The Cheyenne and Arapaho

According to oral history, the Cheyenne and Arapaho have a tradition of a golden age when war was unknown and universal peace prevailed. Strangers met in friendship and parted on good terms.

Migration to the Plains

What we know of the Cheyenne history begins in Minnesota. Then, in a series of movements, they traveled westward across the Missouri, past the shadows of the Sacred Mountain and the Black Hills, and out onto the high plains.

Older tribesmen recall traditions of their ancestors making this journey with their faces turned straight ahead, as one must do in obeying a supernatural command. Behind them lay the cornfields and earth lodges that bordered the banks of the Red and Cheyenne rivers.

The nomadic Cheyenne and Arapaho lived in the Great Plains area, east of the Rocky Mountains and west of the Mississippi River. The Arapaho lived in the Estes Park area of Colorado and the Cheyenne traveled the regions around Colorado Springs. Both tribes lived and moved all along the Colorado's Front Range.