Witness to History: Howling Wolf of the Southern Cheyenne, 1849-1927
On the morning of November 29, 1864, a 15-year-old Cheyenne warrior saw hell on earth unfold for his people. He, along with his father Eagle Head, were in a camp headed by Cheyenne leader Black Kettle along Sand Creek in what is now Kiowa County, Colorado. Black Kettle had been guaranteed safety by the local garrison commander and flew an American flag outside his lodge as a gesture of goodwill. Most of the warriors had gone hunting for the day. As John Chivington and the men of the 1st Regt. Colorado Volunteers rode down on them, Eagle Head and the other men scrambled to make a defense. When it was over, 137 men, women and children, mostly non-combatants were dead. The scene burned itself into Howling Wolf's memory for life. Howling Wolf, like many Cheyenne and Arapaho men, would spend the next decade in constant conflict with the Army and the Settlers encroaching on their land, killing buffalo and other game, and slowly eroding their way of l...