Cherokee interpreter and businessman Jesse Chisholm drives a wagon from Texas to his trading post in Kansas. Following his wagon ruts, others begin to take this route north. Popularly known as the Chisholm Trail, the path will become the primary route Texas cattlemen use to drive their herds to Kansas railroad terminals, from which the cattle can be transported to eastern markets.
The Winnebago receive a reservation in Nebraska.
The federal government establishes the Nebraska Winnebago Reservation, an act that ends their 25-year “trail of tears.” After the United States forced the Winnebago to cede the last of their original homeland, the tribe, beginning in 1840, was removed five times to lands in present-day Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, and Nebraska. During the Removal period, more than 700 Winnebago died.
A Texas Ranger attack brings on the Kickapoo Uprising.
In the early 1850s, 700 Kickapoo left what is now Kansas to escape reservation life and relocated to Mexico. About 15 years later, they are set upon at Dove Creek by the Texas Rangers, who crossed the international border to fight the Indians. Although the Kickapoo win the battle, they are enraged by the unprovoked attack. Their fury unleashes almost 10 years of violence, during which the Kickapoo launch a vicious and effective military campaign against Texas ranches and settlements along the Rio Grande. (See also entry for MAY 18, 1873.)
A congressional committee issues a report on the Sand Creek Massacre.
The rumored horrors of the Sand Creek Massacre (see entry for NOVEMBER 29, 1864) prompt Congress’s
“As to Colonel Chivington, your committee can hardly find fitting terms to describe his conduct. Wearing the uniform of the United States, which should be the emblem of justice and humanity[,] . . . he deliberately planned and executed a foul and dastardly massacre which would have disgraced the veriest savage among those who were the victims of his cruelty. . . . [T]he truth is that he surprised and murdered, in cold blood, the unsuspecting men, women, and children on Sand Creek. . . and then returned to Denver and boasted of the brave deeds he and the men under his command had performed.”
—from an 1865 report on the Sand Creek Massacre by a Joint Special Committe of the United States Congress
Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War to hold hearings to determine the facts of the event. The committee’s final report is a scathing indictment of the conduct of the soldiers responsible, reserving particularly harsh words for their commander, Colonel John M. Chivington. Although the committee recommends that Chivington and his troops be punished, no action will ever be taken against them.
Plains Indians avenge the Sand Creek Massacre.
News of the Sand Creek Massacre (see entry for NOVEMBER 29, 1864) spreads through the Plains, leading to a new rash of violence. Lakota Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors attack whites along the South Platte River, raiding livestock herds, charring wagon trains, and sacking the Colorado town of Julesburg twice. Despite their ferocity, most of the Indians soon decide to abandon the confrontations with whites and move to live with northern kin.
Thousands of U. S. troops are sent to the Plains.
Prompted by the violent attacks by Plains Indians early in the year (see entry for JANUARY TO FEB RUARY 1864), the United States launches a massive offensive led by General John Pope, one of the most ardent supporters of a military solution to unrest on the Plains. Under his command, more than 6,000 troops are sent into the area to protect trade and travel routes from Indian warriors. The campaign will later be deemed a failure: The soldiers prove difficult to manage, their provisions are hugely expensive to purchase and transport, and many troops, exhausted from fighting the Civil War, desert their posts.
Henry Berry Lowry heads a band of Lumbee outlaws.
As the Confederacy faces defeat, the already tense relationship between whites and Lumbee Indians in Robeson County, North Carolina, turns violent. After a group of whites kills his father and brother, a Lumbee named Henry Berry Lowry leads a small band of relatives and friends in looting and killing to avenge their deaths. Lowry’s spree will continue for 10 years, during which he will kill or drive from the county all of his kinsmen’s murderers. Never captured or killed by his pursuers, Lowry will become a revered folk hero among the Lumbee.
Seneca Ely S. Parker records the Appomattox surrender.
As the military secretary to General Ulysses S. Grant, Ely S. Parker, a Seneca lawyer and engineer, is present at the Appomattox Court House when the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, represented by General Robert E. Lee, surrenders to the Union, thus ending the Civil War. Parker is entrusted with writing out the final copies of the surrender terms. Introduced to Parker, Lee quips, “I’m glad to see one real American.” Parker replies, “We are all Americans.” (See also entries for 1869 and 1871.)
Cherokee general Stand Watie surrenders.
Two months after the surrender of Robert E. Lee, Cherokee leader Stand Watie becomes the last Confederate general to surrender to the United States. The only Indian to attain the rank of general in the Confederate army, Watie had been in charge of protecting the Cherokee Nation from invasion by Union troops (see entry for SUMMER 1862).
The Civil War ends in Indian Territory.
With the surrender of the Cherokee and Caddo, the Civil War ends in Indian Territory. The war has taken a tremendous toll on the Indians of the region. Among the Confederate-allied tribes, as many as 10,000 people have been killed. Hardest hit have been the Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole, whose populations have dropped as much as 25 percent because of war-related deaths.
The world of the survivors is dominated by scarcity and chaos. Many buildings and fields have been burned or otherwise destroyed during the war. Indian Territory residents are further terrorized in the final days of the war by Indian and non-Indian deserters, who roam through the countryside in gangs, looting and killing. (See also entry for SEP TEMBER 1866.)
The Cheyenne and Lakota attack troops at the Platte Bridge.
In response to rumors of an impending Indian attack, a detachment of soldiers is sent from Platte Bridge Station, near present-day Casper, Wyoming, to protect a wagon train approaching from the West. As the soldiers cross the bridge, they are surrounded by a force of as many as 3,000 Cheyenne and Lakota warriors. Repelling the Indians with their howitzer, most of the soldiers are able to escape to the station’s stockade.
The Edmunds Commission signs a peace treaty with Lakota Sioux leaders.
Organized by Dakota territorial governor Newton Edmunds, a delegation solicits the signatures on a peace treaty of several Lakota Sioux chiefs already friendly with whites. The event is the governor’s attempt to reshape public opinion about Dakota. Many settlers avoid the territory because of its reputation for violence between Indians and whites.
The Kiowa and Comanche sign the Little Arkansas Treaty.
Wanting to open lands for the construction of railroads through Kansas, U. S. treaty commissioners meet in council with Kiowa and Comanche leaders by the Little Arkansas River, near what is now Wichita, Kansas. The resulting treaty requires the tribes to stay in a designated area south of the Kansas border, stop attacking frontier settlements, and release white prisoners held by the Indians.
The Mescalero Apache escape from Bosque Redondo.
Confined at Bosque Redondo for more than two years (see entry for SPRING 1863), the Mescalero Apache are driven to desperation by hunger and disease. In addition, they are forced to share their area with the Navajo (Dineh), their traditional enemies. Unable to stand these living conditions any longer, the Mescalero flee Bosque Redondo and return to their homeland, holing up in the mountains there to evade recapture by U. S. troops.
World History
