In 1869, while touring Indian Territory, General
Philip M. Sheridan was introduced to a Comanche
man who was described to him as a “good Indian.”
According to later reports, Sheridan replied, “The
only good Indians I ever saw were dead,” a state-
ment eventually rephrased in the popular mind
as “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” Even
though Sheridan denied ever saying these words,
they were to become a favorite quotation in discus-
sions of the so-called Indian Problem—that is, what
should be done about the Indians blocking the
western expansion of the United States. Those seek-
ing to annihilate the Indians found a rallying cry in
Sheridan’s pithy phrase, whereas those hoping to as-
similate tribal peoples quoted the words in horror.
Official Indian policy after the Civil War re-
flected both attitudes. Exhausted from warfare,
the government under the Grant administration
in 1869 adopted the Peace Policy, which proposed
to end the Indian Problem without further blood-
shed and without the expense of protracted military
campaigns. Two years earlier, a commission had
been sent west to negotiate with troublesome Indi-
ans treaties that would require them to stay within
specified reservation boundaries, thus opening up
vast areas of hunting grounds for white settlement.
Treaties were negotiated with nearly all major Plains
Indian tribes. Yet these agreements meant little.
Most Indians neither understood nor accepted their
provisions, and those few who did hardly felt bound
to uphold them.
The treaties, however, were far from useless
from the government’s perspective. Now if Indians
left their reservations, it had justification for using
the military to force their return. Non-Indian set-
tlers fearful of “renegade” Indians often demanded
this military protection, while unemployed Civil
War veterans were eager to sign up to fight. As a
result, the Peace Policy helped to usher in a new era
of brutal and bloody Indian wars.
During the Indian Wars, many brilliant In-
dian leaders of great bravery and cunning emerged.
There were Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, and Sitting
Bull of the Lakota; Quanah Parker of the Coman-
che; Geronimo and Cochise of the Apache; and
Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, to name only a few.
But despite their leadership, Indian forces, already
weakened by disease and inadequate rations, were
ultimately outarmed and outmanned when pitted
against U.S. soldiers and state militiamen.
From Resistance to Reservations
1866 TO 1890
