Amelia Schafer and Kevin Abourezk
ICT
If it was nice outside, there was a good chance Ben Nighthorse Campbell was on his Harley-Davidson, long ponytail blowing in the wind as the U.S. Capitol slowly shrunk in his rearview mirror.
It became a running joke that if the sun was shining, the U.S. senator would set aside his official duties and hit the road, leaving his staff to explain his absence, said his former press secretary, Audrey Hudson.
“He got out of DC every chance he could get,” she said. “He hated that swamp.”
Nevertheless, for his constituents and for Native people, for many years he waded deep into it.
On Dec. 30, the 92-year-old Northern Cheyenne politician died at his family ranch in Ignacio, Colorado, surrounded by his family.
Campbell dedicated the better part of his life to serving Indian Country and the state of Colorado in various roles, in his Northern Cheyenne tribal government, as a Colorado House representative, as a U.S. House representative, as the first Native U.S. senator since 1920, and as chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.
“Ben was one of the most remarkable Northern Cheyenne leaders and visionaries in our history,” said Gene Small, Northern Cheyenne Tribe president. “The young ones should always remember his name.”
While Small didn’t get to meet Campbell, he said the senator’s legacy has been felt across the community.
“I saw him as a model of discipline and courage,” Small said. “He was a warrior at heart, guided by respect.”
Campbell was a descendant of Black Horse, a Cheyenne warrior who fought at the 1876 Battle of the Little Big Horn in which nearly 1,800 Cheyenne and Lakota warriors defeated Gen. George Armstrong Custer and his Seventh Cavalry. Small said Campbell was given his ancestor’s name, Da-ev Mo-en-ha, or Black Horse, which can also translate to “night horse” in Cheyenne, by the Cheyenne Council of Forty-Four Chiefs, of which he served as a member.
“Black Horse was very brave, surviving the Battle of Greasy Grass (Little Big Horn); a ‘wolf’ or scout on the Long Walk the Northerns made from Oklahoma,” Small said. “Apparently those genes were strong, indicated by Ben’s character.”
Campbell was also a descendant of survivors of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, which led to the deaths of 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people.
He served as a senator for Colorado for two terms beginning in 1993 and was the first Native American elected to the chamber since 1920 and the first Native American to serve as chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. He began his political career as a Democrat but switched parties in 1995.
“Coming from Colorado, it’s kind of a poetic justice that a descendant of Sand Creek could be elected in the state where it happened,” Campbell said during a Smithsonian event for the 150th anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre. “That, I suppose, is part of the healing process.”
While serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, Campbell was instrumental in the development of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.
Rick West Jr., the museum’s founding director, described Campbell as the museum’s “father,” as well as a fellow Cheyenne chief. Like West for the Southern Cheyenne, Campbell served as a Northern Cheyenne chief.
Along with former Hawaii Sen. Dan Inouye, who died in 2012, Campbell championed legislation to establish the museum. West said without the two senators’ support, the museum might never have been built on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
“I’ve always been fundamentally grateful to Ben for his role in making that happen,” he said.
Campbell was “fiercely independent,” a disposition he forged through a lifetime spent breaking barriers, which West said “required a great deal of gut and grit, and he had all of that.”
Like West, Campbell walked the boundary between his Cheyenne people and the majority society that surrounded them. To do that successfully required Campbell to use his roots as the “principal guide for what you do at that boundary,” West said.
“He did it in a way that was quite obviously better than many people had,” he said.
“No one has been more important to me on the Good Red Road than Ben,” West said.
Campbell later co-authored the Indian Gaming Act of 1987, which established federal standards for gaming on tribal lands.
Victor Rocha, conference chair for the National Indian Gaming Association and a longtime friend of Campbell’s, said his legacy should focus on his efforts to fight for “those who don’t have a voice.”
Much like Ernie Stevens Jr., the former chairman of the gaming association who died Sept. 26, Campbell was exceptionally tall and known for his flamboyantly western attire, Rocha said. And, much like Stevens, Campbell’s physical size mirrored his personality and gravitas.
“He was a strong defender of Indian Country,” Rocha said.
Campbell switched to the Republican Party in March 1995, angry with Democrats for killing a balanced-budget amendment in the Senate. His switch outraged Democratic leaders and was considered a coup for the GOP.
But he also switched parties because he believed doing so would give him greater opportunity to help his state and Native people, Rocha said.
“He just felt like he was being ignored (by Democrats) and couldn’t get things done,” he said. “I think it was a fairly pragmatic approach.”
Rocha last saw Campbell in 2023, when the former senator spoke at the Global Gaming Expo in Las Vegas. Despite arriving in a wheelchair, when it came time for him to speak, Campbell stood with the help of a cane to deliver his speech.
“He was a good politician and a good man,” Rocha said. “He was a good man.”
Campbell also worked to extend protections to the Sand Creek Massacre site and sponsored legislation dropping Custer’s name from the Little Bighorn Battle site. The site was previously named “Custer’s Last Stand.”
In 2004, Campbell made history as the first senator to address the Senate in traditional Indigenous regalia. He donned white, beaded buckskin and a traditional headdress, standing out amongst the sea of dark business suits. Campbell had just come from the grand opening of the National Museum of the American Indian and had to submit a special request to wear his regalia on the floor of the Senate.
“This is a very special day in all the lives of all Native Americans and a very special day in my life,” Campbell said while addressing the Senate.
