The Northern Cheyenne Exodus in History and Memory by James N. Leiker and Ramon Powers (review)

In The Northern Cheyenne Exodus in History and Memory, James Leiker and Ramon Powers provide another non-Indian historical perspective of the Northern Cheyennes’ resistance to removal. There are several interpretations of the events that began in 1877 after the so-called Great Sioux War and ended in 1884 with the establishment of the Tongue River Indian Reservation. Nonetheless, the book provides a new historical perspective of the Northern Cheyennes from a new genre of history that examines the “memory” of historical events from both non-Indian and Indian perspectives. The goal of the authors was to reveal, compare, and contrast the differing ways in which both the Cheyenne and white participants remember the shared history.

As a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne and as an American Indian studies professor who specializes in Cheyenne culture, history, and leadership, I am typically more critical of authors who choose to focus their work on the history of the Cheyenne people. With a fair but critical eye, I can state with confidence that although I commend the authors, both of whom I have recently become acquainted with as friends and colleagues, I was generally unimpressed with their goals and attempts to interpret how they viewed Indians and their memory in history. The authors were, however, very successful in providing much-needed criticism of mainstream perceptions of the so-called Last Indian Raid of Kansas.

In the first chapter, entitled “Plains,” the authors describe the hostile environment and depict the indigenous inhabitants as unorganized, unsophisticated, simple-minded peoples who were in “a bloody street fight for survival” (24). Such descriptions of the Wild West may passively but effectively convince readers to accept the justification of inflicting the genocidal wars waged by whites. The authors, in their attempt to explain the Cheyenne warrior culture, may have instead devalued it, branding warriors as stubborn, unruly, undisciplined, and unwilling to cooperate with whites. The authors question why the Cheyennes fought, rhetorically asking to define “which tradition” they were fighting for, since the “Northern Cheyenne society reflected more than a century of sweeping changes and internal struggles” (30–31). Uninformed readers may find that the authors are successful in branding the Cheyenne culture as inconsistent and unpredictable while disproving Cheyenne legitimacy to their own homelands and any claims to them. As I continued to read, I realized that this book was an unconventional narrative that differed from other texts in my library of the Northern Cheyennes’ journey home. It is yet another example of how Indians have lost their rights to their own history.

Despite the proposed instability of the Northern Cheyennes, in chapter 2, entitled “Victims,” the authors establish German immigrants as legitimate settlers who faced much adversity in attaining the American dream and Indian land. The authors eventually detail how the Cheyennes ravaged these settlers. The authors spend a considerable amount of text discussing the sexual practices of Indians as they make sweeping generalizations of savagery: “Certainly American Indians and Euro-Americans viewed sexuality in fundamentally different ways. Indians seldom equated nudity and intercourse with shame and sin” (60). The entire discussion reinforces stereotypes of Indians while emphasizing the psychological harm they inflicted on whites: “Northern Cheyennes entered the valley of South Sappa Creek and over a period of four to six hours carried out acts of terror that imprinted settlers’ memories for decades” (62). I will not deny if rapes occurred or not, but the Northern Cheyennes have a profound oral tradition that tells of a warrior who went rogue and led fellow outcasts on the way home. The authors exploit the incidents resulting from a very small population of exiles who had been branded by the Cheyennes as murderers years before. The goal of the Northern Cheyennes was simply to return to their homeland, but when reading such narratives one may believe that the Indians were out to ravage white women. There is no...