page_title: Chief Black Coal (Northern Arapaho)
section_title: Intermediary chief
hierarchical_section_title: Chief Black Coal (Northern Arapaho) / Intermediary chief
caption_attribution_description: English: Group of Sioux and Arapaho Indians at the Sioux Delegation of 1877 in Washington D.C. (photo c. 1877) Standing: Joe Merrivale; Young Spotted Tail; Antoine Janis; Seated: Touch-the-Clouds (Oglala); and Northern Arapaho leaders Sharp Nose, Chief Black Coal (Northern_Arapaho); and Friday Worshinun &#91;1&#93;
context_page_description: Wo’óoseinee’, known commonly as Black Coal, was a prominent leader of the Northern Arapaho people during the latter half of the 19th Century. Serving as an intermediary between the Northern Arapaho and the United States, he helped lead the transition from free-roaming life and armed resistance to American expansion, to alliance and eventual settlement alongside the Eastern Shoshone at today's Wind River Indian Reservation.
context_section_description: Black Coal, along with Black Bear and Sorrel Horse, were Northern Arapaho signatories on the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), granting them rights to hunt north of the Platte River so long as game persisted. For the next few years, Black Coal alternately stayed near Red Cloud Agency, Fort Fetterman, and other posts to receive rations, and led his band on hunting expeditions.
  Black Coal refused to join Lakotas and Cheyennes in attacking the Shoshone in the Wind River Basin in 1874. The U.S. Army was poised to strike the Shoshone's enemies, and through two Shoshone scouts located and attacked Black Coal's camp of up to 112 lodges and 600-700 people on Bates Creek, a tributary of Nowood Creek in the Bridger Mountains (Wyoming). The fight at Bates Battlefield resulted in the death of 18-34 Arapahoes. Seventeen lay dead in a pile in a deep ravine that cut through the center of the camp. Chief Black Coal had his horse shot out from under him. Sources disagree as to whether Black Coal had three fingers of his right hand shot off during this battle, or during a previous incident.  However, only two missing fingers from this wound are in evidence in the 1877 photo of the Arapaho delegation to Washington D.C. After initially suffering heavy losses, the Arapaho climbed a bluff to the east of the creek and laid down heavy fire from behind the cover of limestone boulders, forcing the soldiers and Shoshones to withdraw. Captain Bates wrote that the battle would have been more successful had the Shoshones not commenced yelling their war whoops before the attack and spoiling the element of surprise. In this way, some of the Arapaho survivors may have survived because of the early warning they got from Shoshone war traditions. After this fight, some of the Arapahoes went south and stayed for several years, some going as far as Oklahoma. Black Coal moved to Pumpkin Butte and then located at Red Cloud Agency.
  When the U.S. Army went into the field in 1876 to attack the Cheyenne at the beginning of the Great Sioux War, Black Coal's band was headed south to Fort Fetterman on March 1, signaling their peaceful intent. Black Coal enlisted as a U.S. Army scout during this period, to secure higher status within the tribe, rations, Army pay, and hopefully the favor of U.S. Army officials that could bolster their case for securing a permanent reservation for the Northern Arapaho. Sharp Nose, leader of another band of Northern Arapaho, was chief of the Arapaho Scouts and served with Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie at the November 25, 1876 Dull Knife Fight on the Red Fork of Powder River that broke the resistance of the Northern Cheyenne.
  Seeking a permanent home for the Arapaho, Black Coal traveled to visit the Southern Arapaho Reservation on the Canadian River in Oklahoma in 1876, but found the location unsuitable. In 1877, Black Coal, along with Sharp Nose and interpreter Friday, went to Washington D.C. as part of a delegation that met President Rutherford B. Hayes. The goal of the delegation was to secure a permanent home for the Arapaho that would not be along the Missouri River or in Oklahoma Territory, a land Black Coal described as "sickly." Black Coal's speeches from this event show his mastery of persuasive speaking, arguing that the Arapaho would readily participate in farming and other "civilizing" programs in exchange for "good land" where they could farm. Within months, the United States was seeking permission of the Shoshones to locate the Arapahoes on the Sweetwater River, south of the Shoshone agency.
  The Northern Arapaho were later resettled on the Shoshone reservation, to be closer to the agency where they could receive rations. For the rest of his life, Black Coal worked to solidify this informal arrangement and codify Arapaho rights to live on Wind River.
caption: Arapahoes in Washington D.C. as part of the Sioux Delegation of 1877. Top Row, left to right: Antoine Janis, Young Spotted Tail, Joe Merrivale,; seated: Touch-the-Clouds (Minnicouju Lakota), and Northern Arapaho leaders Sharp Nose, Black Coal, Friday.[6]
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