RE: Fort Robinson Outbreak Spiritual Run Update

RE: Fort Robinson Outbreak Spiritual Run Update
----------------- Bulletin Message -----------------
From: Andrew Ironshell
Date: Jan 12, 2009 9:25 PM


Intrepid runners take on the elements to pay tribute to ancestors
By Jomay Steen, Rapid City Journal

As part of the Fort Robinson Outbreak Spiritual Run, a group of American Indian youths will run the final leg of a 400-mile journey through the Black Hills to Busby, Mont., to commemorate the 130th year of the Northern Cheyenne escape from Fort Robinson, Neb.


For Jonathan American Horse, Keynen Red Hat and Roy Fighting Bear’s ancestors, the journey was a defiant act of returning from Indian Territory to their Montana homelands. But for three 11-year-old boys from Lame Deer, Mont., it is time to remember their ancestors’ sacrifice, to relive a significant part of their tribe’s history and a test to see if they can do it.


“It isn’t the best weather,” American Horse said on Friday afternoon at Crawford, Neb.


He and 130 other runners would be breaking out of the barracks later at 10:30 p.m. into the raw winter wind to run by moonlight for the first 15 miles of the 400-mile trip.


In relay style, runners position themselves along U.S. Highway 385 about 100 feet apart as runners sprinted along the shoulder of the road, passing off a staff to the next group of runners. A half-dozen vans and school bus carried the runners along the route, picking up the sprinters and dropping off the new runners along the route.


For each of the three boys, it’s their second time to take part.


“I guess it’s fun. It is like being free from school, but it’s all about our culture,” American Horse said of why he wanted to participate.


“I try to think of my ancestors and what they had survived,” Red Hat said of his turn to run.


It is not for everyone, but there are those who will even hitchhike to the historical fort to take part like Johnny Big Medicine. On Friday morning, the 18-year-old arrived at Comanche Hall after being dropped off by some elders from Montana.


The Lame Deer High School student had felt a responsibility to organizers Phillip Whiteman Jr. and Lynette Two Bulls to take on running duties when conditions were too much for the younger runners. “We run when it’s too cold for the little ones,” he said.


But he also felt it was something he should do for his family.


“This is my fourth year running. My brother got into an accident and I just wanted to come and run for him,” Big Medicine said.


Whiteman said that in its first decade, volunteers have helped with feeding the participants, fueled the vans and kept the show on the road. This has included speakers who have volunteered to talk about their great grandparents as part of the educational portion of the journey.


“We have the unique opportunity of living in two worlds. As we run, sacrifice and learn to work together as a team, let this day be the beginning of your future,” Whiteman said.


Following the caravan of runners are a pair of Kansas historians documenting the oral storytelling of the journey. Jim Leiker, history professor of Johnson County Community College at Overland Park, Kan., and Ramon Powers, retired director of the Kansas State Historical Society, were documenting the cultural history of the entire story.


Leiker said the Northern Cheyenne had been sent down to Indian Territory in Oklahoma because of treaty terms negotiated between the U.S. Government and the Sioux. Two-thirds of the tribe decided to stay, but the rest wanted to return to their northern hunting grounds and resume their old way of life.


Through either misinformation by those interpreting what was said or outright lying by the government, the people of Dull Knife and Little Wolf believed they could return to Montana at any time. They set off on foot, but soon the military was in pursuit, he said.


Leiker said the two chiefs moving 350 people across the country had little control over their young men, who hated seeing the waves of new settlers moving into old hunting grounds. Whether it was through rage or to gain access to horses, Leiker said one military soldier and 43 civilians were killed in western Kansas.


“When they were eventually caught, the military destroyed all the horses,” Leiker said.


Pursued in earnest, the band eluded the military in the Nebraska Sand Hills splitting into two groups. Those going with Dull Knife were mostly the elderly, women and children that hoped to find help refuge on Red Cloud Agency. They would be surrounded by the military two-days from Fort Robinson in early November, where they later learned the Lakota chiefs Red Cloud and Spotted Tail had been relocated to Pine Ridge.


On Jan. 3, the government ordered Dull Knife and his people to immediately return to Oklahoma. “We’ll die before we go back,” Leiker said of the group.


Upon their escape from the barracks, 63 Cheyenne were wounded or killed by soldiers. A few managed to escape to Pine Ridge, where they lived with Red Cloud’s people. An estimated 38 Cheyenne began the last leg of their flight to their Montana homeland and freedom. Little Wolf’s group successfully made it into the Montana, he said.


“I think the people who followed Dull Knife and Little Wolf would have never stayed in Oklahoma,” he said.