Painted Bricks: Cheyenne, Chief Yellow Calf.

Painted Bricks: Cheyenne, Chief Yellow Calf.:  

Cheyenne, Chief Yellow Calf.

Pretty Nose. 1851-1952.

She fought at Little Big Horn.

Today In Wyoming's History: Battle of the Rosebud Battlefield, Montana.

Today In Wyoming's History: Battle of the Rosebud Battlefield, Montana.: 

Battle of the Rosebud Battlefield, Montana.

The Battle of the Rosebud was an important June 1876 battle that came, on June 17, just days prior to the Battle of the Little Big Horn.  Fought by the same Native American combatants, who crossed from their Little Big Horn encampment to counter 993 cavalrymen and mule mounted infantrymen who had marched north from Ft. Fetterman, Wyoming, at the same time troops under Gen. Terry, including Custer's command, were proceeding west from Ft. Abraham Lincoln.  Crook's command included, like Terry's, Crow scouts, and he additionally was augmented soon after leaving Ft. Fetterman by Shoshoni combatants.

The battlefield today is nearly untouched.

Called the Battle Where the Sister Saved Her Brother, or the Battle Where the Girl Saved Her Brother, like Little Big Horn, it was a Sioux and Arapaho victory, although it did not turn into an outright disaster like Little Big Horn. Caught in a valley and attacked, rather than attacking into a valley like Custer, the Army took some ground and held its positions, and then withdrew.  Crook was effectively knocked out of action for the rest of the year and retreated into the Big Horn mountains in Wyoming.

 

Arapaho

Arapaho is part of the Algonquian language family.  Fewer than 200 people speak it today, with there being no fluent speakers under the age of 60.

The Lord's Prayer in Arapaho.

Beehiiniisonoonibéíhi-n, nenéénin hihcébe’ héentoo-n,

he-níísih’íít toh-béteenóó-’.

héet-ííne’etiiwóóhu-n heetíh-no’useenóó-’,

hínee heesí3ecóó-n heetíh-néé’eesóó-’,

teesííhi’ bííto’ówu-u’ hínee héesóó-’ hihcébe’ hínee héétoo-n.

cíh-biin-éi’ee nuhu’ híísi’ hééyowuuhu’ ne-bíí3ihiin-ínoo.

heetíh-kóuutenowuun-éi’een neenéis-nóntoo-ni’.

heetíh-kóuutenowuun-óóno’ hei-cíí-niini’ihéiitoon-ín.

cih-’oo’éíxoh-éi’ee héet-noxóxhoo3óó-’ nuhu’ héet-wotóxoobéé-’ hííne’etíít,

heetíh-cih-nóókootíxoh-éi’een héet-cíí-ni’óó-’.

néé’eesóó-’.

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Tribal License Plates

Today In Wyoming's History: Wyoming Tribal License Plates:

Wyoming Tribal License Plates

These are neat:

UW ALUMNI ASSOCIATION

UW LICENSE PLATES

Tribal License Plates to Fund Native American Student Scholarships at UW

But a question, and I ask it seriously.

Would putting these on a vehicle, assuming that you are not enrolled in either Tribe, be regarded as cultural appropriation?

I think I saw one of these recently, and had simply assumed that the vehicle belonged to an enrolled tribal member, which is partially why I'm asking, the other part being that I think it would matter how this would be viewed by those who are enrolled in either tribe.

October 14, 1919. Missing the Mark and Other Dangers

There was already a winner, but the 1919 Air Derby, which saw plans stationed in the east fly west, and planes stationed in the west, continued on and continued to make news inWyoming.

Two of those planes that arrived over Cheyenne in the dark had to come down, with one missing the field.

In other news, things in Gary Indiana were getting out of hand, in terms of labor strikes. And two members of the Arapaho Tribe were recounting their experiences at the Battle of the Little Big Horn to interviewers.

And an interesting observation was made about not owning a car.

Today In Wyoming's History: The Bates Battle, July 4, 1874

Today In Wyoming's History: The Bates Battle, July 4, 1874:

The Bates Battle, July 4, 1874

We were fortunately recently to be able to tour one of Wyoming's little known battlefields recently, thanks due to the local landowner who controls the road access letting us on.  We very much appreciate their generosity in letting us do so.

Our Jeep, which should have some clever nickname, but which does not.  Wrecked twice, and reassembled both times, it gets us where we want to go.  But we only go so far. We stopped after awhile and walked in.

The battlefield is the Bates Battlefield, which is on the National Registry of Historic landmarks, but which is little viewed. There's nothing there to tell you that you are at a battlefield. There are no markers or the like, like there is at Little Big Horn.  You have to have researched the area before you arrive, to know what happened on July 4, 1874, when the battle was fought.  And even at that, accounts are confusing.

Fortunately for the researcher, a really good write up of what is known was done when Historic Site status was applied for. Rather than try to rewrite what was put in that work, we're going to post it here.  So we start with the background.

And on to the confusion in the accounts, which we'd note is common even for the best known of Indian battles.  Indeed, maybe all of them.

