American West: 1861-76

Lesson 4: Hancock, Custer and the 7th Cavalry, Red Cloud and the Peace Commission

The Peace Commission Comes to a Grand Conclusion.

The Peace Commission concluded that the Indians wanted peace and advised that Fort Phil Kearney and the other forts along the Bozeman Trail should be abandoned. Also, eighty thousand square miles of the Missouri and Yellowstone River basin should be set aside for exclusive occupancy by the Indians.

Brady tells us in The Sioux Indian Wars that after the Wagon-Box Fight, Red Cloud knew the whites could not be run from Fort Phil Kearney or the rest of the Plains. He was invited to come in for peace talks but sent word that he was too busy getting ready for the fall buffalo hunt. It is probably true that he feared for his life if he came in to any fort, no matter the purpose.

During these peace talks it was revealed that Black Kettle had signed a peace agreement on the Little Arkansas, giving away the Cheyenne hunting grounds in western Kansas. But he had stressed that he could only speak for his eighty lodges, not for the two hundred lodges in the north. He was told that these other chiefs could sign later. But still, this did not mean that others would abide by the treaty, such as the hot headed Cheyenne Dog Soldiers who looked on the Smoky Hill Road to Denver much the same as Red Cloud regarded the area of the Bozeman Trail.

The conclusions of the Peace Commission was accepted by the Indian Bureau, which was not be placed in the War Department, but organized as a separate department.

Nathaniel G. Taylor, former congressman and Methodist cleric, was appointed head of the Indian Bureau. He believed that two large reservations should be provided for the Plains Indians, one north of Nebraska while the other would be south of Kansas. Military operations in these areas should be placed under the direction and control of the Indian Department. Peace emissaries would be sent to the Plains Indians and all other Indians.

General William T. Sherman

General Sherman did not want these forts abandoned. In his opinion, per Utley in The Indian Frontier, this “would invite the whole Sioux nation down to the main Platte road.” The reason for closing the forts was that it would rid the area between the Platte and Arkansas Rivers of all Indians, making the main emigrant roads secure and allowing the completion of the Union Pacific and Kansas Pacific railroads—or so they believed.

General Alfred H. Terry

The President authorized the Taylor Peace Commission to “identify and remove the causes of hostility and attempt to consolidate all the Plains Indians on reservations,” per Utley’s Indian Frontier. Serving on this commission would be Generals William T. Sherman, William Harney, and Alfred Terry.

Now, either the Peace Commission secured peace or the army would be turned loose to secure its own brand of peace.

Back in 1854 General Harney was involved in another western war. This one involved an animal--and it wasn't a horse or a buffalo. Read about it here:

The Pig War By Elizabeth Gibson http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/old_...

The source for this section is:

Brady, Cyrus Townshend. The Sioux Indian Wars, From the Powder River to the Little Big Horn, Indian Head Books, New York, 1992.

Utley, Robert M. The Indian Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. 1984.

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