Biography

Yellow Wolf was a leader of the Kiowa tribe during the turbulent period of transition by Great Plains tribes to life on U.S. reservations from the 1850s through the 1870s. He was one of several Native American delegates from the Southern Plains who traveled to Washington, D.C. in March 1863 to visit President Abraham Lincoln and to air their grievances. In a photograph taken of the delegation in the White House "Summer House," Yellow Wolf is seen wearing a Jefferson Peace Medal given to the Kiowa by President Thomas Jefferson. Yellow Wolf died of pneumonia days after the photograph was taken. He is referenced as one of the "Indian Chiefs" in a letter written by Joseph Camp Griffin Kennedy to Frances Miller Seward, dated March 26, 1863.