Chapter 9 Trouble on the Plains

Chapter 9 Trouble on the Plains

Section 1: Reconstruction

Before the War ended, Lincoln was re-elected on the National Union Party ticket with Andrew Johnson, a Tennessee Democrat. The selection of Johnson was meant to show the Confederates that they would be welcomed back.

Lincoln also pushed Congress to pass the 13 th Amendment, abolishing slavery in the U.S. The amendment was passed in January of 1865 and ratified before the end of the year.

Less than a week after the war ended, Lincoln was assassinated by a Confederate sympathizer named John Wilkes Booth. The shocking murder caused a wave of resentment and anger toward Southerners, including the new president.

The new President, Andrew Johnson, tried to carry out Lincoln s plans, but the Republican Congress resisted his efforts. The House of Representatives even filed articles of impeachment to remove him from office. The Senate put Johnson on trial, but failed to convict him by one vote.

The plan to rebuild the nation after the war became known as The Reconstruction. Restoration of Indian Territory would be different than in other parts of the country.

Two congressional acts passed in 1862 had a huge impact on Indian Territory. The Pacific Railway Act began the process of building the transcontinental railroad. The Union Pacific route went through Nebraska, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada - the center of the Plains Indians lands.

The railroad had an indirect impact on Indian Territory: if the tracks crossed the northern Indian Lands, the Natives had to sell and stay, or be relocated. As a result, even more tribes moved to Oklahoma.

The Homestead Act turned over more than 270 million acres of public land to new settlers. Land was given away or sold cheaply to the settlers if they were 21 years old, the head of the household, and would live on and farm the land for at least five years. Many people left the devastated East and South, and moved to the Midwestern territories, again displacing the Plains Indians.

Kansas Senators James Lane and Samuel Pomeroy introduced a controversial Reconstruction plan that involved relocating the Native Americans in Kansas to lands in Indian Territory. Lane and Pomeroy bought the vacated lands and sold them to American settlers.

In September 1865, tribal leaders came to Ft. Smith to meet with D.N. Cooley, the new Commissioner of Indian Affairs. He told them that by joining the Confederacy, all treaties were now invalid. He ignored the fact that many tribes had split or remained loyal to the Union. Negotiations broke down, and a new meeting was set up in Washington, DC.

Before leaving, Cooley told the Natives they had to add the freedmen, or former slaves, to their tribes. The freedmen were given the right to own tribal land and to receive payments. That meant that each member of the tribes would receive fewer benefits.

In 1866, leaders of the Five Civilized Tribes met in Washington to negotiate new treaties. The Treaties included: Peace with the U.S. Granting railroad right-of-ways Selling some of their lands back to the United States A process to establish a single, unified government for Indian Territory

Choctaw chief Allen Wright suggested a name for the unified territorial government. It meant Red People in the Choctaw Language: O K L A H O M A

With new tribes being relocated to Indian Territory, a more definitive survey was needed. The new map was started in 1870 by surveyor Ehud Darling. A sandstone pillar called the Initial Point Marker was established near Fort Arbuckle. All legal land descriptions originate from this spot. The grid system included an east-west line called the Baseline and a north-south line called the Indian Meridian.

The Five Tribes had lost a fourth of their people during the War. Afterwards, the U.S. government again took away a large portion of their lands. So again, they began the slow process of rebuilding their lives.

Section 2: The Indian Wars

While the U.S. Army was occupied with the war, some Plains tribes took advantage of the situation. The Comanche tried to drive settlers from their hunting grounds. Raids on Americans often resulted in the loss of life. They also raided outlying Chickasaw settlements for horses and cattle.

Small bands of renegade Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors were encouraged by the Comanche s success and tried to drive out settlers in eastern Colorado. It was a decision that would prove disastrous for the rest of their tribes.

The remaining peaceful Cheyenne had settled down for the winter alongside a creek in eastern Colorado.

The 700-man Colorado Cavalry attacked the unprotected camp and killed more than 150 Indians, mostly women and children, in what was called The Sand Creek Massacre.

Chief Black Kettle and a small band of Cheyenne survived the massacre and were confined to a reservation, or set-aside lands, on the western border of Oklahoma Territory. They were told they would be safe as long as they stayed on reservation lands.

The commander of the Sand Creek Massacre, Col. John Chivington, was court-martialed, but resigned from the Army to escape punishment. The Army then publicly stated that the incident was "a cowardly and cold-blooded slaughter.

Embittered by their treatment by the whites, Plains warriors began to target wagon trains. Travelers now needed safe passage on the Santa Fe Trail and the Cimarron Cutoff.

Colonel Christopher Kit Carson, a noted trapper, soldier, and Indian fighter, was told to establish a fort on the Cimarron Cutoff. Carson thought he was locating the fort in New Mexico Territory. He mistakenly placed it several miles east of the border.

Fort Nichols was noted for its dugouts, or buildings half underground and half above. The sides above ground were usually covered with stone. The floors were dirt, and blankets served as doors.

