Ramon Powers, Author

In September 1878, an important event in American Indian history occurred. After enduring a year of disease and hunger, 350 Northern Cheyenne Indians living on Indian Territory fled Oklahoma and Kansas to return to their homelands in Wyoming and Montana. Pursuing them was the United States Army. Some of the Cheyenne were killed, some surrendered to the military and were held in army barracks in Nebraska. 

In January 1879, desperate and homesick, the Cheyenne made one last attempt at freedom. Many of the men, women and children who ran from the barracks were shot and killed. Others died over the next two weeks while again being pursued by the US Army.

In the award-winning book, The Northern Cheyenne Exodus in History and Memory (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 2011), James N. Leiker and Ramon Powers explore ways that exodus has been remembered by examining recollections of Indians, settlers, and descendants.

Pictured is co-author Ramon Powers.

Please also refer to Mari Sandoz's Cheyenne Autumn (1953, reprint edition 1992).

Photograph copyright 2013 Larry F. Levenson. All rights reserved.