NEW MEXICO’S OLD TIMES & OLD TIMERS by Don Bullis, New Mexico Author DonBullis.biz
B
y the time General Ulysses S. Grant assumed the office of President of the United States in March 1869, the debate about how the Indians of the American West should be treated had reached a crescendo. Military men, especially those serving in the western states and territories, believed that on-going military action would ultimately bring the “hostiles” to bay and thus solve the problem. Many in the civilian population on the western frontier agreed with that position; many towns maintained militias solely for defense against Indian attack. Military commanders were certain that their opinions would reach a friendly ear with General Grant in the White House. Many easterners, and members of various humanitarian groups, on the other hand, were appalled at the bloodshed of Indians at the hands of the U. S. Army, including George A. Custer’s attack on
President Grant’s Peace Policy Cheyenne Indians at Washita, Oklahoma, less than a year before, in November 1868. They charged the army with aggravating the situation by provoking unnecessary violence and with failing to make a distinction between hostile and peaceful Indians. These people were worried about what General, now President, Grant would do. But, as one historian noted, President Grant was not General Grant, and he seemed unexpectedly receptive to some of the suggestions made by the humanitarians. The result was a number of measures collectively called “Grant’s Peace Policy.” The basic tenet of the Policy was “conquest by kindness;” controlled by civilians from the eastern United States. A Board of Indian Commissioners, made up of unpaid philanthropists, and the like, was to be established for the purpose of overseeing Indian appropriations and the abolition of the old treaty system of dealing with the
tribes. All Indians were to be placed on reservations, Christianized, educated and reoriented toward agricultural, and therefore economic, independence. The military, though, got its own piece of the pie. The “conquest by kindness” and oversight by the Indian Commission applied only to those Indians living on reservations. Those found elsewhere were to be considered hostile, and subject to action by the army. One problem was that there were no reservations just then. The Bosque Redondo experiment near Fort Sumner, New Mexico, had failed and closed in June 1868. Before the program really got a chance to succeed or fail, a fly flew into the ointment. In late January 1870, Major Eugene Baker and the Second Cavalry attacked a Piegan Indian village in Montana and all but reduced it to nothing. The army, Generals W. T. Sherman and Phil Sheridan in particular, defended Baker’s action, citing proof
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