In the autumn of 1878 a band of Cheyenne Indians set out from Indian Territory, where they had been sent by the U.S. government, to return to their homeland in Yellowstone country. Mari Sandoz tells the saga of their heartbreaking fifteen-hundred-mile flight.
The Oscar nominated 1964 movie, officially titled “John Ford’s Cheyenne Autumn,” so upset Sandoz that she asked to have her name removed from the writing credits and refused to allow any of her other works made into movies. To Sandoz, the movie flew in the face of everything she wanted to accomplish with the book.