The Fighting Cheyennes

“A long association with the Cheyennes has given me a special interest in them, and a special wish that they should be allowed to speak for themselves. What the Indians saw in the battles here described, I have learned during years of intimate acquaintance with those who took part in them.” —George Bird Grinnell, Preface to The Fighting Cheyennes

The Fighting Cheyennes (1915), by George Bird Grinnell, describes the battles fought by the Cheyennes, a Native American people originally from what is now Minnesota. In writing this book, Grinnell consulted many different people with first-hand experience in the Cheyenne wars, and presents, as he stated, “the accounts by whites and Indians, without comment.” One of Grinnell’s main sources was the researcher George Hyde (1882–1968), who claimed to be the ghost writer for this classic book.