Assignment 11

Assignment 11
Chapter 3
During the 10 years preceding the Civil War, 150,000 white settlers moved into Santee Sioux country. In 1862 most of the wild game was gone from reservation land and because of a failed crop, the Santees were starving. The Santees were forced to go off of reservation land into their old hunting grounds which were now claimed by white settlers. This often caused huge problems between the whites and the Santees. Little Crow, chief of the Mdewkantons, had signed both treaties that had tricked his people out of their lands and had led to broken promises from the government. He had been to Washington D.C. and met President Buchanan and had also traded in his Indian garments for white men’s attire, and built a house, and started a farm. In many ways, he had lost the trust of his tribe because he had assimilated to a white man’s culture and lost his people’s lands.
In 1862 Little Crow’s disillusionments had turned to anger when the money promised the Santees did not arrive from Washington. He tried to persuade their agent Thomas Galbraith to give them food out of the supply warehouse, but he was denied. August 4, however, 500 Santees broke out into warfare and started to raid the Lower Agency. Instead of firing on them, Timothy Sheehan, a white soldier, talked Galbraith into issuing the Indians pork and flour until the moneys arrived. Galbraith made Little Crow and the others wait fifteen days before he held a council where Little Crow asked for an arrangement to be made since his people were starving and there were broken promises from the government. Little Crow was torn between trying to uphold the treaties of peace, the broken promises of those treaties, and trying to fend for his people.
August 17th, Little Crow had earlier attended church at the Episcopal Church at the Lower Agency, when later that night he was awakened by loud noises and voices. Shakopee had come to alert the other Santees that four warriors from his band had killed three white men and two women. He tried to convince Little Crow and the other Santees to attack now since the white men were off fighting amongst themselves to the south. Little Crow, however, scolds them and tries to talk them out of it because the whites are too powerful. When he is unable to persuade them, his own feelings of betrayal and anger come out. It is then that Little Crow decides to fight with them and lead an attack on the Lower Agency.
The next day, they killed twenty men and captured ten women and children. Included in the dead was Andrew Myrick, who had earlier refused hungry Indians credit and said they could eat grass. They left his body there with grass in his mouth, and emptied the supply warehouse and set the other buildings on fire. Forty-seven men escaped to Fort Ridgely, while another forty-five men from Fort Ridgely came to help aid the Lower Agency. These men were ambushed and only twenty four escaped alive.
Little Crow was later joined with Big Eagle, Mankato, Shakopee, and Medicine Bottle to fight more battles with the white soldiers. Fort Ridgely was attacked several times and never fully taken down by the Santees. Several times, their efforts were thwarted by their own warriors because they plundered towns like New Ulm and innocent settlements. Later, Little Crow is wounded and retreats to another village. However, because of their numerous defeats, the Santees, with the assistance of Wabasha and Mazakootemane, were forced to display truce flags. General Sibley took these surrendering Santee Sioux as prisoners of war. Six hundred of the camp’s two thousand Indians were men and were taken and put into a prison. On November 5th, the trials had ended and 303 Santees had been sentenced to death. President Lincoln, however, refused to authorize this without further investigating which warriors were guilty of murder and which were guilty of fighting in battle. Upon completion of this new investigation, only 39 of the original 303 were sentenced to death. One was pardoned at the last minute, and the remaining 38 were hanged, but some still affirmed their innocence up until they day they died. Two of the men hanged were accidentally put to death since their names were not even on Lincoln’s original list. Little crow, Shakopee, and Medicine Bottle then took their remaining bands north into Canada. One day while picking raspberries, Little Crow and his son were spotted by white settlers. The settlers killed and scalped Little Crow and put his son in prison. Crow Creek on the Missouri River was the site chosen for the Santee reservation. Out of the 1,300 Santees brought there in 1863, less than a thousand survived the first winter due to barren soil, scanty rainfall, scarcity of wild game, and unfit water for drinking.


Chapter 4
In 1851 the Cheyennes, Arapahos, Sioux, Crows, and other tribes met at Fort Laramie to agree on a treaty allowing the Americans to establish roads and military posts across their territories. This original treaty did not relinquish any rights of the tribes’ lands nor did they surrender any privileges of hunting, fishing, or passing over any of the lands discussed. However, they were careful to avoid soldiers and white buffalo hunters by staying away from forts, trails, and settlements. Black Kettle and Lean Bear were two Cheyenne chiefs that were invited and met President Lincoln, The Great Father. He gave them each a medal to wear on their breast and Colonel Greenwood gave Black Kettle a United States flag and told him that as long as he kept the flag flying above his encampment, no soldiers would attack them because they would know they are friends of the whites.
