- Height1.85 m
- In 1867 a peace treaty between the U.S. government and five major western Native American tribes-Kiowa, Comanche, Apache, Arapaho, and Cheyenne-took place near Medicine Lodge, Kansas, where it is still celebrated annually. However, the peace treaty was short-lived. A year later Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and 574 soldiers killed Chief Black Kettle along with 102 Cheyenne men, women, and children in the Washita Massacre in Western Oklahoma.
Philip Caldwell was born on January 20, 1957 in Medicine Lodge. He is the son of Little Coyote, Chief of the Cheyenne, and 3/4 Native American June Caldwell, a college professor of English and etiquette. Chief Little Coyote was the great great grandson of Chief Black Kettle.
Philip was raised in Medicine Lodge and towns nearby by his mother and her parents and was proud of his ancestry. The fervor for his Native American heritage became even greater when in his mid-30s he became best friends with his father and learned the Cheyenne history, customs, and language. He is an advocate for Native American causes, speaks frequently on the crisis of missing Native American women, and is a member of the American Indian Movement. In 1994 he spent five months in the Walk Across America, which was a 3000 mile walk from San Francisco to Washington D.C. for Native American civil rights.
Having an interest in martial arts that started at a young age and continued throughout his life, Philip is now a 7th degree black belt in American Kenpo and a 7th degree black belt in Moo Duk Kwan. In 2011 he was inducted into the International Independent Martial Arts Association Hall of Fame and in 2014 he was inducted into the United States Martial Arts Hall of Fame. He enjoys practicing and teaching both disciplines. He was honored to be the personal bodyguard of William Wayne Red Hat Jr., the Cheyenne Keeper of the Arrows.
Philip started acting in the 1970s by appearing in commercials for Coca-Cola and Safeway and as a movie extra in "Picnic" (1975) and "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" (1978). Unfortunately, life took him away from acting until he appeared in "The Contested Plains" (2022). He is thrilled to return to acting.- IMDb mini biography by: Greg Lower
- When Custer's Seventh Calvary galloped into the sleeping Indian village at Washita with orders to spare no one, he was not targeting Chief Black Kettle. He had no idea who he was attacking.
- When Custer found out that he was attacking the tribe of Chief Black Kettle, the tribe that was attacked four years earlier at the Sand Creek Massacre in southeast Colorado on November 29, 1864, where about 400 people were slaughtered, he ordered his solders to stop killing the women and children.
- Chief Black Kettle was known as a man of peace. He signed the Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty with the U.S. Government for "perpetual peace". On the dreadful morning of his death, his tribe feared nothing and had posted no guards. A white flag of peace flew above his teepee as instructed by the U.S.
- The soldiers looting after the massacre came across U.S. Army pots and pans, gifts from the peace treaty and evidence that the tribe was peaceful. Nonetheless, Custer ordered that each and every one of the 800 Indian spotted ponies be shot to impose "a severe blow to the tribe", as Custer would later write. The remains of the horses littered the site for decades.
- An artist of Naive American regalia and paintings.
- Before you throw that first punch, know that it's not going to end the way you think.
- Remember to start every morning with prayer as soon as you wake.
- God put women on earth to be the essence of life. Cherish them daily and forever.
- You cannot be ruled from below if you are to be great. You must be ruled from above.
- Kids never leave home.
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