Treaty: Medicine Lodge, 1867
This treaty was actually three treaties in one, with the Comanche, Kiowa-Apache, the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho. In reality, the treaties never took effect and had little impact on the conflicts between the Army and Natives in the West. In July, 1867, Congress established the Indian Peace Commission to determine ways and means of ending the conflict with the Plains tribes. The Commission established which tribes it deemed friendly and which tribes it deemed hostile, and slated those people for deportation to reservations in Indian Territory. It did determine, however, that the government had not treated the various tribes honestly and fairly and that much of the conflict had been preventable. It called for more of the same, treaties ceding more land from the western tribes. The Commission called a treaty parley with the interested tribes for Fort Larned, Kansas. When the commissioners, including William T. Sherman (yes, that Sherman), Alfred H. T...