of the Platte River and the Southern Cheyennes who occupied the area along the Arkansas River.^[1][16] A strong band numbering perhaps 100 lodges, the Dog Soldiers had a generally antagonistic attitude towards the encroaching whites.^[16] By the 1860s, as conflict between Indians and whites intensified, the militaristic Dog Soldiers increased their influence, together with that of the warrior societies of other Cheyenne bands. The warriors became a significant counter to the influence of the traditional Council of Forty-Four chiefs, generally more mature men who were likely to favor working for peace with the whites.^[15]

Indian wars

In the late 1860s, the Dog Soldiers were crucial in Cheyenne resistance to American expansion. Dog Soldiers refused to sign treaties that limited their hunting grounds and restricted them to a reservation south of the Arkansas River. They attempted to hold their traditional lands at Smoky Hill, but the campaigns of General Philip Sheridan foiled these efforts. After the Battle of Beecher's Island, many Dog Soldiers were forced to retreat south of the Arkansas River.

In the spring of 1867 they returned north with the intention of joining Red Cloud and his Oglala band in Powder River country. Attacked by General Eugene Carr, the Dog Soldiers began raiding settlements on Smoky Hill River in revenge. Eventually, Chief Tall Bull led them west into Colorado. They were attacked by a force composed of Pawnee Scouts led by Major Frank North, and United States cavalry, who killed nearly all the band, including Tall Bull, in the Battle of Summit Springs.

Modern Dog Soldiers

Today the Dog Soldiers society is making a comeback in such areas as the Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation in Montana and among the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes in Oklahoma.^{[citation needed]}

Depiction in fiction

• Last of the Dogmen is a fictional 1995 film about the search for and discovery of an unknown band of Dog Soldiers from a tribe of Cheyenne Indians who escaped the 1864 Sand Creek massacre and survived for more than a hundred years secluded in the Montana wilderness.

Notes

1. ^ ^{a b c d} Greene 2004, p. 9.
2. ^ Hoig 1980, p. 11.
3. ^ Hoig 1980, p. 30.
4. ^ Hyde 1968, p. 74.
5. ^ Hoig 1980, pp. 48-49.
6. ^ ^{a b} Hyde 1968, p. 335.
7. ^ ^{a b c d e} Hoig 1980, p. 49.
8. ^ Hyde 1968, p. 75.
9. ^ Hyde 1968, p. 79.
10. ^ ^{a b c d} Hyde 1968, p. 338.
11. ^ ^{a b} Hyde 1968, p. 97.
12. ^ ^{a b c} Hyde 1968, p. 339.
13. ^ Hyde 1968, p. 96.
14. ^ Hyde 1968, p. 159.
15. ^ ^{a b} Greene 2004, p. 26.
16. ^ ^{a b c d} Hoig 1980, p. 85.
17. ^ Greene 2004, p. 27.

References

• Broome, Jeff Dog Soldier Justice: The Ordeal of Susanna Alderdice in the Kansas Indian War, Lincoln, Kansas: Lincoln County Historical Society, 2003. ISBN 0-9742546-1-4
• Brown, Dee. (1970). Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West. Owl Books. ISBN 0-8050-6669-1.
• Greene, Jerome A. (2004). Washita, The Southern Cheyenne and the U.S. Army, Campaigns and Commanders Series, vol. 3. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-3551-4.
• Hoig, Stan. (1980). The Peace Chiefs of the Cheyennes, Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-1573-4.
• Hyde, George E. (1968). Life of George Bent Written from His Letters. Ed. by Savoie Lottinville, Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-1577-7.