Fort Laramie and the Treaty Years, 1842 to 1871::

'Red Cloud's War': 1866 to 1867

Movements were aloft in Congress to suspend the movement of troops and try more 'peaceful' methods to gain peace and appropriate Indian land. Thus marked a shift in Federal Indian policy towards more humane methods of dealing with the 'Indian problem'. Treaties were seen to be the way forward, and a Sioux peace commission was established. A handful of 'friendly' Sioux leaders from the Missouri River region were gathered and coaxed into signing a peace treaty in October 1865. Note, however, that none of the chiefs of the resentful and angry bands attacking troops in the Powder River region were present at this treaty signing.

The new peace policy "contained the germs of conflict" (Hyde 1937:137), however. While the treaty accepted by the more placid Missouri River tribes declared the right of the US to open roads and build posts in Sioux country, the western Plains Sioux were bitterly determined to stop any further white encroachment on their lands. When finally the US realised their oversight, they tried to persuade the Powder River Sioux to sign the peace treaty. Only one group of Brulé acquiesced.

It was around this time, 1865 to 1866, that Red Cloud's name began to be spoken of, by Indians and whites alike, as a prominent Sioux leader who was encouraging 'his people' to fight the whites out of Sioux lands.

The western Sioux continued attacking and raiding every wagon-train that passed along the Bozeman Trail. They pushed in close to the forts, successfully attacking troops and running off stock. In the winter of 1866, the Sioux, including a young Crazy Horse, successfully attacked troops near the Tongue River, near Fort Phil Kearny. The new [military] posts, Phil Kearny, Reno, and C. F. Smith, were solidly set in the heart of the only good hunting grounds the northern Sioux now possessed. The government believed that if these forts were maintained in the heart of Indian country, sooner or later the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho would have to come in and conform to the government's bidding.

For those Sioux and Cheyenne who had signed the 1851 Fort Laramie Treaty, the situation seemed to them to be more secure. An agency had been created for them near the forks of the Platte, and they were back on their old hunting grounds. However, their complacency did not last long when they began to notice with increasing alarm that they were being pressed on all sides by settlers advancing into Indian territory at astonishing speed. This advancement was facilitated by the Union Pacific and Kansas Pacific railroads. Moreover, white hide hunters were slaughtering the buffalo with the finest of rifles.

In the north, throughout the spring and summer of 1867, the Oglala leader Red Cloud was pressing his campaign to fight the whites out of Sioux country, and attacks along the Bozeman and on military forts were frequent. It was make or break time for the US government: they had either to give in to the Sioux, or else flood Sioux country with troops and fight a long and expensive war.

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