American West: 1861-76

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

Medicine Lodge Treaty, October 1867

In a pleasant valley of the Medicine Lodge Creek, near Fort Larned, Kansas, five thousand Indians gathered with their hundreds of tipis and grazing pony herds. This vast gathering of native people was joined by some two hundred soldiers and a troop of newsmen, all followed by thirty wagons filled with an amazing variety of presents for the Indians.

Fort Larned, Kansas

When the talks began, the Kiowas and Comanches led the discussions. Strangely, the Cheyennes were silent though Black Kettle, with fifty lodges, was present. All other Cheyennes, about two hundred lodges, were camped some thirty miles away on the Cimarron River. They were performing the rite to renew their sacred medicine arrow, and were “nervous about talking with whites so soon after a season passed in killing whites,” Utley’s Indian Frontier tells us. However, they did later join the talks.

After Chief Commissioner Taylor finished speaking, Senator Henderson explained to the gathered Indians that someday the buffalo would be gone and that they would be forced to change their way of living. They would have to live in houses on a reservation and become farmers. The Indians insisted otherwise but the Commissioners persisted, day after day, as the talks continued.

The Indians were told, per Utley in The Indian Frontier that “The Indians could continue to hunt anywhere south of the Arkansas River so long as the buffalo ran. They would receive annuities for thirty years.” The Indians tended to believe this, seeing the stacks of goods that were ready to be handed out as soon as the treaty was signed. Utley tells us that the sight of these presents “tended to obscure the promise to yield all lands outside of the proposed reservations, stop fighting and begin farming, and to put their children in schools. Why worry? The Indians could hunt as long as the buffalo ran.” And so they signed.

Kiowa Chief Satank

Almost every important chief signed: Satank, Satanta, and Kicking Bird of the Kiowas; Ten Bears, Horse Back, and Iron Mountain of the Comanches; Poor Bear of the Kiowa-Apaches; Little Raven of the Arapahos; Black Kettle, Tall Bull, and Little Robe of the Cheyennes; and the belligerent Dog Soldier Bull Bear. Bull Bear nearly didn’t sign but General Harney told him that the Great Father knew Bull Bear was an important chief and wouldn’t accept the treaty unless he signed.

General Harney, a member of the Peace Commission

The Peace Commission returned to Fort Laramie and on January 7, 1868 announced that peace on the Plains was made—well, almost. They now hoped to talk to Red Cloud but had to settle with talking to a few friendly Crows. Red Cloud and all the hostile Sioux stayed away, choosing to remain free, and hostile, out in the Powder River country.

The January 7, 1868 report of the Peace Commission considerably advanced the hope that there would now be peace. But there still was one very important element missing. The commission still needed Red Cloud to sign the treaty and, therefore, the report called for one more effort at treaty making.

Many years before the Medicine Lodge Treaty took place, the Plains Indians first aquired horses. Here's an interesting article that takes you back, from the horses' point of view, to that time.

We Are The God Dogs By Mary Trotter Kion http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/grea... The Comanches called us God Dogs. We were known by other names as well. The Sioux called us Medicine Dog, while the Blackfoot referred to our kind as Big Dogs, though we are not dogs nor related to them.

The source for this section is:

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

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