The Way West

Plains Indians were generally recognized as either northern or southern, such as northern Cheyenne and Southern Cheyenne.

Following the treaties of the 1860s, native people were forced out making Kansas free of any tribal presence.

Beyond Kansas borders, Indian Territory was set aside to hold the southern tribes and northern tribes were to remain in the open country north of Nebraska’s Platte River.

Unfortunately, gold was discovered in Dakota’s Black Hills in July and August of 1874. The news was carried to Fort Laramie and telegraphed to the eastern press.

The tide of a coming gold rush was not going to be denied. Hoping to avert another Indian war the government proposed buying the Black Hills. Thousands of tribal members gathered at the Red Cloud Agency at Camp Robinson (present-day Fort Robinson, Neb.) to hear the proposal.

The buyout was doomed to failure from the start. Both Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse refused to even attend the negotiations. Some tribal leaders were willing to sell, but divisions caused insurmountable tension.

Adding to the turmoil, starvation was provoking the northern tribes. Cattle and foodstuffs were distributed through a government annuity program to make up for the rapidly diminishing buffalo herds. But the cattle were slow in coming and the flour being distributed was often no better than poor horse feed. Arapahos were known to kill their own horses to survive. Even so, their children were starving to death. The strain was unbearable.

Another great war was unquestionably coming to the northern plains. The Cheyenne and Arapaho were told to either move their lodges 300 miles east to Fort Randall on the Missouri River or to go south to Indian Territory (Oklahoma).

The Darlington Agency for the Southern Arapaho was nearly 700 miles from the Red Cloud Agency at Camp Robinson. Nevertheless, some Arapahos took the opportunity to leave their miseries behind and travel south.

On Oct. 1, 1875, 35 Arapahos, including five women, left the Red Cloud Agency to join the Southern Arapahos in Indian Territory. Their course took them down the Platte River and across their former western Kansas homeland of the high plains.

After several weeks of travel, they passed the old Smoky Hill Springs stage station (southwest of present-day Oakley, Kan.).

Their presence alarmed anyone seeing them as they crossed the plains. Only a year before an immigrant family had been attacked by an errant band of Cheyennes along the Smoky Hill Trail.

John and Catherine German and three of their children were brutally killed. Four daughters were taken captive.

At Fort Wallace, Capt. John Hamilton responded to a report that “Cheyennes” were “absent without permission from their reservation.” Not to be confused with Capt. Louis Hamilton of Custer’s 7th Cavalry, Capt. John M. Hamilton of the 5th Cavalry had arrived on the Kansas plains fresh from Gen. George Crook’s Tonto Apache Campaign in Arizona.

With a detachment of Company H, 5th Cavalry, Capt. Hamilton found the Arapahos, believing them to be Cheyennes on an unauthorized buffalo hunt.

Capt. George F. Price, author of Across the Continent with the Fifth Cavalry, wrote the Indians “were concealed with their ponies in a deep wooded ravine,” on Canyon Creek, a tributary of the Smoky Hill River. A white flag was unfurled as the troopers approached the camp.

The Arapahos were in camp waiting on some of their men who had backtracked to find some stray ponies. They assured Capt. Hamilton that they had been given permission to travel to the southern reservation, but one of the men hunting the ponies was in possession of the agent’s letter.

Hamilton arranged to go with one of the Arapahos to find the hunting party. The man with the letter was found a short distance outside the camp. Hamilton, being suspicious of the Arapaho man, immediately ordered him to surrender his pistol. Frightened by the Captain’s demand, the Arapaho man refused and as he turned his horse to ride away Hamilton drew his own pistol and fired.

Hamilton’s troopers “were standing to horse” in the camp. When the shot was fired the Arapahos panicked and began to fire on the troopers. In the middle of the melee Hamilton coolly “extricated his command from its perilous position.” With bullets flying, Hamilton’s horse was shot from under him. Four more horses were killed, and only one man was wounded. Reportedly two Arapahos were dead. Reinforcements from Fort Hays supported a pursuit of the Arapahos for about 100 miles. In a classic warrior tactic, the Arapahos spread out over the prairie leaving no definite trail to follow.

In early November, the beleaguered Arapahos trailed into the Darlington Agency to begin a new life far from gold, war, and hunger on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth, KS Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st Road, Geneseo, Kan. Phone:

(785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com .