Lesson 4: Hancock, Custer and the 7th Cavalry, Red Cloud and the Peace Commission
Red Cloud Gets His Way
At last the Peace Commission received word that Red Cloud had agreed to meet with them in the spring. To insure their success they gave into what seemed to be the deciding factor in securing Red Cloud’s signature. If he signed the treaty, the new forts along the Bozeman Trail would be abandoned.
This, in conjunction with the promise to provide a large reservation, would surely be irresistible to Red Cloud. This reservation, that would contain all of present-day South Dakota, would be located north of Nebraska and west of the Missouri River.
Dakota Prairie
In addition, the Powder River country would be designated as “unceded Indian Territory” and would be closed to all whites. An interesting factor that Utley makes note of in The Indian Frontier is that the closing of the Powder River country to all whites put little stress on white travelers since the Union Pacific Railroad was quickly opening better routes to the Montana gold mines.
Virginia City, Montana
In the spring of 1868, runners were sent to the hostile Sioux camped in the Powder River country to invite them, and Red Cloud, to come to Fort Laramie and speak with the Peace Commission. However, except for Spotted Tail’s Brules, and a few other Sioux who came to sign the treaty in order to receive presents, the signers were, according to Utley, “the same old stay-around-the-fort” people that had signed previously. Red Cloud did not come in.
But Red Cloud did have the courtesy to send the commissioners a message. His message was, as quoted by Utley, “We are on the mountains looking down on the soldiers and the forts. When we see the soldiers moving away and the forts abandoned, then I will come down and talk.”
Red Cloud and his followers were not the only Sioux who were proving difficult to convince to sign the treaty. These Sioux were mostly Hunkpapa and Blackfoot Sioux, living north and east of the Powder River. They were not overly concerned about the Bozeman Trail, nor had they been overly threatened since the time that General Sully had invaded their land in 1864. The major stumbling blocks in the way of these Sioux signing the treaty was that their chiefs fully objected to whites just as much as Red Cloud did. These three were Black Moon, Four Horns, and one other man who was just then rising to power and making his superior ability known. That man was Sitting Bull.
Throughout the summer of 1868 messengers arrived at Red Cloud’s camp with pleas for him to come to the fort and sign the treaty. By the end of July Red Cloud observed the soldiers leaving Fort C. F. Smith on the Bighorn River. The following day Red Cloud and his men burned the empty fort. Within a few days the remaining two forts were abandoned and the Sioux torched Fort Phil Kearney, but still Red Cloud did not come in. He had, at last, won his personal war.
We've talked about several of the more important western forts so far. Here's one we haven't mentioned that played an important role in settling the west.
FORT RILEY: Cavalry Outpost to Infantry Powerhouse By Janette Kenney http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/kans...
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.
Suggest topics for discussion from this lesson.
Besides the decimation of the buffalo, what other reasons might Red Cloud, Black Kettle, and other Indians of the Plains have for wanting to keep the whites off the Plains?
Was it wise for the President to place such noted fighters as Generals Sherman, William Harney, and Alfred Terry on a Peace Commission?
Should Congress have dropped the idea of Peace Commissions and instead adopted a policy of out and out extermination of the Indians unless they went peaceably to reservations, and stayed on them?
Bibliography:
Brady, Cyrus Townshend. The Sioux Indian Wars, From the Powder River to the Little Big Horn. Indian Head Books, New York, 1992.
Connell, Evan S. Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn. North Point Press, San Francisco, California, 1984.
Custer, George Armstrong. My Life on the Plains. Leisure Books, New York, NY, no date given.
Simpson, Judith. Native Americans. Time-Life Books, 1996.
Wheeler, Keith. The Chroniclers: The Old West. Time-Life Books, New York, 1976.
Utley, Robert M. The Indian Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. 1984.