Later that May, Lean Bear is killed by white soldiers as he is riding out to greet them while showing off his medal from President Lincoln and holding his papers from Washington certifying he was a friend of the U.S. Black Kettle tries to settle the other warriors who are angered by Lean Bear’s murder and he sends a messenger to Little White Man, William Bent to find out why the soldiers attacked the Indians. He discovers the officer was under the command of Colonel John M. Chivington to “kill Cheyennes whenever and wherever found.” In June, governor of the Colorado Territory, John Evans, addressed the “friendly Indians of the plains” that they were to report to Fort Lyon on their reservation, where their agent Samuel G. Colley, would furnish them with provisions and a safe place to live. It isn’t until August that Bent conveys this news to Black Kettle’s tribe of Cheyennes. By this time, several of the younger men of his band have kidnapped two white women and five children. Black Kettle ransoms some of his own ponies so he can return four of the children to their relatives. One Eye and Eagle Head left Black Kettle’s camp to go to Fort Lyon to let the officers stationed there know they were friendly Indians and meant to go to the reservation.
Major Edward W. Wynkoop, commanding officer of Fort Lyon, was not completely trusting of the two Indians and thus took them as prisoners in order for them to lead the way to Black Kettle’s camp and to retrieve the hostages the young warriors had taken. All goes well with this meeting despite both parties being on edge because of mistrust. Black Kettle returns the four captive children unharmed and an agreement is made between Wynkoops and the other chiefs to go to make peace for the Indians with Governor Evans and Colonel Chivington. The Chiefs travel with the soldiers and Wynkoop to Denver to meet with the officials and are initially denied a meeting with them. Eventually the officials agree to meet with the Indian chiefs, but they are not receptive to the Indians’ pleas for peace and in turn the Indians left confused as to whether there would be peace or not.
Later, Chivington replaced Wynkoop as commander of Fort Lyon because of his attempted peace talks with the Indians. Anthony, like Chivington, had a very different opinion of the Indians and sought to fight the Indians as opposed to achieve peace. He attacked several groups of Indians including the Arapahos coming to live close to Fort Lyon for protection. Chivington later joined Anthony in order to attack and kill the Cheyennes living along the Sand Creek. Altogether, there were six hundred Indians in the creek bend, two thirds of them being women and children. Most of the warriors had been given permission by Anthony to hunt buffalo on their old hunting grounds and were away from the remaining tribe at the time. Chinvington forced a guide to lead him and his armies to Sand Creek. Once there, they surprised the Indians around sunrise by storming into the camp. Black Kettle had the American flag raised above his lodge and told the people not to be afraid because the white men would not harm them. Instead, the officers shot and killed every Indian they could. During the commotion, Black Kettle raised a second flag, a white flag, to show that they were peaceful and meant to surrender. When the shooting ended, 105 Indian women and children and 28 men were dead. The official report given by Chivington stated there were between four and five hundred dead warriors. Several important chiefs were killed, however, Black Kettle managed to escape along with many other Indians. As news of the Sand Creek Massacre spread across the Plains, revenge became the new consensus for the Plains’ tribes.


Assignment 11 Chp 5
By late August 1865, the tribes in the Powder River country were scattered from the Bighorns on the west and the Black Hills on the east. They were preoccupied with their summer medicine ceremonies, when they began hearing rumors of soldiers were heading towards them from four directions. Three of the columns were under command of General Patrick E. Connor, who had announced that the Indians north of the Platte “must be hunted like wolves.” One of the columns was under Colonel Nelson Cole and would march from Nebraska to the Black Hills of Dakota. The second column was under Colonel Samuel Walker and would move straight north from Fort Laramie to link up with Cole in the Black Hills. The third column, led by Connor himself, would head northwest along the Bozeman road toward Montana. They were all meant to meet around September 1 on the Rosebud River in the heart of Indian country. There was also a fourth column, of no connection to Connor, approaching the Powder River country from the east. James A. Sawyers, a civilian, was leading an expedition to reach the Montana gold fields. Knowing they would be passing over Indian treaty lands, he obtained two companies of infantry to escort his group of seventy-three goldseekers and eighty wagons of supplies.
