Beginning in the 1830s, the
Dog Soldiers had evolved from the Cheyenne military society of the same name into a separate, composite band of Cheyenne and Lakota warriors that took as its territory the headwaters country of the Republican and Smoky Hill rivers in southern Nebraska, northern Kansas, and the northeast of
Colorado Territory. By the 1860s, as conflict between Indians and encroaching whites intensified, the influence wielded by the militaristic Dog Soldiers, together with that of the military societies within other Cheyenne bands, had become a significant counter to the influence of the traditional Council of Forty-four chiefs, who were more likely to favor peace with the whites. The
Sand Creek Massacre of November 29, 1864, besides causing a heavy loss of life and material possessions by the Cheyenne and Arapaho bands present at Sand Creek, also devastated the Cheyenne's traditional government, due to the deaths at Sand Creek of eight of 44 members of the Council of Forty-four, including
White Antelope, One Eye,
Yellow Wolf, Big Man, Bear Man,
War Bonnet, Spotted Crow, and Bear Robe, as well as headmen of some of the Cheyenne's military societies. Among the chiefs killed were most of those who had advocated peace with white settlers and the U.S. government. The effect of this on Cheyenne society was to exacerbate the social and political rift between the traditional council chiefs and their followers on the one hand and the Dog Soldiers on the other. To the Dog Soldiers, the Sand Creek Massacre illustrated the folly of the peace chiefs' policy of accommodating the whites through the signing of treaties such as the first
Treaty of Fort Laramie and the
Treaty of Fort Wise and vindicated the Dog Soldiers' own militant posture towards the whites. The moral authority of traditional Council chiefs to moderate the behavior of the tribe's young men and to treat with whites was severely hampered by these events as well as the ascendancy of the Dog Soldiers' militant policies. == Today ==