Qualla: Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation

Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation: Introduction

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Department of Agriculture, Public domain. In 1878, a desperate band of Northern Cheyenne made a decision that would echo through history. Dying slowly in the sweltering barracks of Indian Territory in Oklahoma, far from their traditional hunting grounds, they chose to walk home. That thousand-mile journey north became known as the Northern Cheyenne Exodus, and their descendants now live on the land they fought to reclaim: a 445,000-acre reservation in southeastern Montana bounded by the Tongue River to the east and the Crow Reservation to the west, just miles from where Custer fell at Little Bighorn.

Image: U.S. Department of Agriculture | Public domain

Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation: The Walk That Would Not End

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Department of Agriculture, Public domain. The Cheyenne called themselves Notameohmesehese, the Northern Eaters, because they were great hunters who kept their people well-fed in the Powder River Country. But after the Black Hills War and the horrors of Sand Creek and Washita massacres, the government forced them south to...

Image: U.S. Department of Agriculture | Public domain

Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation: A Nation Restored

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Department of Agriculture, Public domain. President Chester Arthur established the Tongue River Indian Reservation by executive order on November 16, 1884. The original boundaries left out many Cheyenne families who had already homesteaded east of the Tongue River, so the St. Labre Catholic Mission stepped in to help the...

Image: U.S. Department of Agriculture | Public domain

Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation: Battlefields and Basketball

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Department of Agriculture, Public domain. The reservation sits approximately twenty miles east of the Little Bighorn battlefield where Cheyenne warriors like Wooden Leg fought alongside the Lakota in 1876. That same fighting spirit took a different form at Tongue River Boarding School in Busby, which opened in 1904. By t...

Image: U.S. Department of Agriculture | Public domain

Northern Cheyenne Indian Reservation: Living Language, Living Culture

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit U.S. Department of Agriculture, Public domain. More than a quarter of reservation residents over age five speak a language other than English, keeping the Cheyenne tongue alive across generations. The tribe has produced Grammy-nominated flutist Joseph Fire Crow, linguist and human rights activist Marie Sanchez who served as c...

Image: U.S. Department of Agriculture | Public domain