Sawyer’s company was the first to be intercepted by the Cheyenne’s and Sioux warriors. A parley meeting is arranged after much harassment by the Indians and Sawyer decides to give the Indians a wagonload of goods to satisfy the Indians so they can pass through to a new fort. The chiefs, Red Cloud and Dull Knife, agree and take the goods. Connor’s party starts to build Fort Connor and the Pawnees are enlisted as scouts for enemy Indians (Cheyennes, Sioux, and Arapahos). August 16, Yellow Woman, William Bent’s wife, was killed as well as several other Cheyennes when they approached the Fort. August 22, General Connor set out with a cavalry marching towards the Tongue River. Little Horse, a Cheyenne Indian, was travelling with his wife and son to visit his wife’s relatives at a neighboring Arapaho camp. On the way, they spot the soldiers and rush to warn the rest of the villagers. No one believes them and the village is attacked the next morning. Many Arapahos died during the attack while many others fled and later retaliated and attacked the pursuing cavalry.
Sawyer’s wagon train is attacked while in Arapahos country, but they had expended much of their ammunition on Connor’s cavalry, so the Indians merely harassed the caravan as opposed to taking it out. August 18, the two columns under Cole and Walker join along the Belle Fourche River in the Black Hills. Rations began to wear low with the joining parties so they began slaughtering mules for food and scurvy broke out amongst the men. Later in August their columns are attacked by Sioux warriors. A big sleet storm deters the Indians for two days and when they later find where the soldiers had been, they find an abandoned camp with dead horses everywhere. The soldiers were forced to shoot and kill their entire remaining herd because they were in too poor of shape to make the rest of the journey. In September, Roman Nose, a Cheyenne, learns of the retreating soldier parties and decides to attack with more Cheyennes and Sioux warriors. They attack for several days until Connor’s column comes to their aid. Some of the soldiers are sent to other forts, however, some were ordered to remain at Fort Connor (later named Fort Reno). The Indians surrounded the fort during the next couple of months and cut off their supplies from the outside. When winter ended, many of the soldiers were dead or dying of scurvy, malnutrition, and pneumonia.


Assignment 11 Chp 6
Red Cloud’s War
By the spring of 1865 the Civil War had ended. A treaty commission was travelling around the upper Missouri River in hopes of installing new peace treaties with the Native Americans of the Plains. The idea of the treaties was to entail right of passageway for trails, roads, and eventually railroads. Before autumn had ended the commissioners had secured nine signed treaties with several bands of the Sioux. However, Red Cloud and his Ogala Sioux had not attended any of these meetings and would not sign any treaties at this time. Several times the commissioners sent messengers out to try to coerce Red Cloud and other Powder River chiefs to come and meet with the commission over treaties. At last, Red Cloud is persuaded to come to meet with Colonel Henry Maynadier at Fort Laramie. He sends messages via telegraph wire and is impressed, but the treaty is prolonged until the next May. This time, Red Cloud is not satisfied with the demands within the treaty and abandons the fort with the remainder of the tribe.
While Red Cloud and the other Sioux were camped at Fort Laramie, Colonel Henry B. Carrington and seven hundred of his officers rode up to Fort Laramie. In order not to alarm the Sioux, they camped well out of reach of the Fort. During the next few weeks, Carrington’s wagon train travelled north along the Bozeman road. They brought lots of supplies as well as their wives and children and pets and servants. Along the Powder and Tongue Rivers, Indians were gathering hundreds of warriors to surround the military train. Once the soldiers had reached the Indians’ prime hunting grounds, they stopped, set up their tents, and started building Fort Phil Kearny. Under a parley, some Cheyennes lead by Two Moon, Black Horse, and Dull Knife met with Carrington and his soldiers. While there they decided the new fort was too strong to take without great losses. The next morning after the Cheyennes had left the fort, Red Cloud’s Ogalas stampeded 175 horses and mules from Carrington’s herd. From that day on, there wasn’t a wagon train, civilian or military, that was safe from Indian attack.
The Indians developed a strategy of making travel on the road difficult and dangerous and cut off supplies for the troops so they could isolate them and attack. During this time, many warriors were making names for themselves such as Sitting Bull, Hump, and Crazy Horse. There were even reports that the Crows, hereditary enemies of the Sioux, had joined forces with Red Cloud in order to destroy the whites. By late summer, Red Cloud had a force of 3,000 warriors. That December, the warriors led several attacks. Ten young men were chosen for the dangerous duty of being decoys to lure the soldiers out and attack. Their plan worked so well that not a soldier was left alive. White men knew this battle as the Fetterman Massacre, while the Indians called it the Battle of the Hundred Slain. After the Fetterman Massacre, Carrington had lost favor from Washington and was replaced. A new treaty commissioner named Black Whiskers John Sanborn came as well as more reinforcements for the fort. However, none of Black Whiskers’ efforts accomplished anything.