In 1867, the Medicine Lodge Treaty encouraged the Plains Indians to stop attacks on settlers and to adopt an agricultural lifestyle. The Kiowa, Comanche, Kiowa-Apache, Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes agreed to live on reservations in Indian Territory. The government agreed to protect them and give them annual supplies.

When I was a theatre major at the University of Arizona, I portrayed the fictional U.S. Senator John Logan in the play Indians, which dealt with the Medicine Lodge treaty negotiations. I was only 24 years old.

In spite of the treaties, hostilities continued with deadly attacks in Kansas, Colorado, and Texas. General Philip Sheridan, a Civil War veteran, was selected to organize the Winter Campaign to defeat the Plains tribes. He chose wintertime because he knew the tribes would be at a disadvantage: the Natives settled in a central location and didn t move until Spring. He directed General Alfred Sully to establish a new supply fort near the Panhandle.

Fort Supply was a palisade fort established on the west end of the Cherokee Outlet.

The Cheyenne, led by Black Kettle, had a camp along the Washita River that was off reservation lands. Other camps nearby included the Southern Cheyenne, the Arapaho, and the Kiowa. Black Kettle and an Arapaho Chief named Big Mouth asked to be allowed to stay at Fort Cobb. General William Hazen told them he wasn t authorized to protect them if they weren t on treaty lands. The chiefs returned to their camps and decided to move the next day.

War chief Roman Nose and his renegade Cheyenne warriors left the camps and attacked Kansas settlers. General Sheridan vowed to punish the renegades and directed a young officer, Col. George Armstrong Custer, to find the warriors responsible for the attacks. But Custer and the 7 th Cavalry instead headed south towards Black Kettle s camp in the Washita Valley.

The soldiers attacked the camp just before dawn and killed 103 men, women, and children. Chief Black Kettle and his wife were shot in the back, and both died. Among the dead, only 11 were warriors.

The Battle of the Washita ended quickly. More than 50 Cheyenne were captured. The troops slaughtered the Indians horses and then burned their food, clothes, blankets, and lodges.

I visited the Washita Battlefield National Historic Site in the summer of 2015.

Custer was promoted to general but was killed in 1876 at The Battle of the Little Bighorn River in Montana, known as Custer s Last Stand. He tried the same tactic, a surprise attack on a Sioux village. This time, there were more than 4,000 warriors waiting for him.

A month after Washita, soldiers from New Mexico crossed the Texas Panhandle into Comanche lands. The military believed a band of renegade Noconee Comanche were responsible for raids in Texas a few months earlier.

The soldiers attacked the Comanche village at The Battle of Soldier Spring. The Army fired a cannon into the camp, then rode in to destroy what was left.

General Sheridan wanted a new fort in the heart of the Comanche territory. The Buffalo Soldiers, an all-black unit of the 10 th Cavalry, were commissioned to build it.

It was supposed to be called Camp Wichita, but at the last minute, Gen. Sheridan renamed it after a friend who died in the Civil War. Fort Sill is the only fort built during the Southern Plains Wars that is still active.

Being restricted to reservations was difficult for the Plains Indian tribes, because they had roamed the prairies for centuries. Additionally, the food that was promised to them by the U.S. government was often inadequate or of poor quality. A few tribes asked permission to form buffalo hunting parties. The government refused.

Instead, white hunting parties began slaughtering buffalo and leaving the carcasses to rot. This was a deliberate plan to deprive the Plains Indians of their source of food. Col. William F. Cody, known as Buffalo Bill, shot and killed 4,280 in 17 months.

Many of the remaining Plains Indians believed that they must either fight or starve. Led by Comanche Chief Quanah Parker, they attacked settlements in the Texas Panhandle.

Over the next year, a series of battles occurred in the Red River War. The Natives called it The War to Save the Buffalo. The Army finally broke the resistance by killing most of the Indians horses. At Palo Duro, more than 1,000 horses were shot. Quanah Parker surrendered at Ft. Sill in 1875.

The last armed skirmish in Indian Territory was the Battle of Turkey Springs in 1878. A band of renegade Cheyenne escaped into Kansas by starting a prairie fire. Most were later captured and returned to reservations, but a small group refused to surrender and were massacred.

Ponca Chief Standing Bear sued the government when his tribe was moved from Nebraska. His case showed that the United States had failed to show the cause for their removal, as well as their arrest and captivity.

In 1877, the United States decided to relocate the Nez Perce tribe from their treaty lands.

Chief Joseph and his tribe fought their way toward Canada for three months in freezing weather. After a devastating five-day battle, the Nez Perce surrendered and were taken prisoner. His speech to Army General Oliver Howard summed up the plight of the Indians.

I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed The old men are all dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets; the little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.

After six years, the Nez Perce were allowed to go back to a reservation in Washington State. There are now 39 tribes in Oklahoma. The American Indian population in the state is more than 360,000.