Black Kettle: The Cheyenne Chief Who Sought Peace but Found War Book

I highly recommend this book, depicting the life of the Cheyenne Chief, Black Kettle. His approach and attitude toward trying to peaceably reconcile the problems between whites and Indians was quite remarkable for the day. But, unfortunately, the whites were not all that interested in peace, breaking treaty after treaty, and repeated betrayal of the Indians, to the point of murdering peaceful Indians and noncombatant women and children. A must read for anyone interested in the settling of America and the westward movement of whites in the mid 1800s.

The Black Kettle Museum is in Cheyenne, Oklahoma, and I look forward to visiting it at some point. He believed the only way to save his people (the Cheyennes) was to make peace with the white man. It seems he was an admirable man and a capable leader of his people, and unfailingly (to his unnecessary death) believed the white man wanted peace as much as he did. Although there were some good and trustworthy white men, by and large it seems as though the white man just wanted the "Indian problem" to go away.