During the next couple of months, the railroad became an obstacle for the Indians. Because of its loud sounds, the Indians had to search farther for buffalo and antelope. In the meantime, the Indians became curious about the railroad too. After some failed efforts, the Indians attempted to derail the iron giant by changing the course of its tracks. Their attempt succeeded and they finally got to see what was in the giant box cars. They got away with sacks of flour, sugar, coffee, boxes of shoes, and barrels of whiskey. Occurrences such as these brought civilian travel to a halt through the Powder River country. The government was firm about protecting the railroad, but even decorated officers like General Sherman were beginning to think it might be best to leave the Powder River country to the Indians.
Several other attempts to capture Fort C.F. Smith and Fort Phil Kearny took place by the Sioux and Cheyennes, but neither attack was successful because of new repeating shooters of the soldiers. More attempts were made by a new commissioner for peace, but each time Red Cloud would send Man-Afraid –Of-His-Horses. Each of these attempts failed until General Sherman himself came to the Fort Laramie in the spring of 1868. Finally, the war department decided to abandon the Powder River country. First the troops at Fort C.F. Smith packed up and headed out, and then Fort Phil Kearney was abandoned, and last was Fort Reno. Each time a fort was abandoned; the Indians rode in and set every single building on fire to make sure it would not be occupied again. The Powder River road was closed as well and each demand set forth by Red Cloud had been met. Finally, after all the whites had left his country, Red Cloud road down as a conquering hero to sign the treaty for rights to their lands forever.


Assignment 11 Chapter 7
In the spring of 1866 many of the Southern Cheyennes with Red Cloud’s group decided to head south for the summer. Many of them went to be with their friends and relatives who had joined Black Kettle’s group below the Arkansas River. However, there were also several bands of Arapahos and Cheyennes who had slipped away from Black Kettle’s bands and had moved into the Smoky Hills area to hunt buffalo once more. Roman Nose and his dog soldiers were in the group hunting in Kansas against the wishes of their chiefs. Wynkoop tried several times to convince the dog soldiers to return to their camps and to abandon their old hunting grounds, but Roman Nose and the others initially resisted. After some coaxing, however, Wynkoops convinces several of the warriors to meet with General Winfield Scott Hancock.
As this meeting is taking place between the Indians and Hancock, the villages are left with women and children. Hancock gets angry because Roman Nose will not meet with him and decides he will ride to the village to meet with Roman Nose. The chiefs then convince Hancock that Roman Nose is delayed because of a hunt, and will meet with him later. Roman Nose eventually meets with Hancock, but the meeting does not go well when Hancock decides he wants to ride to the Indians’ camps set up just beyond the fort. Once the Indians figure out Hancock’s wishes, they leave their camps before the next dawn and he burns all of their food, lodges, and belongings. After this, the rage and frustration of the dog soldiers and their Sioux allies exploded across the plains with the Indians raiding stage stations, ripping out telegraph lines, attacking railway workers, and bringing travel along the Smoky Hill Road to a stop.
Another peace council is tried at the direction of a new commissioner and several chiefs sign it, but many refuse to sign including Roman Nose. During the winter or 1867-68, the Cheyennes and Arapahos were camped below the Arkansas River near Fort Larned. Many received provisions by Chief Wynkoop that winter, while others ventured to their old Smoky Hill hunting grounds. General Philip Sheridan was sent to command the Kansas forts and he had many scouts to search out Indian camps. After hearing of soldiers being positioned twenty miles away, the Cheyenne and the Sioux decided to attack the soldiers in sneak attacks. These forms of attack would have been successful, but several warriors slipped away from the group despite warnings not to, and attacked the white men’s horse herd alerting the soldiers to their presence. Roman Nose finally decides to join this attack after his medicine purification ceremony is over, but by then the soldiers had barricaded themselves in a creek embankment and used their horses as shields after the horses had been killed. Neither the Indians nor the soldiers won this fight. Roman Nose was killed after leading a group of warriors in to attack the soldiers, and the soldiers were stuck there for eight days and were forced to eat their horses to remain alive. Finally, reinforcements arrived for the soldiers and the Indians were driven away and the soldiers were able to come out of hiding. This battle was known to white men as the Battle of Beecher’s Island after Lieutenant Frederick Beecher who was killed there. On the other hand, the Indians knew this battle as the Fight When Roman Nose Was Killed.
