This is the history of what inevitably had to happen as millions poured into the US from Europe. The pre-ordained outcome, though, remains a shame and a painful read. The author is a noted historian, and, here he tells the woeful tale of the three decades from the middle of the Civil War to the closing of the frontier in 1890. He opens with the 1863 meeting of ten Indian chiefs with Lincoln at the White House. The Cheyenne Lean Bear represented the Indians. Lincoln pledged peace and gave each Indian a medal. A year later, Lean Bear approached men under the command of Col. John Chivington in Colorado with the medal in his hand. At thirty yards, the militia opened fire and killed him before slaughtering many of his tribe.
Cozzens states that this is his attempt to set the record straight. For eighty years, the Indians were portrayed in history and pop culture as vicious evildoers fighting the all American pioneers and soldiers. Then, since 'Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee' in 1970, the story has been entirely about the noble savage as victim. "A deeper understanding of all parties to the conflict, better addresses the many myths, misconceptions, and falsehoods surrounding the Indian Wars."
The Great Plains were perceived to be a vast, uninhabitable wasteland that Americans only needed to pass through on the way to the coast. They were inhabited mostly by tribes that had come from the east. In no way were the Indians unified or united. They spent much of their time fighting each other. Within each tribe, there were peace and war factions. Into their homeland in the 1840's, 50's and 60's came a trickle and then a torrent of migrants. The government's strategic goal became settling Indians on reservations and keeping them away from settlers and wagon trains. The end of the Civil War saw William T. Sherman in charge of the US Army on the frontier. The army he had to preserve the peace was totally incapable of doing so. It was small and squeezed smaller each year by Congress. The pay was horrible and the training non-existent. The citizen-soldier of the Civil War was no more. The US Army consisted of lowlife drunks, often incapable of riding a horse or shooting a rifle.
The first fighting in the post-war era was in the Bighorn territories. White men rushed in after gold. However, the Lakota Sioux, under Red Cloud, put up a fierce resistance and wiped out the invading columns. A hurried treaty ceded them much of today's South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana. The US then tried to set up a comprehensive treaty system called the Medicine Lodge Treaty. The Indians did not understand what they agreed to, and the US was duplicitous at best. Sherman knew the treaty meant only a slight deferment of hostilities. When the inevitable atrocities by both sides escalated, Sherman ordered the newly-arrived Phil Sheridan to drive the Cheyenne and Arapaho from Kansas. By the summer of 1869, the tribes had been decimated or decided to move north and join forces with the Lakota Sioux. When Grant took office, he initiated a peace policy and replaced many Indian Bureau commissioners with Quakers and reliable military officers. Peace held in the north, although it must be admitted that there were few white intrusions on the northern plains. The Comanches and Texans continued to war with each other, but in the early 1870's they reached an uneasy and tentative peace.
Peace eventually ended because of the slaughter of the buffalo. Buffalo hides became valuable and, in the first half of the decade, almost four million buffalo hides were shipped east. On the reservations, the Indians drank to excess, lost their skills and were frequently cheated. This toxic mix blew up into the Red River War in 1874. Within a year, the tribes of the southern plains were conquered. The Comanche, Kiowa and Arapaho would raid no more. Further west, the Army faced the best-armed and most skillful guerrilla warriors they ever would fight - the Apaches. Some Apaches accepted reservation life, but many refused. Among those who continued to roam was a mercurial medicine man named Geronimo.
In the north, different Sioux bands under the leadership of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse were busy pushing the Crow further into the mountains and off the plains. They dominated the western reaches of the Dakotas and both the Wyoming and Montana territories. They viewed the white man as a nuisance off to the east. That all changed with the ambitions of the Northern Pacific Railway to pierce their lands. The Indians were able to stave off the railway, but could not stop the gold miners entering the Black Hills. The US was faced with a treaty that promised the Black Hills to the Sioux forever. The Sioux were willing to sell the Black Hills, but not at the price proffered. President Grant decided to evict them by force. The Indian Bureau manufactured tales of Indian perfidy in order to whip up public opinion. The 1876 campaign against the Sioux would lead to the most famous event in the history of the American West. Under General Terry, the army moved west into Bighorn territory. The 7th Cavalry was commanded the volatile George Armstrong Custer, who regularly sent anonymous dispatches to the NY Herald, attempting to further burgeon his reputation. On Sunday, June 25th, Custer divided his forces and retained 221 men under his command. By 5:30 PM, they were no more. Although the Sioux and Cheyenne had won a battle, they would pay a heavy price, for as never before, America was united against Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and the Lakota Sioux. The Army destroyed the Northern Cheyenne the following winter and pushed the remaining Sioux into northern Montana. Harassed and starved, the Sioux gave up: Crazy Horse surrendered in May of 1877 and Sitting Bull went to Canada. A few years later, a weary and hungry Sitting Bull surrendered to the US Army. The Great Sioux War was over.
Further west, the Nez Perce, the Utes and the Apache all fell. In 1886, for the third and final time, Geronimo surrendered. The 1880's saw the final act of US treachery on the northern plains, when the government approved of white homesteading on the Sioux reservation. The Rosebud, Pine Ridge and Wounded Knee reservations saw the last Indian insurrections, which the Army easily put down. "The Indian Wars for the American West were over."
One of the most difficult aspects of reading this book has been the almost universal duplicity of the white men who dealt with the Indians. General Crook may hold prominence for saying he never made a promise to an Indian that he kept. Promises were meaningless to the Americans who repeatedly killed defenseless women and children. The most effective tactic the Army developed was the winter dawn attack on a sleeping campsite. All were fair game. There was no discernment about who was the enemy on those mornings. The Indians were deceived and mistreated into surrendering and joining the reservations. Once there, they were more often than not starved by unscrupulous agents and traders. An elderly Sioux, who had witnessed the 1851 Treaty of Ft. Laramie and the 1890 slaughter at Wounded Knee, said "The government made us many promises, more than I can remember, but they never kept but one; they promised to take our land, and they took it." It is not a story to be proud of.
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