As Long as the Grass Grows · Episode 8 of 15 · 40 min
How Bureaucracy and Gold Broke the Great Plains Treaties
On the Plains the pattern was almost mechanical: promise territory and rations, then cut annuities, fail to stop gold-seekers, and send the Army when starving people left to hunt. The 1851 Fort Laramie treaty's payment term was slashed by Congress, and the 1867 Medicine Lodge rations went undelivered, helping drive the Red River War.
Who's who
- David D. MitchellSuperintendent of Indian Affairs and lead U.S. commissioner in 1851
- Thomas FitzpatrickIndian agent and former mountain man, co-commissioner in 1851
- Conquering BearBrule Lakota leader killed in the 1854 Grattan fight
- John Lawrence GrattanLieutenant whose detachment died in the 1854 fight
- Green RussellProspector whose 1858 strike began the Pike's Peak Gold Rush
- SatantaKiowa orator and Medicine Lodge signatory
- Ten Bears+1 more episodeComanche leader who objected to reservation confinement
Where it happens
- Horse Creek, near Fort Laramie, WyomingSite of the 1851 council of over 10,000 Native people
- Medicine Lodge Creek, KansasSite of the 1867 treaty councils
- Cherry Creek, ColoradoSite of the 1858 gold strike
Timeline
- September 17, 1851The Treaty of Fort Laramie is signed, promising annual goods for fifty years
- May 24, 1852The Senate ratifies the treaty but cuts the annuity term to ten years
- August 19, 1854The Grattan fight kills Grattan's detachment and Conquering Bear
- July 1858Russell's strike begins the Pike's Peak Gold Rush
- October 1867The Medicine Lodge treaties are signed
- June 1874The Red River War begins as rations fail and the buffalo collapse
Still debated
Fifty years and ten years are both correct at different stages of the 1851 treaty, and how informed tribal consent to the change was remains open. Whether Medicine Lodge was validly approved by the tribes is also questioned, and Grattan is increasingly called a fight, not a massacre.