American Indian Wars in the West

The “Indian Wars,” so mythologized in western folklore, were a series of sporadic, localized, and often brief engagements between U.S. military forces and various Native American groups. The more sustained conflict, meanwhile, was economic and cultural. The vast and cyclical movement across the Great Plains to hunt buffalo, raid enemies, and trade goods was incompatible with new patterns of American settlement and railroad construction. Thomas Jefferson’s old dream that Native American groups might live isolated in the West was, in the face of American expansion, no longer a viable reality. Political, economic, and even humanitarian concerns intensified American efforts to isolate Indigenous peoples on reservations. Although Indian removal had long been a part of federal Indian policy, following the Civil War the U.S. government redoubled its efforts. If treaties and other forms of persistent coercion would not work, more drastic measures were deemed necessary.

Figure 2. This map shows the major battles between the U.S. government and Native Americans in the late nineteenth century. Look for Fort Laramie in Wyoming and for Sand Creek in the southeast corner of Colorado where the Sand Creek Massacre occurred.

The Great Plains Indians and The First Treaty of Fort Laramie

Figure 3. The Lakota Sioux received exclusive treaty rights to the Black Hills (present South Dakota), to the consternation of the Cheyenne and the Arapahoe who also had claims to the area.

As settlers sought more land for farming, mining, and cattle ranching, the first strategy employed to deal with the perceived Indian threat was to negotiate settlements to move tribes out of the path of White settlers. In 1851, the chiefs of most of the Great Plains tribes (Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapaho, Crow, Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nations) agreed to the First Treaty of Fort Laramie. This agreement established distinct tribal borders, essentially codifying the reservation system. In return for annual payments of $50,000 to the tribes (originally guaranteed for fifty years, but later revised to last for only ten) as well as the hollow promise of noninterference from westward settlers, Indians agreed to stay clear of the path of settlement and allow for some roads and forts to be developed along the Oregon Trail. Due to government corruption, many annuity payments never reached the tribes, and some reservations were left destitute and the Indigenous people on them near starving. In addition, within a decade, as the pace and number of western settlers increased, even designated reservations became prime locations for farms and mining. Rather than negotiating new treaties, settlers—oftentimes backed by local or state militia units—simply attacked the tribes out of fear or to force them from the land. Some Indians – the Cheyenne, Lakota Sioux, and Plains Sioux – resisted, only to then face massacres.

The Sand Creek Massacre

Farther south, settlers inflamed tensions in Colorado. In 1851, the first Treaty of Fort Laramie secured right-of-way access for American settlers passing through on their way to California and Oregon. But a gold rush in 1858 drew approximately 100,000 White gold seekers, and they demanded new treaties be made with local Indian groups to secure land rights in the newly created Colorado Territory. Cheyenne bands splintered over the possibility of signing a new treaty that would confine them to a reservation. Settlers, already wary of raids by powerful groups of Cheyennes, Arapahos, and Comanches, read in their local newspapers sensationalist accounts of the uprising in Minnesota happening during the Dakota War (which we’ll learn more about on the next page).

Militia leader John M. Chivington warned settlers in the summer of 1864 that the Cheyenne were dangerous, urged war, and promised a swift military victory. Settlers sparked conflict and sporadic fighting broke out. The aged Cheyenne chief Black Kettle, believing that a peace treaty would be best for his people, traveled to Denver to arrange for peace talks. He and his followers traveled toward Fort Lyon in accordance with government instructions, but on November 29, 1864, Chivington ordered his seven hundred militiamen to move on the Cheyenne camp near Fort Lyon at Sand Creek. The Cheyenne tried to declare their peaceful intentions but Chivington’s militia cut them down. The camp was flying both the American flag and the white flag of surrender when Chivington’s troops attacked. It was a slaughter. Chivington’s men killed two hundred men, women, and children.^[1] Before Chivington and his men left the area, they plundered the teepees and took the horses. After the smoke cleared, Chivington’s men came back and killed many of the wounded. They also scalped many of the dead, regardless of whether they were women, children, or infants. Chivington and his men dressed their weapons, hats, and gear with scalps and other body parts. They also publicly displayed these battle trophies in Denver’s Apollo Theater and area saloons.

Subsequent investigations by the U.S. Army condemned Chivington’s tactics and their results; however, the raid served as a model for some settlers who sought any means by which to eradicate the perceived Indian threat. The Sand Creek Massacre was a national scandal, alternately condemned and applauded. News of the massacre reached other Native American groups and the American frontier erupted into violent conflict. Following the massacre, the survivors reached the camps of the Cheyenne on the Smokey Hill and Republican rivers. The war pipe was smoked and passed from camp to camp among the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors in the area. In January 1865, they planned and carried out an attack with 1,000 warriors on Camp Rankin, at present-day Julesburg, Colorado. This was followed by numerous raids along the South Platte river, both east and west of Julesburg, and a second raid on the town of Julesburg in early February. The associated bands captured significant amounts of loot and killed many White settlers, including men, women, and children. The bulk of the Indians then moved north into Nebraska on their way to the Black Hills and the Powder River Country. 

The Sand Creek Massacre is one example of an act of genocide committed against the Indigenous population of America. Genocide is the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group. The goal of this and other massacres of Native Americans by the U.S. Army was to remove them from the land, making room for westward expansion of White Americans. As Colonel Chivington chillingly said, “Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians!. . . . I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians. . . . Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice.” The destruction of Indigenous Americans during the nineteenth century is one of the darkest, most tragic aspects of the history of the United States.   

The Apache

In the Southwest, federal authorities struggled to contain nomadic Apache and Comanche peoples on substandard desert reservations, resorting to armed expeditions in search of dissident bands such as Geronimo’s Chiricahua Apaches. Geronimo’s raids and related combat actions were a part of the prolonged period of the Apache–United States conflict, which started with American settlement in Apache lands following the end of the war with Mexico in 1848. Reservation life was confining to the free-moving Apache people, and they resented restrictions on their customary way of life. Geronimo led breakouts from the reservations in an attempt to return his people to their previous nomadic lifestyle. While well-known, Geronimo was not a chief. However, since he was a superb leader in raiding and warfare, he frequently led large numbers of men beyond his own following.

While Geronimo is probably the most notable Apache warrior of that time period, he was not alone. He belonged to a Chiricahua Apache band. After two decades of guerrilla warfare, Cochise, one of the leaders of the Chiricahua band, chose to make peace with the U.S. He agreed to relocate his people to a reservation in the Chiricahua Mountains. Soon afterward in 1874, Cochise died. In a change of policy, the U.S. government decided to move the Chiricahua to the San Carlos reservation in 1876. Half complied and the other half, led by Geronimo, escaped to Mexico. In the spring of 1877, the U.S. captured Geronimo and brought him to the San Carlos reservation. He stayed there until September 1881. As soldiers gathered near the reservation, he feared being imprisoned for previous activities. He fled the reservation with 700 Apache and went to Mexico again.

Despite the surrender of Geronimo and his followers in 1886, Apache warriors continued warfare against Americans and Mexicans. The United States Cavalry had several expeditions against the Apache after 1886. During one of them, forces under First Lieutenant James W. Watson pursued mounted Apache warriors north of Globe, Arizona, along the Salt River. The last Apache raid into the United States occurred as late as 1924 when a band of Natives, who were later caught and arrested, stole some horses from Arizonan settlers. This is considered to be the end of the American Indian Wars.