Tell Them We Are Going Home: The Odyssey of the Northern Cheyennes [Hardcover]

John H. Monnett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2001

Tell Them We Are Going Home details the courageous journey of the Northern Cheyennes, under the leadership of Little Wolf and Dull Knife, from Indian Territory northward to their homelands in the Powder River Country. Incorporating the perspectives of the Cheyennes, the U.S. military, the Indian Bureau, and the Kansas settlers who encountered the traveling Indians, this book provides a complete account of the odyssey, along with source material never before presented in print.

The conflict between the Northern Cheyennes and the military began with the destruction of Dull Knife's winter village by cavalry troops in late 1876, at the close of the Great Sioux War. The survivors among Dull Knife's people, along with other Northern Cheyenne bands, were ordered to report to Fort Reno and the Darlington Agency in Indian Territory during the summer of 1877. Monnett describes the group's difficult seventy-day march to the agency, where the northern group began to sicken shortly after their arrival. Medical supplies were slow to arrive, and the food allotments were insufficient.

By the spring of 1878, many of the Northern Cheyennes found life in Indian Territory intolerable. They formally asked to be taken back to the higher, dry country of Montana. When their request was refused, a group of about three hundred men, women, and children slipped away from the Darlington Agency during the early morning hours of September 10, 1878, led by Little Wolf and Dull Knife.

Immediately the army marshaled the technological resources of a modern nation against them. Monnett chronicles the Cheyennes dramatic fifteen-hundred-mile trek through Kansas, Nebraska, and portions of Wyoming and Montana, which became one of the most important episodes in American history and in Cheyenne memory. Only when their plight was brought to national attention were the Northern Cheyennes officially allowed to return to their homelands and a new reservation established there for them.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A splendid book, lucidly written and illustrated, on yet another of the many dark episodes in America's relations with her native peoples."—Kansas History

"Monnett has written the definitive account of this pivotal event in the history of the Northern Cheyennes."—Western Historical Quarterly

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

John H. Monnett teaches Western and Native American history at Metropolitan State College of Denver and is the author of Colorado Profiles: Men and Women Who Shaped the Centennial State (with Michael McCarthy), The Battle of Beecher Island and the Indian War of 1867-1869, Massacre at Cheyenne Hole: Lieutenant Austin Henely and the Sappa Creek Controversy, and A Rocky Mountain Christmas: Yuletide Stories of the West.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press (April 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0806133031
• ISBN-13: 978-0806133034
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,125,745 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. John Monnett is an award winning author and a professor of history at Metropolitan State College of Denver. He has written or contributed to thirteen books and hundreds of articles and book reviews on thie history of the American West. He is recipient of a 2010 Wrangler Award from the National Western Heritage Center. His book, "Where a Hundred Soldiers Were Killed" was runner up for the Colorado Humanities Center for the Book best non-fiction prize for 2009. In addition he has won the Coke award from from Westerners International and given the Fred Rosenstock Lifetime Achievement Award from Denver Westerners. He is a sought after speaker at historical societies and conferences and a member of the Western History Association, Organization of American Historians, and the American History Association. He has taught western American history and Native American history to over 10,000 students during his career. He may be contacted at www.mscd.edu.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Comprehensive and Much Needed History, November 13, 2002

By 

LaLoren - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tell Them We Are Going Home: The Odyssey of the Northern Cheyennes (Hardcover)

To my knowledge this is the first comprehensive work on the Cheyennes trek north since Mari Sandoz's often controversial "Cheyenne Autumn." In acknowledging this in his introduction, John H. Monnett, in line with some other historians, terms Sandoz's work a novel. While I would characterize her work more as, what is now known as, creative non-fiction, I agree with Monnett when he states that "[s]uch passion often evokes intense dedication to a specific viewpoint at the dismissal of others..." (xvi)

In this book, Monnett has provided a more 'well-rounded" but only slightly less moving depiction of the Cheyennes struggle to return to their homeland. And to his credit, unlike many modern historians, he does not dismiss Sandoz's work out of hand. Indeed, anyone handling this subject would be foolish to overlook her extensive and meticulous research, much of which is based on records and oral histories no longer available. However, also included in his many sources are researchers like George Bird Grinnell (who is famous for his interviews of the Cheyennes and preserving their oral history), and more recent work by John D. McDermott who apparently turned over all of the research he was originally planning to use for a work of his own on the subject. Also, enjoyable for those of us who like following up on sources, Monnett is one of the few who are now beginning to list Internet sites in their bibliographies.

