IMPORTANT DATES & EVENTS IN NORTHERN ARAPAHO HISTORY

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Early 1700s - The horse was introduced to the Plains area through the Spanish presence in the southwest.

Late 1700s - First contacts and trade between Arapahos and Europeans.

By the 1840s - Arapaho bands split into two tribes: the Northern Arapaho and Southern Arapaho.

1851 - First Treaty of Fort Laramie, which established specific tracts of land for the various Plains tribes. Arapaho-Cheyenne territory included 122,000 square miles extending north to the North Platte River, south to the Arkansas River, west to the Rocky Mountains, and east to the western parts of Kansas and Nebraska.

1859 - The Colorado Goldrush begins, bringing a wave of illegal immigrants into Arapaho country, depleting game and displacing Arapaho bands.

1864 - The Sand Creek Massacre: Colorado militia led by Colonel Chivington massacre a peaceful camp of Southern Arapahos and Cheyennes and. Intensified conflict on the Plains followed.

1865 - Three Northern Arapaho bands led by Medicine Man, Black Bear, and Friday, move north into northern Colorado, Wyoming, and South Dakota in order to avoid conflict and find more game. Epidemics and deprivation reduce the Northern Arapaho population.

1868 - The Southern Arapaho and Southern Cheyenne accept a reservation in Oklahoma.

1868 - Second Treaty of Fort Laramie: Northern Arapaho leaders agree to peace and resettlement on a reservation somewhere in Wyoming. Compensation is promised but not fulfilled for illegal settlement of Colorado that violated the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty.

1870 - Northern Arapahos camped at Wind River. Black Bear and a number of his party are killed by a group of miners near Lander. As a result, Arapahos leave the Wind River area.

1872 - Chief Medicine Man, the principal leader for treaty councils in the 1850s-60s, dies near Fort Fetterman (Douglas, Wyoming).

1874 - Bates Battle: Soldiers and Shoshone scouts led by Captain Bates attack an Arapaho camp under Chief Black Coal at Nowood Creek east of Thermopolis, Wyoming. Arapaho warriors outmaneuver the troops, but the troops destroy their property and the band is weakened.

1876-77 - Arapaho scouts serve under General Crook at Fort Robinson in efforts to relocate the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne on reservations.

1877 - Arapaho leaders Black Coal and Sharp Nose, with Friday as interpreter, meet with President Hayes and other government officials in Washington to petition for an Arapaho reservation in Wyoming.

1878 - In the spring, Arapahos are assigned to the Shoshone Reservation to await preparation of their own reservation to be located in north-central Wyoming. The two main camps were led by Black Coal and Sharp Nose. Black Coal's Forks People band camped at the forks of the Little and Big Wind River. Sharp Nose's Bad Pipes band camped a few miles west on the Little Wind.

1880s - The reservation promised to the Northern Arapaho did not materialize as the government no longer made treaties and General Crook, who made the promise, dies.

1884 - Black Coal sells land to the Jesuit Father Jutz for the construction of St. Stephen's Mission.

1889 - Some Northern Arapahos begin following the Ghost Dance.

1891 - The government consents to the construction of a subagency headquarters to be located in the community of Arapahoe. As a result, people no longer have to make the long trip to the agency at Fort Washakie.

1893 - Chief Black Coal dies.

1893 - Arapaho Chief's Council is established to oversee tribal land leases. This council was the foundation for what later became the Arapaho Business Council.

1894 - Arapaho and Shoshones are central participants in the first wild west show in Wyoming at the Lander Pioneer Days celebration, which was later the model for Cheyenne Frontier Days.

1896 - The Shoshone and Arapaho tribes cede the Hot Springs area in the northeast corner of the reservation for $60,000 in payments to the tribes.

1898 - Agent H.G. Nickerson institutes a policy to Americanize Indian names on the tribal rolls.

1905 - The Wind River tribes cede 1.4 million acres of land north of the Big Wind River.

1910 - The Chicago and Northwestern Railroad builds a rail station at Arapahoe, providing a market route for Arapaho livestock and easier travel.

1910 - The Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming purchases land from Yellow Calf and Wallowing Bull for the establishment of St. Michael's Mission at the site of the present community of Ethete.

1913 - St. Michael's Mission is established.

1913 - The Arapaho Sun Dance is prohibited and is not held again openly until 1923.

1917 - St. Michael's School opens.

1920s - Arapahos participate in the production of early Western motion pictures with Tim McCoy, a famous soldier, cowboy, and adopted Arapaho .

1930s - New Deal projects, such as the C.C.C. and W.P.A., bring increased employment opportunities to Arapaho people.

