Dull Knife (soldier chief)

• Born: c. 1810
• Birthplace: Unknown
• Died: c. 1883
• Place of death: Unknown

Category: (c. 1810—c. 1883): Chief

Tribal affiliation: Northern Cheyenne

Significance: Dull Knife, with Little Wolf, led the 1,500-mile journey of the Cheyenne from their exile in Indian Territory to their northern home in Montana

As a soldier chief, Dull Knife had a reputation for never sending anyone ahead of him, and he often counted the first coup. Dull Knife and Little Wolf are both noted in connection with an incident in 1856 at the Upper Platte Bridge, according to historian Stan Hoig the first significant conflict between Cheyennes and U.S. troops.

Prior to the killing of Black Kettle and his people in 1864, Dull Knife had been a noted warrior and respected chief who chose peace. He fought alongside Sioux and Northern Arapahos in many of the major engagements of the northern Plains. During the War for the Bozeman Trail (or Red Cloud’s War), 1866-1868, and the Fetterman Fight of December, 1866, he allied with the Sioux leaders Crazy Horse, Gall, and Hump. Dull Knife’s participation in negotiations at Fort Laramie, however, and his subsequent signature on an agreement to allow a fort in the Powder River country may have permanently affected his role as a leader. In May, 1868, Dull Knife was one of the signers of the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868. In November of 1873, Dull Knife and Little Wolf led a delegation of Cheyenne and Arapaho chiefs in negotiations with the commissioner of Indian affairs in Washington, D.C. The leaders explained that they had never given up their homelands and that they did not want to move south to Indian Territory. The differing interpretations of the treaty arrangements provided another four years of freedom for the Cheyenne people, but the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 changed that. Following the defeat of George Armstrong Custer, the government was determined to move the Sioux and Cheyenne to Indian Territory.

At dawn on November 25, 1876, eleven hundred cavalrymen under Colonel R. S. Mackenzie attacked the village of Dull Knife and Little Wolf in a canyon of the Bighorn Mountains. Forty Cheyennes died. As deadly was the destruction of tipis, clothing, and the entire supply of winter food—burned by the soldiers. When the temperature dropped to thirty below zero that same night, more lives were lost. The Cheyenne who surrendered were sent to Indian Territory. Of the one thousand people sent to the Darlington Agency in August, 1877, six hundred became ill in the first two months, and forty-three died. After several failed attempts to convince the authorities that they should be returned to their Montana homeland, Dull Knife—with Little Wolf and about 350 people—set out for Montana in September, 1878. The group included 92 men, 120 women, and 141 children. After six weeks of flight, the group split, part following the leadership of Little Wolf, who wanted to continue north to the Tongue River, and part following Dull Knife, who wanted to seek shelter with Red Cloud. Dull Knife did not know that the Red Cloud Agency had been moved.

During a blizzard in October, Dull Knife’s 149 Cheyenne people were surrounded by troops from Fort Robinson; they surrendered and initially were lodged at the fort until the Indian bureau could determine their disposition. On January 3, 1879, the bureau determined that the Cheyenne people should be returned to Indian Territory. When Dull Knife said his people would rather fight than go back, the doors to the barracks they were housed in were chained shut. Food and firewood were denied in an effort to freeze and starve them into submission. On January 9, after six days without provisions, the Cheyenne people broke from the barracks building. In the first moments of gunfire, those jumping from the windows were shot, but the confusion allowed some to escape. Even so, in that first half-mile to freedom, more than half of the Cheyenne fighting men were killed. On January 21, the so-called Cheyenne Outbreak ended with one last battle at Antelope Creek. Of the 149 people who had fled the prison barracks, 64 had been killed in the fighting and 78 were recaptured. Dull Knife was one of the seven who escaped. He was captured later when he went to the Red Cloud Agency for help. He was later returned to the Northern Cheyenne reservation secured by Little Wolf in the Rosebud Valley. The Northern Cheyenne were officially granted the Tongue River Reservation in Montana in 1884, the year following Dull Knife’s death.

Dull Knife had one son, the warrior Bull Hump. Dull Knife Memorial College in Lame Deer, Montana, recognizes the Cheyenne leader’s encouragement to acquire an education to learn a new way of life.

Bibliography

Bouc, Ken. “Indian Wars, 1874-1880.” Fort Robinson Illustrated 64, no. 1 (1986): 22-37.

Dockstader, Frederick J. Great North American Indians: Profiles in Life and Leadership. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1977.

Grinnell, George Bird. The Cheyenne Indians: Their History and Ways of Life. 2 vols. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1923. Reprint. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1972.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Fighting Cheyennes. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915.

Hoebel, E. Adamson. The Cheyennes: Indians of the Great Plains. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978.

Hoig, Stan. The Peace Chiefs of the Cheyennes. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980.

Sandoz, Mari. Cheyenne Autumn. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1953.

Utley, Robert M. The Indian Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984.

Waldman, Carl. Who Was Who in Native American History: Indians and Non-Indians from Early Contacts Through 1900. New York: Facts on File, 1990.