While presenting all facts in a straight forward manor, it would be difficult to call this work even handed. Indeed, I defy anyone to research this subject in depth and not come away with a strong sympathy for the Cheyennes and their cause. However, Monnett also is careful to include extensive information on the attacks by the young Cheyennes men on Kansas settlers.

If I have one criticism of this work however, it would be Monetts 'in-depth" analasys of these "depredations", and the need to somehow justify them to modern readers. This was the way American Indians fought. It was part of their culture, and, as such, it requires no justification. They did not keep standing armies who were considered the only fair game in battle, and, to the young men, at least, who faced diminishing opportunities to prove themselves as warriors, anyone encroaching on their old hunting grounds was an enemy, who had no right to be there. It is actually more amazing, as Monnett clearly points out, that the leaders, Little Wolf and Dull Knife, had the political savvy to try to discourage such raids, knowing that it would turn popular opinion against them--as it sometimes did.

This,however, is only a minor point in a work that deserves much praise. Anyone interested in Native American history, or indeed, American history in general should read this. However, I would still recommend "Cheyenne Autumn," in that it complements Monnett's work by presenting more in the way of Native culture, and being one of the first books to "humanize" the subject.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!, June 21, 2002

By 

Patrick - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tell Them We Are Going Home: The Odyssey of the Northern Cheyennes (Hardcover)

In a country that holds the notion of freedom in such high regard, it's surprising the story of the Northern Cheyenne's desperate 1500-mile exodus to their homeland has hardly registered on America's popular history radar. The resolve, determination and sheer courage of the Cheyenne people's attempt at freedom and dignity warrant recognition on par with any display of courage exhibited through out human history.

I read this book as a follow up to 'Cheyenne Autumn' by Mari Sandoz. For those unfamiliar with the event, I would recommend reading Sandoz book first to fully appreciate the human drama, then read Monnett's excellent work for the non-fiction angle. Monnett's book is a concise, well written, fact filled account of the journey. I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in western history or humanity in general. It's very readable and well researched account.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A solid history of tragic events, October 29, 2002

By 

Bruce Trinque (Amston, CT United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Tell Them We Are Going Home: The Odyssey of the Northern Cheyennes (Hardcover)

"Tell Them We Are Going Home: The Odyssey of the Northern Cheyennes" is a solid account of the 1878 attempted exodus of about 300 Northern Cheyenne men, women and children from a reservation in the Indian Territory (Oklahoma) to their traditional homeland in the Northern Plains. The Government ordered the US Army to stop the refugees. Although author John Monnett's sympathies are openly with the Indians, he presents a balanced picture of events, recognizing that the soldiers sent in pursuit were basically men doing their duty to the best of their ability, not stereotypical villains as too often portrayed in popular media in the past few decades. Monnett also does not ignore the killing of civilian ranchers and farmers nor the rape of white women carried out by some of the young Cheyenne warriors during their trek across Kansas. In attempting to understand the motivation behind such acts, Monnett explores the traditional explanation that it was largely revenge for the killing of a group of Southern Cheyennes in the same area a few years before (this view was stressed by Mari Sandoz in her "Cheyenne Autumn" book) and casts considerable doubt on the notion. At times, Monnett veers into academic jargon (we are told that "Little Wolf died in his beloved Tongue River country, albeit reimagined according to the Euro-American vision of geographical borders") and he perhaps tries too hard to give the events great symbolic significance ("The Indians who fell in the terrible pit on Antelope Creek symbolize displaced peoples everywhere whose sense of home and desire for independence transcends the love of life"), but his book nonetheless is a readable, quite detailed narrative which ultimately remains true to the author's intent of being fair to all involved.

Inevitably, Monnet's "Tell Them We Are Going Home" must be compared to Stan Hoig's recently published "Perilous Pursuit: The U.S. Cavalry and the Northern Cheyennes" about these same events. If asked to recommend one over the other, my inclination would be to say, "Read both." Monnett and Hoig's views of the Cheyennes and their Army pursuers are much the same. Monnett's narrative perhaps contains more small details of individual experiences for a vivid story, but Hoig's book probably provides a somewhat more comprehensive picture of military operations. Neither book, unfortunately, has sufficient maps to fully follow events easily, but both contain numerous photographs of participants and locations of interest. Comparison might also be made to Mari Sandoz's "Cheyenne Autumn." However lyrically written Sandoz's book is, it cannot stand along Monnett's work (nor that of Hoig) as a reliable account of events. "Cheyenne Autumn" so closely identifies with the Indians that the white side of the story is not only inadequately presented but also distorted into almost cartoon villainy at times. "Cheyenne Autumn" is a pleasure to read, but it should not be mistaken for real history. Interestingly, in his text Monnett refers to Sandoz's book as a "novel".