1935 - Arapaho and Shoshone people vote to reject the Indian Reorganization Act.

1937 - The Eastern Shoshone receive $4.4 million in damages for the settlement of Arapahos on the Wind River Reservation.

1940 - The Arapaho and Shoshone tribes restore 1.25 million acres of the ceded portion north of the Big Wind River.

1941 - The Arapaho Ranch begins operations, providing a source of tribal income in the years to follow.

1947 - The U.S. Congress passes legislation allowing a trial period for the unrestricted distribution of joint tribal income from oil, mineral, and grazing leases on trust lands. Regular per capita payments from tribal income are distributed to enrolled Arapaho and Shoshone tribal members.

1951 - The Arapaho tribe begins elections for the Arapaho Entertainment Committee, now called the Arapaho Tribal Committee.

1954 - The Arapaho General Council establishes enrollment criteria for tribal membership.

1954 - First Powwow at Wind River, the Northern Arapaho Powwow.

1959 - The two tribes are assured monthly per capita payments indefinitely. Of all tribal income, 85% is distributed in per capita payments, and 15% set aside for the tribal operating budget.

1961 - The Northern Arapaho, Northern Cheyenne, Southern Arapaho, and Southern Cheyenne tribes received judgment from the Indian Claims Commission for the U.S. government's violation of the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty. The combined tribes received $23.5 million of which the Northern Arapaho tribe received about 24%.

1972 - The Arapaho General Council institutes a primary election for candidates running for the Arapaho Business Council.

1982 - The first comprehensive English-Arapaho dictionary is produced.

1988 - The U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of the Shoshone and Arapaho tribes in a water rights suit filed by the State of Wyoming. The judgment awarded the tribes control and ownership of 500,000 acre feet of water flowing annually through the Wind River Basin.

1992 - The Northern Arapaho General Council votes to extend full enrollment privileges to those people who formerly had only associate member status. Formerly, children with the appropriate blood quantum but a non-Arapaho father were excluded from full enrollment.

1990s - The Northern Arapaho Tribe separates control of programs (e.g., housing and health) formerly under joint Shoshone-Arapaho administration.

2005 – On July 11th the Tenth Court of Appeals reaffirmed the Northern Arapaho Tribe’s right to offer Level III gaming on the Wind River Reservation. On August 10^th, the Governor of Wyoming confirms that he and the state government will abide by that decision. The Northern Arapaho Tribe becomes the first tribe to establish casino gaming without a compact with the state in which it resides.*

*(Hohou to Susie Armajo for the updated information)

GENERAL SOURCES ON ARAPAHO INDIANS

Crofts, Beatrice.

1997. Walk Softly, This Is God's Country. Lander, Wyoming: Mortimer Publishing

Dorsey, George A.

1903. The Arapaho Sun Dance; the Ceremony of the Offerings-Lodge. Field Columbian Museum, Publication 75, Anthropological Series, Vol. 4. Chicago, IL: Field Columbian Museum.

Dorsey, George A. and Alfred L. Kroeber.

1903. Traditions of the Arapaho. Field Columbian Museum, Publication 81, Anthropological Series, Vol. 5. Chicago, IL: Field Columbian Museum.

Eggan, Fred.

1937. The Cheyenne and Arapaho Kinship System. In Social Anthropology of North American Tribes: Essays in Social Organization, Law, and Religion, ed. Fred Eggan, pp. 35-95. Chicago, Illinois: The University of Chicago Press.

Eggan, Fred.

1966. The Cheyenne and Arapaho in the Perspective of the Plains: Ecology and Society. In The American Indian: Perspectives for the Study of Social Change. Chicago, Illinois: Aldine.

Farlow, Edward J.

1998. Wind River Adventures: My Life in Frontier Wyoming. Glendo,WY: High Plains Press.

Fowler, Loretta.

1982. Arapahoe Politics, 1851-1878; Symbols in Crises of Authority. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.

Fowler, Loretta

1989. The Arapaho. Chelsea House Publishers.

Kroeber, Alfred L.

1983. [1902,1904,1907]. The Arapaho. (foreword by Fred Eggan). Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press.

McCoy Tim, with Ronald McCoy.

1977. Tim McCoy Remembers the West: An Autobiography. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Company.

Mooney, James.

1896. The Ghost-Dance Religion and Sioux Outbreak of 1890. Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1892-93. Part 2, pp. 641-1110. Washington, D.C.: GPO.

Salzmann, Zdenek.

1988. The Arapaho Indians: A Research Guide and Bibilography. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.

Trenholm, Virginia Cole.

1970. The Arapahoes, Our People. The Civilization of the American Indian Series, Vol. 105.) Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.

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