In 1994, Campbell supported the Amendment to American Indian Religious Freedom Act, which allowed for the ceremonial use of peyote by citizens of federally recognized tribes.
Campbell began his career in politics by serving in the Colorado State Legislature from 1983-1986 and was elected to Congress in 1987. In 1992, Campbell was elected to the United States Senate and reelected in 1998. He finished his time in the Senate in 2005.
Hudson, who served as Campbell’s press secretary in the late 1990s, described him as a “one of a kind maverick who had absolutely no fear” and voted according to his beliefs.
“People who tried to bully him learned that it didn’t work,” she said. “Politicians today, they’re just too willing to go whatever the way the wind is blowing.”
Hudson lamented the way journalists have focused so much on his party switch in articles about his death. She said Campbell would have hated that.
Prior to his party switch, she said, Campbell had been a “media darling.”
“After he switched, that all changed overnight,” she said. “They trashed him every chance they got. They just never forgave him for switching parties.”
She blamed the journalistic focus on his party switch, even in his later years, on the media’s unwillingness to accept that he was a Native lawmaker who switched from a party that they believed supported minority rights more than Republicans did. Hudson recalled Campbell being especially upset after finishing an interview with a C-SPAN reporter who asked him at length about his decision to switch parties, many years prior at that point.
“I said, ‘Ben, they can’t let it go. You’re not allowed to switch parties. You’re an Indian. You’re not allowed to switch parties,’” she said. “It drove him crazy. He was so much more than that. He would hate that this is on his obituary.”
She said Campbell would prefer to be remembered for his work supporting military service men and women, as well as supporting efforts to honor Native American history and culture.
Rather than being a Democrat or Republican, she said, he was a western politician who cared about issues like water, grazing and the environment.
“His politics were western,” she said. “They weren’t left. They weren’t right.”
She said one exception was when he was offered the chairmanship of an appropriations subcommittee that oversaw immigration issues.
“He told them they were 200 years too late but he’d take it anyway,” Hudson said.
Outside of his career in politics, Campbell was a U.S. Air Force veteran, serving as an air policeman during the Korean War and was awarded two medals – the Korean Service Medal and the Air Medal.
A descendant of Portuguese immigrants to Ellis Island on his mother’s side, Campbell was awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Freedom on May 12, 2008, for his work in Indian Country and as a descendant of immigrants.
He was also a member of the 1964 Olympic inaugural USA Judo Team.
Campbell founded Ben Nighthorse Consultants which focused on federal policy, including Native American affairs and natural resources. The former senator also drove the Capitol Christmas Tree across the country to Washington, D.C., on several occasions.
Campbell was also active in Northern Cheyenne politics as a member of the Northern Cheyenne Council of Forty-Four Chiefs.
In the late 1990s when the Northern Cheyenne Tribal Office burned down, Campbell made history by securing an earmark in the Bureau of Indian Affairs facilities construction budget for the building’s reconstruction, Small said.
Up until the time of his death, Campbell had made monthly donations to the Northern Cheyenne elders support program, Small said.
“He carried his culture, discipline and creativity into every arena,” the National Congress of American Indians said in a statement on Dec. 31. “He earned global respect for building bridges between peoples and nations.”
Later in life, he was a jewelry maker, rancher, father and grandfather.
News of Campbell’s passing shook Indian Country on Tuesday, with leaders from California to D.C. sharing stories of how the Northern Cheyenne U.S. senator impacted their lives.
“Ben Nighthorse Campbell stood at the intersection of our peoples’ history and future,” said NCAI President Mark Macarro in a Dec. 31 statement. “His extraordinary life and accomplishments broke barriers and left a path for all those who seek to follow as leaders in Indian Country and in America.”
Leaders from the Sand Creek National Monument, Colorado Republican Party, USA Judo Team, Lakota People’s Law Project and Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums issued statements honoring Campbell’s legacy.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, Democrat, ordered all flags to be lowered in Campbell’s honor.
“From being an Olympic athlete, to jewelry designer, horse trainer and then public servant at the state and federal level, he lived many different lives in his own unique way and always found a way to give back and serve,” Polis said in a statement on Dec. 31. “He will be missed here in Colorado and across the country, and his contributions leave a lasting legacy to our state and nation.”
Phillip Whiteman Jr., a hereditary Northern Cheyenne chief, said he visited Campbell four weeks ago to sing him the traditional chief’s song before Campbell began his journey.
“He told me, ‘Phillip, I might not see you again,’ and I said, ‘No, we’re going to see each other again, because Cheyennes never say goodbye,'” he said.
He said Campbell had encouraged him throughout his life, and before he died he told Whiteman to continue with his plans for a Little Big Horn memorial peace day event on June 25.
He said it was powerful to see a Cheyenne man be elected to represent a state that had been home to their ancestors before they were forcibly removed.
“He lived four lives,” Whiteman said. “He was an Olympian, a horseman, a senator and a chief.”
In honor of Campbell’s legacy, the Northern Cheyenne tribe will designate Dec. 31 as “Ben Nighthorse Campbell Day,” Small said.
Small said the tribe will be sending a delegation of chiefs, the tribal veteran’s Color Guard, council members and his adopted sister, Clara Caufield, to Campbell’s “going-away” ceremony.
Campbell will be buried in traditional Cheyenne custom near his horses, Small said.
“There is no word in Cheyenne for a final goodbye,” Small said. “Rather, we say, ‘We will see you again. Wait for us.’”