Ho-my-ike's (George Bent's) Account

Background: This eyewitness account by Ho-my-ike (George Bent), a mixed-race Tsitsistas (Cheyenne) is from a memoir written by Harvard anthropologist George Hyde based on Ho-my-ike's letters. It was published fifty years after Ho-my-ike's death and 104 years after the massacre.

At dawn on the morning of November 29 I was still in bed when I heard shouts and the noise of people running about the camp. I jumped up and ran out of my lodge. From down the creek a large body of troops was advancing at a rapid trot, some to the east of the camps, and others on the opposite side of the creek, to the west. More soldiers could be seen making for the Indian pony herds to the south of the camps; in the camps themselves all was confusion and noise—men, women, and children rushing out of the lodges partly dressed; women and children screaming at sight of the troops; men running back into the lodges for their arms, other men, already armed, or with lassos and bridles in their hands, running for the herds to attempt to get some of the ponies before the troops could reach the animals and drive them off. I looked toward the chief's lodge and saw that Black Kettle had a large American flag tied to the end of a long lodgepole and was standing in front of his lodge, holding the pole, with the flag fluttering in the grey light of the winter dawn. I heard him call to the people not to be afraid, that the soldiers would not hurt them; then the troops opened fire from two sides of the camps.

Source: George E. Hyde, A Life of George Bent, Written from His Letters, Savoie Lottinville, ed., (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), 151–52.