The battle had taken a lot out of the remaining tribe and they now looked to Black Kettle as chief of the Southern Cheyennes. During that autumn, Black Kettle established a village on the Washita River forty miles east of the Antelope Hills. Upon hearing rumors of encroaching soldiers, Black Kettle visits Fort Cobb to ask General William B. Hazen permission to move closer to the fort for protection, but is denied and told to remain in their current village and they would be safe there. Instead, they return to their village and are later attacked. Resolving for this situation not to turn into another Sand Creek, Black Kettle tries to warn the rest of the village, but they are overtaken by four sides. It was Sand Creek all over again and this time Black Kettle is killed along with 103 other Cheyennes. Custer was sent under strict orders from Sheridan to destroy all hostile tribes in their path even though Black Kettle’s group had almost always been friendly. General Sheridan is later known to have uttered the words “the only good Indians I ever saw were dead.”


Assignment 11 Chp 8
During the spring of 1869, Red Cloud gathered a thousand Ogalas to go and trade at Fort Laramie. When they reached the Fort, they were told by the post commander that they could not receive their provisions from Laramie, but instead needed to go another 300 miles away to Fort Randall. Red Cloud insisted, and with the intimidation of a thousand Ogala Sioux, the commander agreed to give them provisions from the fort, but insisted that they would need to move closer to the other fort in the coming months. After this, the Brules living close to Fort Laramie were told they could no longer live close to the fort and they would have to move to a reservation closer to Fort Randall. They packed up and moved as did the Laramie Loafers.
In 1869 the Plains Indians were at peace until they started hearing rumors of great changes. The Great Father had changed and Ulysses Grant had been chosen as the new President. That winter, the Indians hear of a brutal massacre committed by the whites and become upset and angry. The news of this massacre that left thirty-three men, ninety women, and fifty children dead doesn’t reach Washington and the commissioners until another three months. Apparently Army officials tried to keep the massacre a secret, but Lieutenant William B. Pease jeopardized his own career by submitting the facts to the commissioner.
As soon as the Commissioner of Indian Affairs learned of the killings, he launched an immediate investigation. This new commissioner had an anglicized name of Ely Parker; however, his real name was Donehogawa, Keeper of the Western Door of the Long House of the Iroquois. He was an Indian who had learned to read and write as well as any white man. His journey to his position was not an easy one, however, he had worked in a law office for three years before he was denied taking the bar exam to become a lawyer. After that he entered the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where he mastered all courses in civil engineering. Before he was thirty he was supervising the building of levees and buildings and this is where he made friends with a clerk and former Army captain named Ulysses S. Grant. During the Civil War, Parker sent word to Grant letting him know how difficult it was for him to get into the Union Army. Eventually, Grant was able to instate Parker in the Army and by his side in Vicksburg. When Grant was later elected President, he appointed Parker as the new Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
Commissioner Parker was well aware of the dissatisfaction the news of the massacre brought to the Plains Indians and sought to keep the Indians at rest by trying to reassure them of the treaties they had signed. Knowing Red Cloud and Spotted Tail were two of the most influential Indians, he invited them to be visitors at the White House and an opportunity to meet with the Great Father, President Grant. The idea of such a journey intrigued Red Cloud and he invited several other Ogalas to join him on his journey on the Iron Horse across the country. They saw many towns and cities along the way, although they loved none of them because they were overrun with whites. When they arrived in Washington, Spotted Tail of the Brules was also there and they rekindled their alliance. Red Cloud is able to make a speech to the Interior Department first, and then is allowed to make his notions known to President Grant later.
In the meeting with President Grant, Red Cloud expresses his frustrations with the treaty of 1868 and how he was lead to believe things that were not being upheld. Grant knew well that the treaty ratified by Congress did not say all the things Red Cloud was saying, however, Parker sought to fix the treaty by which the Sioux had been tricked. Grant explains the treaty and the misinterpretation of it, and later Parker explains a new interpretation of the treaty that again meets Red Cloud’s demands. Satisfied with their new agreements and the new friends he has made in the east, Red Cloud and the Sioux return to Fort Laramie. When he returned however, Red Cloud found many enemies waiting for him in the West such as land seekers, ranchers, freighters, and settlers. Manifest Destiny had overrun the need for peace in Washington. Red Cloud and his people were later dominated in the troublesome years to come. White politicians in Washington had made it nearly impossible for Parker to keep his position once Grant left the Presidency. He resigned in the summer of 1871 and later made a fortune doing finance in New York and returning to his true name Donehogawa, Keeper of the Western Door of the Long House of the Iroquois.



