Porcupine Bear Prior to the peace council held at
Bent's Fort in 1840, the
Algonquian-speaking
Southern Cheyenne and
Arapaho were allied against their traditional enemies, the
Comanche,
Kiowa, and
Plains Apache, who belonged to different language families and cultures. In 1837, while raiding the Kiowa horse herds along the North Fork of the Red River, a party of 48 Cheyenne Bowstring Men were discovered and killed by Kiowa and Comanche warriors.
Porcupine Bear, chief of the Dog Soldiers, took up the war pipe of the Cheyenne. He carried it to the various Cheyenne and Arapaho camps in order to gain support for revenge against the Kiowa. He reached a Northern Cheyenne camp along the
South Platte River just after it had traded for liquor from
American Fur Company at
Fort Laramie. Porcupine Bear joined in the drinking. He sat and sang Dog Soldier war songs. Two of his cousins, Little Creek and Around, became caught up in a drunken fight. Little Creek got on top of Around and held up a knife, ready to stab Around; at that point, Porcupine Bear, aroused by Around's calls for help, tore the knife away from Little Creek, and stabbed him with it several times. He forced Around to finish off Little Creek. By the rules governing military societies, a man who murdered or accidentally killed another member of his tribe had blood on his hands and was prohibited from joining a society. A society's member who committed such a crime was expelled and outlawed. Porcupine Bear was expelled from the Dog Soldiers, and he and his relatives had to camp apart from the rest of the Cheyenne. The Dog Soldiers were disgraced by Porcupine Bear's act. The other chiefs forbade them from leading war against the Kiowa. Wolf reformed the Bowstring Society, which had been nearly annihilated in the fight with the Kiowa. It took over leading warfare against the Kiowa. Although outlawed by the main body of the Cheyenne, Porcupine Bear led the Dog Soldiers into battle against the Kiowa and Comanche at Wolf Creek. He and his warriors were reportedly the first to strike the enemy, considered an honor, but due to their status as outlaws, their feat was not celebrated. In the wake of the
cholera epidemic in 1849, which greatly reduced the
Masikota band of Cheyenne, the remaining
Masikota joined the Dog Soldiers. Prominent or ambitious warriors from other bands also gradually joined the Dog Soldier band. Over time, the Dog Soldiers took a prominent leadership role in the wars against the whites. The rest of the tribe began to regard them with respect and no longer as outlaws. particularly devastating the
Masikota band and nearly wiping out the
Oktoguna. The Dog Soldiers band 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. They were allies of the Sioux-speaking
Lakota and
Brulé Lakota, who also frequented that area. The Cheyenne began to intermarry with the Lakota in that territory. Many Dog Soldiers were half-Lakota, including their leader
Tall Bull. They effectively became a third division of the Cheyenne people, between the Northern Cheyenne, who ranged north of the
Platte River, and the Southern Cheyenne, who occupied the area north of the
Arkansas River. A strong band numbering perhaps 100 lodges, the Dog Soldiers were hostile to the encroaching whites. By the 1860s, as conflict between Indigenous people and whites intensified, the militaristic Dog Soldiers increased their influence, together with that of the warrior societies of other Cheyenne bands. The warriors became a significant counter-influence to the leadership of the traditional Council of Forty-Four chiefs, who were likely to favor working for peace with the whites. == Indian wars ==