Chapter 4 | Section 1
Reconstruction Treaties
As we saw in the last chapter, the Civil War caused tension within the Five Tribes as tribal members found themselves on opposing sides. Even though some tribal nations remained loyal to the United States, the Five Tribes were forced to sign new treaties at the end of the war. Three important conditions came out of these 1866 treaties. First, the Five Tribes had to give up a substantial amount of land. Prior to the war, the Five Tribes held land that spread across most of present-day Oklahoma. The Reconstruction Treaties decreased their land holdings to roughly the eastern half of Oklahoma. Now opened lands would be available for non-Native settlement. Second, the treaties undermined tribal sovereignty and governance. The federal government justified its policies as punishment for the tribes’ supporting the Confederacy, even though that support was neither universal nor constant. Third, the treaties addressed the status of people who had been enslaved by some members of the Five Tribes.
Freedpeople (or Freedmen) were formerly enslaved people who were set free at the end of the Civil War. They were men, women, and children who had been considered property. Formerly enslaved people in Indian Territory had been the property of individual members of the Five Tribes. They were emancipated or freed after the Civil War. Nationally, there were nearly four million enslaved Black people who were freed at the end of the war. Their status was addressed by multiple amendments to the US Constitution and several state and federal laws. But Freedpeople in Indian Territory had a different experience. They too were freed from slavery by provisions in the Reconstruction Treaties and given some degree of rights. For example, Cherokee, Muscogee, and Seminole Freedpeople were given tribal citizenship and the same rights as other tribal members. Chickasaw and Choctaw Freedpeople could choose between being relocated elsewhere or becoming citizens of the tribes who had enslaved them. Those Freedpeople who chose tribal citizenship became eligible, along with their families, for land allotments a few decades later.
Chickasaw Freedpeople applying for land allotments in Tishomingo, Indian Territory, in the early twentieth century. The Chickasaw Reconstruction Treaty included provisions for Freedpeople to receive land allotments.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
The loss of land that resulted from the Reconstruction Treaties had a major impact on the tribes and their economic well-being. The Seminoles, for example, were forced to sell their land (2,169,080 acres) to the federal government for 15 cents an acre and then purchase a smaller amount of land (200,000 acres) for $1.50 an acre. Other tribes gave up substantial portions of land. Sometimes, like the Seminoles, they were compelled to sell land. Sometimes they were forced to cede (give up) the land or allow others to move onto their land with them. The Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Muscogees had to cede the western halves of their land. The Cherokees gave up land known as the Cherokee Outlet (also known as the Cherokee Strip) and had to accept the resettlement of other Indigenous people in the Cherokee Outlet lands. Altogether the Reconstruction Treaties resulted in the Five Tribes giving up claims to the western half of present-day Oklahoma.
Indian Territory was under military occupation during this time, similar to the military occupation of the South during Reconstruction. The conditions were particularly grim during and immediately after the war because of food shortages, looting, and ongoing problems of disease. Nevertheless, the Five Tribes looked to find a way forward as they continued strengthening their governments and building new schools, churches, and businesses.
Plains Tribes and the Reservation System
Plains tribes, who were already living in Indian Territory, anticipated some of the difficulties that lay ahead. The loss of land and influx of newcomers were central concerns, but shifting government policies toward Native Americans further complicated their situation. In 1851, ten years before the start of the Civil War, the federal government established two large reservations, one in the Dakotas and one in present-day Oklahoma, for Indigenous Plains people. In recognition of the challenges faced by Indigenous people, who occupied smaller and smaller amounts of land, federal policies included provisions for education and food supplies. However, corruption among US government officials who oversaw programs and poor communication between these officials and the tribes led to multiple problems with this arrangement.
The 1867 Treaty of Medicine Lodge included separate agreements signed by the Comanches and Kiowas, the Kiowa-Apaches, and the Southern Cheyennes and Arapahos. Each of these agreements required the tribes to move onto reservation land. Southern Plains tribes had not wanted to do this because they enjoyed being able to move freely over large areas of land. When forced onto reservations, they could not continue living as they once had. Out of frustration, some turned to raiding white settlements for food, supplies, and horses.