Assignment 11 Chp 11
After the battle of Washita, General Sherman ordered all the Cheyennes, Arapahos, Kiowas, and Comanches to come to Fort Cobb to surrender or face extermination by his soldiers. Later that year, the Kiowas, who didn’t want to give up their way of life granted them by a previous treaty, were hunted down by Custer and his soldiers. Satanta and Lone Wolf met with Custer under a parley, but were arrested and taken to Fort Cobb in efforts to have the rest of the tribe follow them there. By corn planting season, two thousand Kiowas and twenty-five hundred Comanches were settled on the new reservation. They managed to harvest about four thousand bushels of corn, but after being distributed and a long winter, they were starving by springtime. Several warriors then left the reservation to go hunt the buffalo and live on the Plains once more. Kicking Bird, after much harassment by his peers, decided to lead a war party with several hundred warriors to capture a mail coach as a challenge to Fort Richardson. An eight hour battle ensued under a broiling sun until Kicking Bird led the triumphant war party back to the reservation.
In the spring of 1871, General Grierson sent patrols in search of the Indians along the Red river, but the Indians were swift to elude the patrols. May 17th, Mamanti had a dream vision and thus lead a group of chiefs and warriors to battle. They attacked a train of ten freight wagons and managed to kill seven teamsters and plunder the wagons. Shortly after their raid, General Sherman visited Fort Sill and when Agent Tatum inquired as to who led the raid, Satanta quickly arose and claimed to have been the leader. Sherman then requested a council with the chiefs, and shortly afterward Satanta, Satank, and Big Tree were all arrested for murdering the civilian teamsters in Texas. Satank is killed while trying to escape during the journey to Texas to await trial. The Indian chiefs were sentenced to death; however, in an attempt to avoid war with the Kiowas, the governor of Texas sentenced them to life in prison.
In August of 1872, Lone Wolf was in arguments with Kicking Bird over which direction the Kiowas should go. When the Bureau of Indian Affairs called the tribes together to discuss treaty obligations, Lone Wolf convinces Commissioner Henry Alvord to let him speak with Satanta and Big Tree in order to meet their ultimatum since they are the Kiowas’ true chiefs. Later Lone Wolf works out an agreement for the chiefs to be set free in order to uphold Alvord’s ultimatum. Meanwhile, the Army had begun searching for the Kwahadi Comanches since they had not reported to a reservation and surrendered. On September 29, scouts had located a Comanche village and the troupers charged the area killing twenty-three comanches and capturing 120 women and children. Some of the escaping warriors were able to bring other reinforcements to counter attack the soldiers; however, they were unable to recapture the women and children and were forced to come to the reservation to reunite with their loved ones.
Lone Wolf’s efforts to free his chiefs are halted by the governor’s ultimatum and harsh conditions until they begin to threaten war. Battey and the new agent Haworth both realized the impending bloodshed if the chiefs were not released and convinced the governor to free the men. Shortly after Satanta and Big Tree’s releases, a group of young warriors journey to Mexico to steal horses as many of theirs had been stolen by white buffalo hunters recently. On the way back, they are attacked by several Texans and Lone Wolf’s son and nephew are both killed. During the spring, several tribes are holding their sun dance festivals, and many tribal elders are trying to figure out what to do about the imposing white buffalo hunters. The buffalo hunters are killing the buffalo, skinning them, and leaving the rotten carcasses for the buzzards. Following Quanah Parker, a young warrior chief of the Kwahadis and Isatai, a medicine man, about 700 warriors stormed the white buffalo hunters at Adobe Walls. However, the repeating rifles of the whites were too much for the warriors. Many died and many more were injured. After this more than half of the reservation Indians had abandoned the reservations to the Palo Duro canyon where the Kwahadis had always lived. Very few white men knew about this place, but Sherman’s orders to eradicate the Indians had taken precedence. Scouts of enemy tribes led the soldiers to the canyon in September of 1874. Even though the Indians were caught by surprise, most of the women and children were able to escape as well as Lone Wolf and about 252 other Kiowas and other tribes. By February 25, 1875, they could run no more and they came to Fort Sill to surrender. Three months later Quanah brought in the Kwahadis too. They were all disarmed and many were arrested and later given punishments and ordered trials. During the next year all of the tribes chiefs had been killed or mysteriously died. The mighty power of the Kiowas and Comanches was gone and the buffalo they had tried to save had vanished. All of this happened within two years.