To research Indian intelligence, the surgeon general of the United States orders that Indian skulls be collected from grave sites and battlefields. As a result, more than 4,000 Native American skulls will be sent to the Army Medical Hospital for study. By measuring the size and shape of the skulls, scientists attempt to prove that Indians are inherently the intellectual inferiors of whites.
January 7
The U. S. Peace Commission reveals corruption in Indian agencies.
The U. S. Peace Commission, formed by Congress the previous year (see entry for JULY 1867), issues its first report on the living conditions in western Indian communities. The report maintains that corruption abounds among Indian agents, the Bureau of Indian Affairs employees charged with administering reservations. The commission also cites the need for a Christian influence on reservation populations, a need that is not being met by the current agents.
Spring
Navajo (Dineh) leaders petition for their return to their homeland.
Manuelito, Baboncito, and other Navajo (Dineh) leaders travel to Washington, D. C., to discuss the tribe’s confinement at Bosque Redondo (see entry for FEBRUARY TO MARCH 1864). In a meeting with President Andrew Johnson, they describe the horrendous living conditions at the site, which does not have enough farmable land or drinkable water to sustain their population. Their claims and pleas to return to their homeland persuade the government to send peace commissioners to investigate the Navajo’s complaints. After visiting Bosque Redondo, the commissioners report that the Navajo are living in “absolute poverty and despair.”
April to August
Lakota Sioux leaders meet with the U. S. Peace Commission at Fort Laramie.
Eager to end Red Cloud’s War, the U. S. Peace Commission (see entry for JULY 1867) asks Lakota Sioux leaders to a meeting at Fort Laramie in present-day Wyoming. Some friendly Lakota, including Spotted Tail, agree to sign a treaty, largely in order to obtain the gifts the commissioners are offering in exchange for compliance. Red Cloud, however, steadfastly refuses to speak with the Americans until they abandon their three forts along the Bozeman Trail (see entry for JULY 1866).
Worn down by his resistance, the U. S. Army finally withdraws from the posts, two of which are promptly burned to the ground by the Lakota. Even after the commissioners have satisfied Red Cloud’s demands, the leader ignores the commissions’ continued overtures, while his people prepare their store of meat for the winter. (See also entry for NOVEMBER 7, 1868.)
June 1
The Navajo (Dineh) sign the Treaty of 1868.
Declaring peace between the U. S. government and the Navajo (Dineh), the Treaty of 1868 creates a 3.5-million acre reservation for the tribe in the heart of their ancestral territory in northern Arizona and New Mexico. Although the reservation is the largest in the United States, it includes
Lakota leaders with U. S. peace commissioners during the negotiation of the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie (South Dakota State Historical Society/State Archives)
“The nights and days were long before it came time for us to go to our homes. The day before we were to start we went a l ittle way towards home, because we were so anxious to start. . . .We told the drivers to whip the mules, we were in such a hurry. When we saw the top of the mountain from Albuquerque we wondered if it was our mountain, and we felt like talking to the ground, we loved it so, and some of the old men and women cried with joy when they reached their homes.”
—Navajo leader Manuelito, describing his tribe’s 1868 return to their homeland
Only about one-fifth of the Navajo’s original homeland.
The treaty also ends the tribe’s four-year incarceration at Bosque Redondo in eastern New Mexico, where the Navajo had been forcibly removed by the U. S. Army (see entry for FEBRUARY TO MARCH 1864). The tribe’s return to their homeland and subsequent efforts to rebuild their lives and traditions there marks the beginning of the modern Navajo Nation.
July
The Snake Indians surrender to the U. S. Army.
Ending a two-year military campaign against them (see entry for 1866), 800 Northern Paiute (Numu) known as the Snake surrender at Fort Harney in Oregon. The Snake Indians fought nearly 50 battles with troops led by General George Crook. During these conflicts, approximately 500 Snake were killed, including the influential Chief Pauline.
July 8
The Fourteenth Amendment denies the vote to Indians.
Congress ratifies the Fourteenth Amendment, which grants citizenship rights to African-American males. The amendment also specifies that “Indians not taxed” will not be counted in determining the number of a state’s representatives in Congress. This provision will later be cited in the Supreme Court decision of Elk v. Wilkins (see entry for 1884), which determines that the guarantees of citizenship in the Fourteenth Amendment do not apply to Indians.
September 17
Indian warriors attack U. S. troops on Beecher Island.
After several months of skirmishes between Indians and whites in Kansas, a company of soldiers led by Major George A. Forsyth follow a group of Indian raiders to the Arikara River. Camped on an island, the 50 troops are set upon by a war party of 600 Cheyenne, Lakota Sioux, and Arapaho. The siege continues for more than a week, during which the soldiers suffer many casualties and are forced to eat the flesh of their fallen horses to survive. After nine days, reinforcements finally arrive to drive the Indians away. The island will become known as Beecher Island after Lieutenant Frederick Beecher (nephew of the abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher), who is killed in the conflict.
October 7 to 8
The U. S. Peace Commission meets for the last time.
In the wake of the Battle of Beecher Island (see entry for SEPTEMBER 17, 1868), the mission of the U. S. Peace Commission (see entry for JULY 1867) is reexamined during a meeting in Chicago. Rallying around General William T. Sherman, the majority of those in attendance maintain that Indian tribes should no longer be recognized as sovereign nations, therefore eliminating the need for the United States to make peace treaties with them. When the meeting disbands, so does the commission.
November 7
Red Cloud approves the Fort Laramie treaty.
Red Cloud and his followers are the last Lakota Sioux to agree to the Treaty of Fort Laramie (see entry for APRIL TO AUGUST 1868). In the final treaty, the Lakota promise to end their attacks on U. S. forts. In exchange, the United States agrees to abandon its forts on the Bozeman Trail (see entry for JULY 1866), prevent non-Indians from settling along the trail, and establish the Great Sioux Reservation between the Missouri River and the Rocky Mountains for the Lakota’s “absolute and undisturbed” use. The federal government also promises to provide the Indians with schools and agencies from which the government will distribute supplies, such as clothing and seeds. The treaty includes a provision stating that it cannot be amended unless three-fourths of Lakota males approve the change. (See also entries for APRIL TO JUNE 1870 and for 1877.)
November 27
Black Kettle’s band is slaughtered in the Washita River Massacre.
The Southern Cheyenne led by Black Kettle are camped along the Washita River on the reservation established for them by the Medicine Lodge Creek Treaty (see entry for OCTOBER 21 TO 28, 1867), when a war party of young Cheyenne men approach the camp. The warriors, who have been raiding white settlements in Kansas, are followed by the Seventh Cavalry, headed by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer.
Blaming Black Kettle’s people erroneously for the recent attacks, Custer’s men attack the Washita camp at dawn. Eerily reminiscent of the Sand Creek Massacre (see entry for November 29, 1864)—which occurred four years before almost
To the day—the soldiers rush to slaughter men, women, and children who have been living peacefully on their reservation. Before nearby bands of warriors are able to come to their rescue and chase off the Americans, more than 100 people are killed, including Black Kettle—a Sand Creek survivor who out of fear for his followers’ safety consistently urged them to capitulate to the United States.
“[I]n his native village, on the war path, and when raiding our frontier settlements and lines of travel, the Indian forfeits his claim to the appellation of the ‘noble red man.' We see him as he is, and, so far as all knowledge goes, as he ever has been, a savage in every sense of the word; . . . one whose cruel and ferocious nature far exceeds that of any wild beast of the desert.”
—George Armstrong Custer in his autobiography My Life on the Plains
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