Cheyenne and Arapaho Indian Reservation

Cheyenne and Arapaho Indian Reservation were the lands granted the Southern Cheyenne and the Southern Arapaho by the United States under the Medicine Lodge Treaty signed in 1867. The tribes never lived on the land described in the treaty and did not want to. Recognizing this fact, on August 10, 1869 President Grant issued an executive order to set aside lands on the North Fork of the Canadian River for the tribes. The lands were located in western Indian Territory south of the Cherokee Outlet and north of the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Indian Reservation. However, a portion of it was split off later to form the Caddo-Wichita-Delaware Indian Reservation. The area occupied by the tribes is now referred to as the Cheyenne-Arapaho Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Area.

Following the Red River War, nearly all of the Southern Cheyenne and the Southern Arapaho began to live on the reservation. Despite the best efforts of the Indian Agent, John D. Miles, the promised government rations were inadequate and the tribes also suffered from disease. Congress appropriated inadequate funds for support of the reservations and only poor quality cattle were available for sale to the government. Thousands of cattle were being grazed illegally on the reservation by Texas cattlemen, but when the Indian agent attempted to buy cattle, he was refused. Some cattle were confiscated on promise of payment.

On the advice of the army, fearful of an outbreak, Miles withheld ammunition from the tribes, leaving them as easy prey for white horse thieves. Cheyenne women gained some paying work tanning hides for white traders. In 1875, 1876, and 1877 the tribes competed with white buffalo hunters for the last of the diminishing buffalo herds. Many buffalo were taken, but never enough to satisfy the tribes' needs; by 1877 there were very few left. In the winter of 1877-78 the remaining stragglers of the southern herd were hunted down.

In 1877 nearly a thousand Northern Cheyenne came or were escorted to the reservation from their home ranges in the north. Rations were inadequate, as was medical care. In September 1878, a band under the leadership of Dull Knife and Little Wolf escaped and fled north, the Northern Cheyenne Exodus. Most of the Northern Cheyenne remained, but by 1883 all that wanted to were permitted to return to the north where the Tongue River Indian Reservation was established in 1884.

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