Response to brutal assault brought more pain
Indigenous leader shamed, shunned by some in her tribe
BILLINGS, Mont. — From the moment Silver Little Eagle decided to run for Northern Cheyenne Tribal Council, people dismissed her as too young, too green. But she was determined. Wooing voters with coffee, doughnuts and vows of bringing new energy to tribal issues, she won as a write-in candidate, becoming her tribe’s youngest councilwoman at age 23.
Then last month, Little Eagle was beaten and robbed inside a Billings hotel room by two other women. News of the assault of a young Native American leader traveled fast, shocking people far beyond Montana. But it was only the start of Little Eagle’s travails.
Since the May 16 assault, Little Eagle said she had been bullied and harassed, and failed by the very tribal systems she had campaigned to change. To some, her story has become an example of the shame and indifference Indigenous women confront as victims of violence, even from their own communities.
“I was thrown to the wolves,” Little Eagle said, sitting inside a safe house where she has been staying with relatives.
As Little Eagle talked about her assault one recent morning, her left eye was still bloodied and swollen. The bandages had just come off her broken nose. Her right arm was a fading map of bruises.
The deeper wounds were harder to see.
Little Eagle and her family said tribal agencies and law enforcement had been slow to take her attack seriously. A tribal judge dismissed their efforts to get a permanent restraining order. People on local social media groups have spent weeks maligning her. Little Eagle said she no longer felt safe on the reservation. She does not know when she will return to the tribal council.
“It just leaves me wondering who I am,” she said.
More than 80% of American Indians and Alaska Natives become victims of violence, according to the Justice Department, a long-running crisis that activists say is worsened by inconsistent and haphazard responses from law enforcement. On some reservations, Native women are 10 times as likely to be killed as the national average, according to the Indian Law Resource Center.
Under pressure from activists and victims’ families, leaders in Washington as well as state and tribal governments have passed laws and created task forces to address the violence and improve coordination between law enforcement agencies. But activists said little had actually changed on the ground when it came to prosecuting those who commit violence or addressing the needs of victims and their families.
“It’s so pervasive that it even happens to our elected tribal leaders and there’s no recourse,” said Desi Small-Rodriguez, a demographer and sociologist at UCLA and a Northern Cheyenne citizen. “In Montana, Indian women are not safe. We’re not even safe among our own people.”
Little Eagle’s story began far from the small safe house where she now shuttles back and forth between doctor’s visits and counseling sessions. She grew up among the rolling grasses and rocky hills in the tiny reservation town of Lame Deer, population 2,000.
She got a scholarship to Dartmouth College but felt out of place, at the bottom of a hierarchy of class and money. She left after a year.
Little Eagle’s story has stirred pained conversations about violence within Indigenous communities — and the price of speaking out. Little Eagle said her assailants were two other Native women; she said she knew one through intramural volleyball.
On the night of the attack, they had gone out together in Billings and ended up in Little Eagle’s room at the DoubleTree, according to Little Eagle and her family. The last thing Little Eagle remembered was being kicked in the head.
When she woke up the next morning, her money, identification and phone were gone, and her car had been stolen, according to Little Eagle and the Billings police. When she staggered into the bathroom to wash off the blood, she said, she could barely recognize her swollen face in the mirror.
The police in Billings said that Little Eagle’s attack was not random or racially motivated and that they were seeking to interview two women, 25 and 27 years old, whom they described as “persons of interest.” Nobody has been arrested.
Little Eagle and her family said the assault had forced them onto a frustrating quest for justice.
When the family called a tribal agency that helps victims of violence, they were told the sparse staff was too busy working on budgets and a new computer system to immediately help. The tribal council has made no public statements about the attack.
Little Eagle was able to get a temporary protective order against the two women she says assaulted her, but it expired after a tribal judge would not let her attend a court hearing remotely. They said they had to fill out new paperwork for a restraining order in Yellowstone County’s courts, off the reservation.
The Northern Cheyenne Nation’s president, judges and council leaders did not respond to several messages seeking comment.
As Little Eagle sought justice, her case became grist on social media.
Local Facebook groups have become no-holdsbarred public squares in many rural communities where local news sources are shutting down. A scrappy newspaper that had served the community, A Cheyenne Voice, closed in 2016. Into the void stepped groups like Cheyenne Truth, a Facebook group whose 6,400 members outnumbered the population on the reservation.
People in the group traded rumors and falsehoods about the assault. Some minimized Little Eagle’s injuries. Others speculated that Little Eagle had been having an affair with the husband of one of her assailants and that her attack had been some form of retribution.
One person wrote, “Held accountable is what needs to happen to Silver!” Another said, “Silver Little Eagle you need to resign!”
Little Eagle said there was no affair but added that was beside the point. The rampant shaming and dissection of her personal life would never have happened if Little Eagle were a man, she said. The online gossip became like a second assault.
“My healing was stripped away,” she said. “I wish I knew what was hurting them that made them want to hurt me.”
Facebook removed the Cheyenne Truth group for violating its policies against bullying and harassment after being contacted to comment for this article.
Others inside and outside the tribe rallied to her aid. Little Eagle’s family created a fundraising page that raised over $25,000 to cover medical and legal bills. Members of the Oglala Lakota Nation drove from South Dakota to deliver a red quilt emblazoned with their tribal flag.