Satank, also known as Sitting Bear, was the Chief of the Kiowa Tribe. He was also one of the signers of the Treaty of Medicine Lodge. This photo of the Kiowa chief was taken in 1867, the same year as the treaty signing.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
The idea behind the Reservation System was to place Indigenous people on smaller areas of land and “civilize” them through formal education and religious instruction. However, the government quickly found that there were numerous problems with this approach. First, much of that reservation land set aside for Indigenous people did in fact become desirable to white settlers, and there was little political will in Washington, DC, to protect Native land titles. Second, schools, especially boarding schools, were expensive to run. Third, there was a shocking amount of corruption and incompetence among non-Indigenous agents who were appointed by the US government and were supposed to be acting in the best interest of Indigenous people. Plains tribes living on reservations found that Indian agents did not always provide them the promised rations. Sometimes they received less food than was expected, or the rations were spoiled. The Indian Appropriations Act of 1871 further undermined efforts by Indigenous leaders to protest conditions on reservations. This act ended the recognized sovereign status of Native nations, instead characterizing Native Americans as individual people and wards of the government.
President Grant tried to address these and other problems by appointing Indian agents who were Quakers. Quakers seemed like ideal mediators because of their pacifism, or opposition to war or violence of any kind, and their presumed honesty. As a result of the president’s “Peace Policy,” numerous Quakers came to play an important role as Indian agents and missionaries in Indian Territory. Unfortunately, their presence did not end the corrupt practices that took food and money from the hands of Oklahoma’s Indigenous people. Nor did it solve the problems with poor communication.
General Superintendency of Indian Agents, 1872. Often Indian agents worked with one specific tribe or group whereas superintendents were in charge of a larger area. This meant they did not work as directly with tribes and did not spend a lot of time with single tribes. Each superintendent managed multiple Indian agents.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
The Second Indian Removal and supply problems led to numerous conflicts between the tribes and white settlers. There were also clashes between the tribes and the army troops stationed in the area. Various Plains tribes were frustrated by the corruption in reservation management and the aggressive actions of the military. These tensions led to a series of conflicts, including the Washita Massacre, which took place in western Oklahoma.
The Washita Massacre
In the summer of 1868, Cheyenne tribal members conducted several violent and deadly raids in Oklahoma and Kansas. The raids were a direct result of Indigenous people having too little food and too few supplies. They were also growing more and more weary of repeated removals. In response to the Cheyenne raids and other conflicts, the federal government sent army troops to stop the raids and force tribes back onto reservations when they tried to leave them. These were not easy tasks. At the same time the US government was trying to convince more people from the East to move west, so it became even more important to the government to contain the so-called Indian problem. This in turn put the army, especially its cavalry units, in direct conflict with Indigenous tribes.
The Washita Massacre site and the movements of General Custer’s troops.
Courtesy of Brad Watkins, PhD.
General Phillip H. Sheridan grew frustrated over the difficulty of stopping the raids. He believed that Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, a veteran of the Civil War, was the best military leader to put an end to the raids. Sheridan requested that Custer be reinstated with the Seventh Cavalry just ten months after he had been convicted of desertion and mistreatment of his soldiers. His one-year suspension ended early, and he was sent out west to stop the raids. His main target was Arapahos and Cheyennes believed to be responsible for the raids earlier that summer.
