OCT 22: Medicine Lodge Treaty Negotiations
Between Oct. 21-28, 1867, The Medicine Lodge Treaty is signed in Kansas between the U.S. government and several southern Plains Indian tribes, requiring that the tribes relocate to the Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma.)
Leading the government’s negotiations with members of different nations was Senator John Henderson of Missouri (the chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs.) It was a big event. According to writer Lorraine Boisinnaeult, “Between the crowds of people, the multiple interpreters needed, and the journalists roving around the camp, it was a chaotic process. The treaty offered a 2.9-million-acre tract to the Comanches, Kiowas and Plains Apaches, and a 4.3-million-acre tract for a Cheyenne-Arapaho reservation. Both of these settlements would include the implements for farming and building houses and schools, and the land would be guaranteed as native territory. The tribes were also given permission to continue hunting buffalo populations for as long as they existed—which wasn’t destined to be long.”
The Kiowa, Comanche, and Plains Apache tribes signed their respective treaties on Oct. 21, while the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes signed theirs on Oct. 28.
One key provision of the agreement stated that the Indians did not have to give up any more land unless three-fourths of the adult male population agreed to do so. Government representatives believed tribal leaders held sway with the rest of their tribe members and would achieve the necessary support. But, in reality, tribes did not follow the same political or group behaviors as their white counterparts and getting three-fourths of a tribe’s males to agree on a single issue was, basically, unachievable. Tribe leaders who signed the agreements also did so, historians believe, with little faith that they would hold up over time. The settlements proved not to be iron-clad and did not provide lasting benefits, either to the tribes or the government.
A newspaper illustration showing tribes and U.S. government representatives negotiating the 1867 Medicine Lodge Treaty. (Credit: Library of Congress)
Missouri Senator John Brooks Henderson. (Credit: Library of Congress)
