Black Kettle (1807?-68) Cheyenne chief. Black Kettle (Me-tu-ra-to or Moka-ta-va-tah in Cheyenne) served as a scout and warrior in combat with neighboring tribes. He was the principal chief during the 1861 treaty negotiations at Fort Wise, Colorado, where he accepted an American flag during the negotiations, symbolically accepting the notion of peace with white America. After the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864, where Black Kettle was shot more than eight times and more than 100 Cheyenne were murdered and mutilated, the remaining Cheyenne (and especially the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers) were distrustful of Black Kettle, who still called for peace with whites. He continued to negotiate with whites, returning hostages, and worked to achieve full agreement of his tribe to another treaty in 1867 which restricted the Cheyenne to a reservation in Indian Territory. The U.S. Army continued to violate the treaty and ignore Black Kettle's peacemaking efforts; Black Kettle and his wife were killed nearly four years to the day after the Sand Creek massacre. They were shot in the back while trying to flee Gen. George Amstrong Custer's dawn attack of their village.
The day after the battle, survivors hid Black Kettle's body; in 1934, a skeleton wearing his jewelry was found by Works Progress Administration workers trying to stabilize a bridge over the Washita River.See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.
The Oxford Essential Dictionary of the U.S. Military. Copyright © 2001, 2002 by Oxford University Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