Established in 1868, Fort Supply served as the supply base for Major General Philip H. Sheridan as soldiers patrolled the region. Troops escorted cattle drives along the trails.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
In November 1868, Custer found what he thought he was looking for when his scouts discovered an encampment along the Washita River just outside present-day Cheyenne, Oklahoma. However, neither he nor his men verified the band’s identity. That band was actually a peaceful one, and there were several indications that the tribe posed no threat. Their leader, Black Kettle, was a peace chief who, along with his wife, Medicine Woman Later, and many of his followers, had survived a morning attack by US soldiers in Colorado Territory four years earlier. That vicious attack is known today as the Sand Creek Massacre. Now Black Kettle was trying to adhere to new treaty requirements and move his band to their assigned reservation lands. He had been promised safe passage by the US commander of Fort Cobb, located near the Washita River. He had a white flag flying over the main dwelling in the camp, which indicated peace.
Black Kettle, the Southern Cheyenne peace chief. Although he was a warrior in the past, he shifted his focus to maintaining peace with the US government as well as with other tribes. Soldiers of the Seventh Cavalry, led by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, shot and killed Black Kettle while he was attempting to escape the fighting at Washita.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
None of these signs mattered to the soldiers as they planned their attack. Custer sent four columns of the Seventh Cavalry to attack the camp at dawn on November 27. Nearby settlements of Cheyennes, Arapahos, and Kiowas responded to the sounds of attack, but it was over too quickly for them to stop it. Just over one hundred Cheyennes were killed, including Black Kettle. In addition, Custer ordered the slaughtering of more than 800 horses belonging to the band. His goal was to destroy anything that the band’s survivors could use to defend themselves in the future.
Custer claimed that only Cheyenne men were killed, but Cheyenne reports indicated that among those who died, only eleven were men while the rest were women and children. Despite Custer’s claim of great victory at the Washita, eyewitness accounts reveal a more complicated and tragic story. Mothers and children were terrorized and killed as the attack unfolded. Eight-year-old Amitneh (Cheyenne) recalled her mother yelling at her to run and not look back. Amitneh’s mother was shot in the back, and as she fell, she told her daughter to take care of her siblings. Amitneh said, “I looked back to my mother and she had her face to the ground.” The young girl knew then that her mother was dead. She kept running. Other accounts also described the atmosphere of terror as many people, including children, were shot to death while trying to escape the fighting.
General Philip Sheridan joined the US Army in 1854 and stayed in its ranks until his death in 1888. He was the commander of the Army Department of the Missouri from 1868 to 1869. Sheridan appointed Lt. Col. Custer to lead to winter campaign which led to the Washita Massacre in 1868.
Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society.
The events at Washita highlight some of the larger issues that characterized this period of hostilities between tribes and the army. They also speak to the tragedy of poor communication. Different versions of these events continue to be debated today, but it is clear that in his accounts Custer left out many important and painful details about what happened that November day. General Sheridan saw the Washita strategy as a success, and its outcome increased his belief that the best time to attack tribes was when they were settled and less mobile during winter camp. This led to more winter campaigns against tribes who were blamed for raids or for leaving reservation lands.
Second Indian Removal
Oklahoma tribes continued to face serious challenges in the second half of the nineteenth century. Along with the Five Tribes, Plains tribes like the Comanches, Kiowas, Apaches, Cheyennes, Wichitas, and Osages found themselves facing encroachment, or unauthorized intrusion, onto their land. This happened when squatters, who were often extremely poor whites, moved onto their land illegally. Meanwhile, the tribes endured new rounds of forced removal.
Ever since Indian Territory had been designated as Indigenous reservation lands, states like Kansas and California called on the government to move tribes from their states to Indian Territory. The Reconstruction Treaties made that possible. And so a new phase of removal unfolded from 1867 to the early 1880s. Following the Civil War, the Miamis, Citizen Potawatomis, Peorias, Sac and Fox, Modocs, Wyandottes, and Pawnees were among the tribes forced to move to Indian Territory from Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Nebraska, and other states. The federal government continued its policy of concentrating dozens of tribes in the same large reservation even as other groups, such as speculators, white squatters, and Freedpeople, voiced ever louder claims to settlement in present-day Oklahoma. All of this led to intense competition for land and much uncertainty. Competing notions about what Oklahoma would become and whose home it would be continued through the final decades of the nineteenth century and well into early statehood.