Friday (Arapaho chief)

Friday (Arapaho: Teenokuhu^[1] or Warshinun (ca. 1822–1881),^[2] also known as Friday Fitzpatrick, was an Arapaho leader and interpreter in the mid to late 1800s. When he was around the age of eight, he was separated from his band and was taken in by a white trapper. During the next seven years, he was schooled in St. Louis, Missouri and went on trapping expeditions with his informally adopted father, Thomas Fitzpatrick. After he was recognized by his mother during an encounter with the Arapaho, he returned to the tribe.

Called the "Arapaho American" by tribal members, Friday was a translator, interpreter, and peacemaker who helped negotiate treaties and resolve cultural misunderstandings. He traveled with and translated for the explorers John C. Frémont in 1843 and Rufus Sage in the spring of 1844. He assisted Ferdinand V. Hayden during his surveying expedition and in the winter of 1859–1860 taught Hayden the Arapaho vocabulary.^[3] Friday became the leader of a band who were centered in the Cache la Poudre River area (near present-day Fort Collins, Colorado), but also ranged into Wyoming, Kansas and Nebraska. He made friends of white settlers in northern Colorado and secured jobs on farms and ranches for his tribal members after losing access to the Arapaho's traditional hunting grounds. After multiple attempts to establish a reservation for the Northern Arapaho in Colorado or Wyoming, Friday ultimately moved with his people to the Wind River Indian Reservation.