![Lean Bear](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a6/Lean_Bear_.jpg)
Lean Bear (
Cheyenne
The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enroll ...
name Awoninahku, 1813–1864), alternatively translated as Starving Bear,
was a
Cheyenne
The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized nations: the Southern Cheyenne, who are enroll ...
peace chief.
[Ricky 182] He was a member of the
Council of Forty-four,
a tribal governance devoted to maintaining peace with encroaching
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
settlers. Lean Bear's most notable peace deals include the
Treaty of Fort Wise
The Treaty of Fort Wise of 1861 was a treaty entered into between the United States and six chiefs of the Southern Cheyenne and four of the Southern Arapaho Indian tribes. A significant proportion of Cheyennes opposed this treaty on the grounds th ...
and a meeting with US President
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
.
His work towards peace between his people and the American settlers in the Southern Plains was cut short when he was killed by the
1st Colorado Cavalry Regiment and violent retaliations ensued.
Personal life
Lean Bear suffered from vertigo, which commonly ran in the family. During a meeting with President
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
in 1863, he suffered an attack and spoke while seated in a chair.
Lean Bear brushed it off as a result of him simply being too nervous to stand.
Relations
Lean Bear had a brother called Bull Bear. In 1864, Bull Bear was the leader of the
Dog Soldiers
The Dog Soldiers or Dog Men (Cheyenne: ''Hotamétaneo'o'') are historically one of six Cheyenne military societies. Beginning in the late 1830s, this society evolved into a separate, militaristic band that played a dominant role in Cheyenne re ...
, a position he would hold for many years.
Lean Bear also worked closely and served on the
Council of Forty-four with fellow peace chief
Black Kettle, especially in the last decade of his life.
Political life
The first known historical account of Lean Bear is from 1851. He was roughly 35 at this time.
Agent
Thomas Fitzpatrick was hosting a council in
Fort Atkinson to convince plains tribes to attend a larger peace council at Fort Laramie later on.
The Comanche, Kiowa, Apache, Arapaho, and Cheyenne people went out to meet the soldiers and each other. They feasted and traded goods.
Fitzpatrick spoke with each group, and eventually convinced the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes to attend the next peace council. The other tribes refused, wary about bringing their horses up north near tribes that were notorious for stealing horses.
The troops were beginning to leave as the council ended when
Colonel Sumner arrived at Fort Atkinson on his way to
New Mexico
)
, population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano)
, seat = Santa Fe
, LargestCity = Albuquerque
, LargestMetro = Tiguex
, OfficialLang = None
, Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...
. He stayed for a few days to trade and obtain some horses from the tribes in attendance.
After some time, the tribes began to freely explore both the fort and his camp, and Fitzpatrick grew nervous at the opportunities for conflict.
Lean Bear, who was in attendance at the peace council, was fascinated by the rings and bracelets on the hand of Sumner's wife and grabbed to get a better look. She reacted by pulling her hand back and screaming, provoking Sumner to rush forward to beat Lean Bear.
Because Cheyenne culture considers striking even a male child to be an insult, Lean Bear was incredibly indignant about the assault.
He painted his face and rode around his camp announcing his plans to attack the whites, inviting his brothers to join him.
Fitzpatrick initially refused to make reparations until some Kiowas and Comanches told him that the Cheyennes were getting ready to attack. A meeting was later arranged for Colonel Sumner to present Lean Bear with a blanket in apology, which he accepted.
Council of Forty-Four
Lean Bear was chosen to join the Council of Forty-four by past chiefs, as the council chose its own successors.
The council worked to sway their people towards a preference for peace with the Americans. Once named a chief of the council, one would have to give up membership in the war societies that new chiefs often came from.
These efforts contrasted with the increasingly vocal
Dog Soldiers
The Dog Soldiers or Dog Men (Cheyenne: ''Hotamétaneo'o'') are historically one of six Cheyenne military societies. Beginning in the late 1830s, this society evolved into a separate, militaristic band that played a dominant role in Cheyenne re ...
, bands of Cheyennes who held a longstanding opposition to white settlement and did not wait to cooperate and make peace.
They stole livestock and fought with troops and settlers.
The Dog Soldiers were exiled for their behavior and deemed renegades, operating independently of the tribe. Nonetheless, their provocative nature caused a lot of trouble for the peace-seeking Cheyennes.
Treaty of Fort Wise
On October 1857, Chief Lean Bear and three other Cheyenne chiefs approached
William Bent
William Wells Bent (May 23, 1809 – May 19, 1869) was a frontier trader and rancher in the American West, with forts in Colorado. He also acted as a mediator among the Cheyenne Nation, other Native American tribes and the expanding United St ...
with concern about attacks on his people by Sumner's troops along the
Republican River
The Republican River is a river in the central Great Plains of North America, rising in the High Plains (United States), High Plains of eastern Colorado and flowing east U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline ...
.
Bent then sent a letter to Washington D.C. on their behalf, stating that the Cheyenne chiefs would like to speak with someone from the government. The response came in 1860, when Commissioner A.B. Greenwood met the chiefs at Fort Wise.
Chief Lean Bear was one of the principal signers in the
Treaty of Fort Wise
The Treaty of Fort Wise of 1861 was a treaty entered into between the United States and six chiefs of the Southern Cheyenne and four of the Southern Arapaho Indian tribes. A significant proportion of Cheyennes opposed this treaty on the grounds th ...
in 1861. This treaty was made with Cheyenne and
Arapaho
The Arapaho (; french: Arapahos, ) are a Native American people historically living on the plains of Colorado and Wyoming. They were close allies of the Cheyenne tribe and loosely aligned with the Lakota and Dakota.
