Video: Jenny Parker, last direct descendant of Fort Robinson massacre

Jenny Seminole Parker is the last direct descendant of a survivor of the Fort Robinson, Nebraska, outbreak in January 1879. Her father, Miles Nelson Seminole, known by the Cheyennes as Big Whiteman, was among the Cheyennes who escaped the fort and lived to tell about it. At the time, about 150 Cheyenne were imprisoned at the fort. Cavalry troops at Fort Robinson would not release the people, instead they starved them because they refused to be sent to Oklahoma Indian Territory. Today, youths from the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana make the run from Fort Robinson back to their reservation to honor some 70 Cheyenne who were killed trying to go home.

Parker spoke with Northern Cheyenne youths in Crawford, Neb. on Saturday. The young people are running from Fort Robinson back to their reservation in southeast Montana, a 400-mile journey.

“I hope my message to the runners came across in a good way,” she said. “I wanted to encourage them to have a strong heart, to be true to themselves and to be honest with themselves.” She said she believed the Cheyennes who survived did so because of their strong spiritual energy.

Jodi Rave