The text goes on to note that the Arapaho raided into country that what was withing the recently established Shoshone Reservation, which we know as the Wind River Indian Reservation.  It also notes that this was because territories which the various tribes regarded as their own were fluid, and it suggest that a culture of raiding also played a potential part in that. In any event, the Shoshone found their reservation domains raided by other tribes.  Complaints from the Shoshone lead, respectively, to Camp Augur and Camp Brown being established, where are respectively near the modern towns of Lander and Ft. Washakie (which Camp Brown was renamed).

The immediate cause of the raid was the presence of Arapaho, Northern Cheyenne, and Sioux parties in the area in June and July 1874 that had an apparent intent to raid onto the Reservation.  Ironically, the Arapaho, who were involved in this battle, had separated themselves from the Cheyenne and the Sioux and had no apparent intent to participate in any such raids. They thereafter placed themselves in the Nowood River area.  Indian bands were known to be in the area that summer, and they were outside of those areas designated to them by the treaties of 1868.

Given this, Cpt. Alfred E. Bates, at Camp Brown, had sent scouts, including Shoshone scouts, into the field that summer to attempt to locate the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho bands.  On June 29, Shoshone scouts reported at Camp Brown that they'd sited an Arapaho village.  We here pick back up from the text:

The expedition took to the field on July 1, 1874, and remarkably, it traveled at night.

A few days later, they found what they were looking for.

Let's take a look at some of what Bates was seeing:

This is the valley which was below the ridge that Bates was traveling up, the night he found the Arapaho village when he passed it by.  It's not clear to me if he backtracked all the way back past this point and came back up this valley, or if he came from another direction.  Based upon the description, I suspect he rode all the way back and came up from this direction, but from the high ground, not down here in the valley.

Here's the spot that Bates referenced as being the area where two ravines joined.  Not surprisingly, in this wet year, the spot is fairly wet.  But to add to that, this area features a spring, known today, and probably dating back to the events of this battle, as Dead Indian Springs.  The "gentle slope" from which Cpt. Bates made his survey, is in the background.

And here we look up that second ravine, with its current denizens in view.

And here we see the prominent bluff opposite of where Cpt. Bates reconnoitered.  It was prominent indeed.

Bates chose to attack down the slope of the hill he was on, described above, with thirty troopers and twenty Shoshones.  At the same time, Lt. Young, meanwhile, attached down the valley from above it on the watercourse, in an apparent effort to cut the village off and achieve a flanking movement.

The slope down which Bates and his detail attacked, and the draw down which Young attacked.

The draw down which Young attacked.

The slope down which Bates attacked is depicted above.

The fighting was fierce and the Arapaho were surprised.  They put up a good account, however, and were even able to at least partially get mounted.  Chief Black Coal was wounded in the fighting and lost several fingers when shot while mounted.  The Arapaho defended the draw and the attack, quite frankly, rapidly lost the element of surprise and became a close quarters melee.

The slope down which Bates attacked.

The valley down which Young attacked.

High ground opposite from the slope down which Bates attacked.

Fairly quickly, the Arapaho began to execute the very move that Bates feared, and they retrated across the draw and started to move up the high ground opposite the direction that Bates had attacked from.  Young's flanking movement had failed.

The high ground.

The opposing bluff.

The opposing bluff.

Bates then withdrew.



Bates' command suffered four dead and five or six wounded, including Lt. Young.  His estimates for Arapaho losses were 25 Arapaho dead, but as he abandoned the field of battle, that can't be really verified.  Estimates for total Arapaho casualties were 10 to 125.  They definitely sustained some losses and, as noted, Chief Black Coal was wounded in the battle.



Bates was upset with the results of the engagement and placed the blame largely on the Shoshone, whom he felt were too noisy in the assault in the Indian fashion.  He also felt that they had not carried out his flanking instructions properly, although it was noted that the Shoshone interpreter had a hard time translating Bates English as he spoke so rapidly.  Adding to his problems, moreover, the soldiers fired nearly all 80 of their carried .45-70 rifle cartridges during the engagement and were not able to resupply during the battle as the mules were unable to bring ammunition up.  This meant that even if they had not disengaged for other reasons, they were at the point where a lock of ammunition would have hampered any further efforts on their part in any event (and of course they would have been attacking uphill).



After the battle the Arapaho returned to the Red Cloud Agency. Seeing how things were going after Little Big Horn, they came onto the Wind River Reservation in 1877 for the winter on what was supposed to be a temporary basis, and they remain there today.  They were hoping for their own reservation in Wyoming, but they never received it.  Black Coal went on the reservation with him, and portraits of him show him missing two fingers on his right hand.  His people soon served on the Reservation as its policemen.  He himself lived until 1893.



Alfred E. Bates, who had entered the Army as a private at the start of the Civil War at age 20.  Enlisting in the Michigan state forces, he soon attracted the attention of a politician who secured for him an enrollment at West Point, where he graduated in the Class of 1865. He missed service in the Civil War but soon went on to service on the plains. His name appears on two Wyoming geographic localities.  He rose to the rank of Major General and became Paymaster of the Army, dying in 1909 of a stroke.