By the 1850s, Arapaho band ...
chiefs, cutting roughly 40 million acres of land from their territory.
There were mixed responses to the deal, including scorn from the Dog Soldiers, because only six Cheyenne chiefs were present to sign the treaty, when all forty-four are typically needed when treaties and alliances are being made.
The deal was made in an attempt to keep peace as pioneers spread near Indian territory, but the land reduction and the continued encroachment by white settlers only heightened tensions.
The Cheyennes were not ready to forced into the confines of the small reserve, where there were not many buffalo, allocated for them in the treaty.
Meeting in Washington D.C.
![Lincoln and Peace Chiefs 1863](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Lincoln_and_Peace_Chiefs_1863.jpg)
On March 27, 1863, a delegation of chiefs and two women met with President
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
in the East room of the White House.
The meeting was called after skirmishes with Native tribes and white settlers created fear that Southern Plains tribes would side with the
Confederacy.
Lincoln was hoping to persuade Native Nations to either ally with the Union, or pledge neutrality.
Lincoln welcomed the chiefs, explaining that white Americans had conquered an expansive population, territory, and wealth that white Americans had gained.
Lean Bear implored the president to stop his white Americans from being violent so that Indians and whites alike could travel across the plains without risk. Lincoln told the chiefs that their Native people were naturally more tempted to violence.
He further explained that in order to survive and be prosperous, the Native Americans would have to adopt methods of cultivating the land that were more similar to the way of the whites.
Lincoln also requested that the southern Plains Indians remain neutral in the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
, ready to provide peace medals to those that he could reach an agreement with.
The chiefs complied, promising to uphold peace treaties and not align with the Confederacy.
Lean Bear then made a request to the president to expedite his and the other chiefs' journey home.
Murder of Lean Bear
On May 16, 1864, less than 15 months after meeting Lincoln in Washington,
Lean Bear, Black Kettle, and others in the tribe were camping on their buffalo hunting grounds near
Ash Creek. The
1st Colorado Regiment, under the command of Lieutenant
George Eayre
George may refer to:
People
* George (given name)
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* George W. Bush, 43rd Presid ...
, approached the group. Although there had been a fight around a month previous involving Cheyenne Dog Soldiers at Fremont's Orchard, Lean Bear was confident that the violence wouldn't be associated with his peaceful tribe and was not concerned as the soldiers got closer.
Positive that this would be a peaceful encounter, Lean Bear went alone to meet the militia to show his peaceful intentions.
On his chest, Lean Bear proudly wore his peace medal that he had received on his trip to Washington D.C. in 1863. In his hand, he held an official document signed by President Lincoln stating that he was peaceful and friendly with whites.
What Lean Bear did not realize was that Eayre's troops were operating under orders from Colonel
John M. Chivington to "kill Cheyennes whenever and wherever found." Eayre ordered his men to shoot Lean Bear, who was wounded and fell off his horse. He was then shot repeatedly by the soldiers as they rode past his body on the ground.
The troops rode on to attack other Cheyennes at the camp, killing at least one more warrior and wounding many others at the camp.
Cheyenne warriors armed themselves and mounted their horses, ready to retaliate.
Black Kettle rode out to de-escalate the situation, stopping any further violence, and the American troops retreated to
Fort Larned
Fort Larned National Historic Site preserves Fort Larned which operated from 1859 to 1878. It is approximately west of Larned, Kansas, United States.
History
The Camp on Pawnee Fork was established on October 22, 1859 to protect traffic al ...
.
Aftermath of the killing
Rising tensions caused by the death of Lean Bear, along with Eayre's other Indian camp raids, is heavily attributed to the
Sand Creek Massacre that occurred six months later.
Lean Bear's brother, Bull Bear, was livid after the killing and felt compelled to violence against the white men, a desire he had never felt before.
Bull Bear remarked that his brother had died while trying to keep peace with the settlers, and he expected to die in the same way.
He called for war but was shot down at a meeting with Wynkoop, the Fort Lyon Commander, on September 10, 1864.
Despite Black Kettle's best efforts to keep the peace, attacks by Native warriors in the Southern Plains skyrocketed as the vengeful tribes burned ranches and trails, kidnapping settlers and their livestock.
Over time, the Dog Soldiers' popularity rose, and they overrode Black Kettle's efforts to resist war.
The Governor of Colorado issued a proclamation giving each citizen permission and encouragement to retaliate by killing any Indians and seek compensation for stolen property.
Legacy
There are no confirmed images of Lean Bear. There are only images and paintings of the full room in 1863 when the delegation went to meet president Lincoln. There are many differing accounts on the identities of each chief in the image.
In common usage by sources about Lean Bear is an image of a Cheyenne peace chief who is typically believed to be Lean Bear.
Parts of Lean Bear's life are described in the book of folklore, ''By Cheyenne Campfires'', compiled by
George Bird Grinnell
George Bird Grinnell (September 20, 1849 – April 11, 1938) was an American anthropologist, historian, naturalist, and writer. Grinnell was born in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Yale University with a B.A. in 1870 and a Ph.D. in 1880 ...
.
Notes
References
* Ricky, Donald B
"Indians of Nebraska.Somerset Publishers, 2007. .
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lean Bear
1813 births
1864 deaths
1864 murders in the United States
19th-century Native Americans
Cheyenne people
Pre-statehood history of Nebraska
Native American leaders
People from Nebraska
Deaths by firearm in Colorado
People murdered in Colorado
Murdered Native American people