A new territory for the country north of Colorado had been talked about as early as 1861. Since the creation of Montana territory in 1864, this area had been attached, obviously only temporarily, to Dakota. Now, with the mining and railway influences at work, the population made appeal to the Dakota legislature and to Congress for independence. "Without opposition or prolonged discussion," as Bancroft puts it, the new territory was created by Congress in July, 1868. It was called Wyoming, just escaping the names of Lincoln and Cheyenne, and received as bounds the parallels of 41° and 45°, and the meridians of 27° and 34°, west of Washington.

For several years after the Sioux treaties of 1868 and the erection of Wyoming territory, the Indians of the northern plains kept the peace. The routes of travel had been opened, the white claim to the Powder River Valley had been surrendered, and a great northern reserve had been created in the Black Hills country of southern Dakota. All these, by lessening contact, removed the danger of Indian friction. But the southern tribes were still uneasy,—treacherous or ill-treated, according as the sources vary,—and one more war was needed before they could be compelled to settle down.

[CHAPTER XVIII]
BLACK KETTLE'S LAST RAID

Of the four classes of persons whose interrelations determined the condition of the frontier, none admitted that it desired to provoke Indian wars. The tribes themselves consistently professed a wish to be allowed to remain at peace. The Indian agents lost their authority and many of their perquisites during war time. The army and the frontiersmen denied that they were belligerent. "I assert," wrote Custer, "and all candid persons familiar with the subject will sustain the assertion, that of all classes of our population the army and the people living on the frontier entertain the greatest dread of an Indian war, and are willing to make the greatest sacrifices to avoid its horrors." To fix the responsibility for the wars which repeatedly occurred, despite the protestations of amiability on all sides, calls for the examination of individual episodes in large number. It is easier to acquit the first two classes than the last two. There are enough instances in which the tribes were persuaded to promise and keep the peace to establish the belief that a policy combining benevolence, equity, and relentless firmness in punishing wrong-doers, white or red, could have maintained friendly relations with ease. The Indian agents were hampered most by their inability to enforce the laws intrusted to them for execution, and by the slowness of the Senate in ratifying agreements and of Congress in voting supplies. The frontiersmen, with their isolated homesteads lying open to surprise and destruction, would seem to be sincere in their protestations; yet repeatedly they thrust themselves as squatters upon lands of unquieted Indian title, while their personal relations with the red men were commonly marked by fear and hatred. The army, with greater honesty and better administration than the Indian Bureau, overdid its work, being unable to think of the Indians as anything but public enemies and treating them with an arbitrary curtness that would have been dangerous even among intelligent whites. The history of the southwest Indians, after the Sand Creek massacre, illustrates well how tribes, not specially ill-disposed, became the victims of circumstances which led to their destruction.

After the battle at Sand Creek, the southwest tribes agreed to a series of treaties in 1865 by which new reserves were promised them on the borderland of Kansas and Indian Territory. These treaties were so amended by the Senate that for a time the tribes had no admitted homes or rights save the guaranteed hunting privileges on the plains south of the Platte. They seem generally to have been peaceful during 1866, in spite of the rather shabby treatment which the neglect of Congress procured for them. In 1867 uneasiness became apparent. Agent E. W. Wynkoop, of Sand Creek fame, was now in charge of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Apache tribes in the vicinity of Fort Larned, on the Santa Fé trail in Kansas. In 1866 they had "complained of the government not having fulfilled its promises to them, and of numerous impositions practised upon them by the whites." Some of their younger braves had gone on the war-path. But Wynkoop claimed to have quieted them, and by March, 1867, thought that they were "well satisfied and quiet, and anxious to retain the peaceful relations now existing."

The military authorities at Fort Dodge, farther up the Arkansas and near the old Santa Fé crossing, were less certain than Wynkoop that the Indians meant well. Little Raven, of the Arapaho, and Satanta, "principal chief" of the Kiowa, were reported as sending in insulting messages to the troops, ordering them to cut no more wood, to leave the country, to keep wagons off the Santa Fé trail. Occasional thefts of stock and forays were reported along the trail. Custer thought that there was "positive evidence from the agents themselves" that the Indians were guilty, the trouble only being that Wynkoop charged the guilt on the Kiowa and Comanche, while J. H. Leavenworth, agent for these tribes, asserted their innocence and accused the wards of Wynkoop.

The Department of the Missouri, in which these tribes resided, was under the command of Major-general Winfield Scott Hancock in the spring of 1867. With a desire to promote the tranquillity of his command, Hancock prepared for an expedition on the plains as early as the roads would permit. He wrote of this intention to both of the agents, asking them to accompany him, "to show that the officers of the government are acting in harmony." His object was not necessarily war, but to impress upon the Indians his ability "to chastise any tribes who may molest people who are travelling across the plains." In each of the letters he listed the complaints against the respective tribes—failure to deliver murderers, outrages on the Smoky Hill route in 1866, alliances with the Sioux, hostile incursions into Texas, and the specially barbarous Box murder. In this last affair one James Box had been murdered by the Kiowas, and his wife and five daughters carried off. The youngest of these, a baby, died in a few days, the mother stated, and they "took her from me and threw her into a ravine." Ultimately the mother and three of the children were ransomed from the Kiowas after Mrs. Box and her eldest daughter, Margaret, had been passed around from chief to chief for more than two months. Custer wrote up this outrage with much exaggeration, but the facts were bad enough.

With both agents present, Hancock advanced to Fort Larned. "It is uncertain whether war will be the result of the expedition or not," he declared in general orders of March 26, 1867, thus admitting that a state of war did not at that time exist. "It will depend upon the temper and behavior of the Indians with whom we may come in contact. We go prepared for war and will make it if a proper occasion presents." The tribes which he proposed to visit were roaming indiscriminately over the country traversed by the Santa Fé trail, in accordance with the treaties of 1865, which permitted them, until they should be settled upon their reserves, to hunt at will over the plains south of the Platte, subject only to the restriction that they must not camp within ten miles of the main roads and trails. It was Hancock's intention to enforce this last provision, and more, to insist "upon their keeping off the main lines of travel, where their presence is calculated to bring about collisions with the whites."