Cheyenne Nation

To get started in American Indian Research

Alternate Names: Chayenne

Tribal Headquarters
Northern Cheyenne

Northern Cheyenne Tribe Box 128 Lame Deer, Montana 59043 Phone: (406) 477-6284 Fax: (406) 477-6210


 * Official web site of the Northern Cheyenne Nation

Southern Cheyenne

Brief Timeline

 * 1804: Lewis and Clark encountered the Cheyenne tribe near the Black Hills of South Dakota.
 * 1860: Battles of Ash Hollow and Sand Creek
 * 1876: The Northern Cheyenne helped defeat General George Armstrong Custer's forces at the Little Bighorn
 * 1884: Northern Cheyenne granted a reservation lands in Montana

Additional References to the History of the Tribe
Frederick Webb Hodge, in his Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico, gave a more complete history of the Cheyenne tribe, with estimations of the population of the tribe at various time periods. Additional details are given in David Bushnell's Villages of the Algonquian, Siouan and Caddoan Tribes West of the Mississippi.

Records
The Cheyenne Tribe was under the following jurisdictions.

Agencies
The following agencies of the Bureau of Indian Affairs had jurisdiction over the Cheyenne for the time periods indicated. BIA agencies were responsible to keep such records as census rolls, allotment (land) records, annuity rolls, school records, correspondence, and other records of individual Indians under their jurisdiction. For details, see the page for the respective agency.

The agencies which had jurisdiction over a major portion of the Cheyenne in the United States were:

Northern Cheyenne Agency,

Upper Platte Agency

Upper Arkansas Agency

Cheyenne and Arrapahoe Agency

Red Cloud Agency (South Dakota and Wyoming)

Superintendencies
St. Louis Superintendency

Central Superintiendency

Colorado Superintendency

Dakota Superintendency

Northern Superintendency

Wyoming Superintendency

Treaties
During the latter part of the 18th Century and most of the 19th Century, treaties were negotiated between the federal government and individual Indian tribes. The treaties provide helpful information about the history of the tribe, but usually only include the names of those persons who signed the treaty. For more information about treaties, click here.

Treaties to which the Cheyenne Indians were a part were:


 * 1825 July 6, at mouth to Teton River
 * 1851 September 17, at Fort Laramie
 * September 24, 1857, referred to in Pawnee treaty
 * 1861 February 18, at Fort Wise
 * 1865 October 14, at Little Arkansas River
 * 1865 October 17,
 * 1867 October 28, at Council Camp

Tribal Office Records
The Tribal Office is responsible for enrollment records, vital records, tribal police records, tribal court records, employment records and many others. They are an entirely different set of records from those kept by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Most of them remain in the Tribal Office. For details, contact that office at the address for the Tribal Headquarters listed above.

Vital Records
Prior to the Indian Reorganization Act, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, through their agencies, may have recorded some vital events. Some were recorded on health forms, such as the "Sanitary Record of Sick, Injured, Births, Deaths, etc." Others were recorded as supplements to the "Indian Census Rolls." Some were included in the unindexed reports and other correspondence of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Some vital records for the (name of tribe) Indians include:


 * Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency: M595, births and deaths 1925-1934, FHL Film: 574191

Important Web Sites

 * History of the Cheyenne Indians
 * Official web site of the Northern Cheyenne Nation
 * Wikipedia article on the Cheyenne Nation
 * cheyenneancestors

Cheyenne

 * Carlson, Paul H. The Plains Indians. College Station, Texas: Texas A&amp;M University Press, c1998. FHL book 970.1 C197p

General

 * Guide to Federal Records in the National Archives; Record Group 75, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
 * Hodge, Frederick Webb. Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1906 Available online.
 * Klein, Barry T., ed. Reference Encyclopedia of the American Indian. Nyack, New York: Todd Publications, 2009. 10th ed. WorldCat 317923332;.
 * Malinowski, Sharon and Sheets, Anna, eds. The Gale Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. Detroit: Gale Publishing, 1998. 4 volumes. Includes: Lists of Federally Recognized Tribes for U.S., Alaska, and Canada – pp. 513-529 Alphabetical Listing of Tribes, with reference to volume and page in this series Map of “Historic Locations of U.S. Native Groups” Map of “Historic Locations of Canadian Native Groups” Map of “Historic Locations of Mexican, Hawaiian and Caribbean Native Groups” Maps of “State and Federally Recognized U.S. Indian Reservations. WorldCat 37475188;.


 * Vol. 1 -- Northeast, Southeast, Caribbean
 * Vol. 2 -- Great Basin, Southwest, Middle America
 * Vol. 3 -- Arctic, Subarctic, Great Plains, Plateau
 * Vol. 4 -- California, Pacific Northwest, Pacific Islands


 * Sturtevant, William C. Handbook of North American Indians. 20 vols., some not yet published. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1978–.


 * Volume 1 -- Not yet published
 * Volume 2 -- Indians in Contemporary Society (pub. 2008) -- WorldCat 234303751
 * Volume 3 -- Environment, Origins, and Population (pub. 2006) -- WorldCat 255572371
 * Volume 4 -- History of Indian-White Relations (pub. 1988) -- WorldCat 19331914;.
 * Volume 5 -- Arctic (pub. 1984) -- WorldCat 299653808;.
 * Volume 6 -- Subarctic (pub. 1981) -- WorldCat 247493742;.
 * Volume 7 -- Northwest Coast (pub. 1990) -- WorldCat 247493311
 * Volume 8 -- California (pub. 1978) -- WorldCat 13240086;.
 * Volume 9 -- Southwest (pub. 1979) -- WorldCat 26140053;.
 * Volume 10 -- Southwest (pub. 1983) -- WorldCat 301504096;.
 * Volume 11 -- Great Basin (pub. 1986) -- WorldCat 256516416;.
 * Volume 12 -- Plateau (pub. 1998) -- WorldCat 39401371;.
 * Volume 13 -- Plains, 2 vols. (pub. 2001) -- WorldCat 48209643
 * Volume 14 -- Southeast (pub. 2004) -- WorldCat 254277176
 * Volume 15 -- Northwest (pub. 1978) -- WorldCat 356517503;.
 * Volume 16 -- Not yet published
 * Volume 17 -- Languages (pub. 1996) -- WorldCat 43957746
 * Volume 18 -- Not yet published
 * Volume 19 -- Not yet published
 * Volume 20 -- Not yet published


 * Swanton John R. The Indian Tribes of North America. Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Bulletin #145 Available online.
 * Waldman, Carl. Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. New York, New York: Facts on File, 2006. 3rd ed. WorldCat 14718193;.