Mo-nah-se-tah facts for kids

Mo-nah-se-tah or Mo-nah-see-tah (c. 1850 - 1922), aka Me-o-tzi, was the daughter of the Cheyenne chief Little Rock. Her father was killed on November 28, 1868, in the Battle of Washita River when the camp of Chief Black Kettle, of which Little Rock was a member, was attacked by the 7th U.S. Cavalry under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. Mo-nah-se-tah was among the 53 Cheyenne women and children taken captive by the 7th Cavalry after the battle.

According to Captain Frederick Benteen, chief of scouts Ben Clark, and Cheyenne oral history, Custer cohabited with teenage Mo-nah-se-tah during the winter and early spring of 1868–1869. Mo-nah-se-tah gave birth to a child in January 1869, two months after Washita; Cheyenne oral history alleges that she later bore a second child, fathered by Custer, in late 1869.

Battle of the Washita

At daybreak on November 27, 1868, the 7th U.S. Cavalry under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Custer attacked a Cheyenne camp of 51 lodges on the Washita River in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). Custer's troops were able to take control of the village quickly, but it took longer to quell all remaining resistance. As Custer acknowledged in his report of the battle, some measures were taken to protect noncombatants, with troops directed to take women and children who had been captured to a designated lodge in the village to be held under guard as the battle continued. One of the scouts, Raphael Romero, was sent to assure those women and children who had remained in their lodges during the attack that they would not be harmed. A total of fifty-three women and children were taken captive.