Abstract

The attribution of Sioux primacy in the Plains Indian wars of the nineteenth century rests upon numerical superiority rather than actual battles fought and casualties taken. Through ethnogenesis, the formation of a new political entity, the Cheyennes attained the only “tribal” status in the Great Plains, marked by an overarching authority structure buttressed by powerful religious sanctions. This gave them a generally unrecognized importance. The writing of Thomas B. Marquis, an agency physician, delineates Cheyenne-Sioux interactions in the 1870s, highlighted by an unprecedented two-year alliance with the Hunkpapa leader Sitting Bull. This alliance in 1876 probably determined the outcome of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.