Chronology of American Indian History

1866

The Indian Scouting Service is established.
Amidst military budget cuts following the Civil
War, the army asks Congress to form the Indian
Scouting Service as a permanent branch of the
military. Indian scouts are hired to provide the
military with information about the geography of
the West and the ways of tribes in the Plains and
the Southwest. Generally, scouts are recruited from
Indian groups that are the traditional enemies of
tribes at war with the United States. (See also entry
for 1943.)

The Hopi ask the New Mexico governor for
famine relief.
Because of a severe drought in the Southwest in
1864, the Hopi people face famine. They dispatch
a delegation to request help from the governor of
New Mexico, which was organized as a territory
in 1850. Assuming the Indians are hostile, white
authorities put the group in prison. They are re-
leased soon afterward, but the incident embitters
the Hopi, whose population will plummet due to
starvation and epidemic disease throughout the late
1860s.

The Supreme Court rules in the Kansas
Indians case.
Following Kansas’s admittance into the Union in
1861, the state has attempted to collect property
taxes from tribes living within its borders. Ten tribes
join together to bring suit against the state, claim-
ing that they do not owe Kansas taxes because they
are not bound by its laws. In an important legal vic-
tory for tribal sovereignty, the Supreme Court finds
that as long as the tribes function as legal entities
separate from Kansas, they are not obligated to pay
state taxes.

The U.S. Army launches a campaign against
the Snake Indians.
The Yahuskin and Walpapi bands of the Northern
Paiute (Numu), known to whites as the Snake Indi-
ans, make a series of raids on mines in what is now

southern Oregon and Idaho. General George Crook

and the men under his command set out to punish

the raiders, initiating one of the longest campaigns

fought against an Indian group. Crook’s troops and

the Snake will fight nearly 50 battles over the next

two years (see entry for JULY 1868).

January 1

U.S. officials define freedmen’s status in

Indian Territory.

The government appoints Major General John B.

Sanborn to regulate the absorption of former Af-

rican-American slaves into the tribes of Indian

Territory. In a series of documents, Sanborn in-

structs Indian agents to explain to the slaves that

they are now free. He also directs that freedmen

should be allowed to sign up for Indian rations and

be offered 160 acres of Indian land to farm.

Although some tribes, such as the Creek and

Seminole, largely comply, others resist taking

freedmen into their nations. The Choctaw, for

instance, refuse to give their freedmen citizenship

and push the U.S. government to remove their

former slaves from their lands. The Choctaw will

not accept freedmen as citizens until the end of the

19th century.

June

The United States calls a peace council at

Fort Laramie.

U.S. Army officials meet with Red Cloud, Man-

Afraid-of-His-Horses, Spotted Tail, and other

Indian leaders at Fort Laramie in present-day Wyo-

ming. Their aim is to end the Indians’ sporadic

attacks on whites traveling through the Powder

River area on the Bozeman Trail en route to Mon-

tana gold mines (see entry for 1862). The Indians

are even more agitated by the growing military pres-

ence in their lands.

During the meeting, the officers, while trying

to placate the Indians with gifts, reveal the army’s

plans to build forts along the Bozeman. With the

announcement, Red Cloud storms out of the fort,