Montana Medicine Show: Little Wolf

Welcome to the Montana Medicine Show. I'm Derrick strong. Indian scholar George burger an elf called Little Wolf. The greatest Indian I have ever known. He was a powerful 19th century chief and the leader of the Northern Cheyenne Exodus after the Battle of Little Big Horn the U.S. Army forcibly relocated the Northern Cheyenne to Oklahoma's Indian Territory. Disease and starvation were rampant. Little Wolf complained. We are sickly and dying here. No one will speak our names when we are dead. September 10th 1878. Little Wolf. Dull knife and three hundred and thirty six women and children start a fifteen hundred mile freedom flight to Montana traveling by moonlight hiding in broken timber. They evade 2000 pursuing soldiers. The going is hard. Dozens die. Dull knifes weaker band surrenders in Nebraska but little wolf and a hundred and thirteen others press on to Montana at Fort Keogh near mile city. Little Wolf explains. Our hearts long for the country where we were born. There are only a

few of us left and we only wanted a little ground where we could live. In 1884 the Northern Cheyenne secured a reservation on the Tongue River. Little Wolf lived there until his death a 19 0 for Northern Cheyenne president Eugene little coyote honored him in 2007 with these words. We have a homeland because of his leadership. We want to remember. Because if that didn't happen we might not have a reservation today. We might not have a tribe. From the studios I'm Derrick strong. Montana medicine show is supported by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. A private corporation funded by the American people.