October 21
Medicine Lodge Treaty Signed with Plains Tribes
U.S. negotiators and thousands of Kiowa, Comanche, Plains Apache, Cheyenne, and Arapaho gathered along Medicine Lodge Creek in Kansas to sign treaties that confined the tribes to reservations in Indian Territory in exchange for annuities and protection.
Summary
After the American Civil War, escalating conflicts between U.S. settlers and Native American tribes on the Great Plains prompted the federal government to pursue peace through negotiation. An Indian Peace Commission met thousands of Kiowa, Comanche, Plains Apache, Cheyenne, and Arapaho leaders at Medicine Lodge Creek in Kansas. On October 21, 1867, the first treaties were signed with the Kiowa, Comanche, and Kiowa-Apache, establishing reservations in Indian Territory and promising annuities in exchange for ceding vast hunting grounds and halting raids. Additional agreements followed days later. The treaties aimed to confine tribes to reservations and open lands for white settlement and railroads.
Context
Following the Civil War, rapid westward expansion brought increasing numbers of settlers, railroads, and military outposts onto the southern Great Plains, where nomadic tribes had long hunted buffalo and resisted encroachment. Earlier agreements, such as the 1865 Little Arkansas Treaty, had already reduced tribal territories, yet raids and clashes continued as both sides accused the other of violations. In response, Congress created the Indian Peace Commission in July 1867 to pursue diplomacy rather than solely military campaigns, directing it to relocate southern Plains tribes onto reservations away from major travel routes.
What Happened
The commission, chaired in the field by Senator John B. Henderson and including military officers such as Alfred H. Terry and Christopher C. Augur, traveled from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Larned in early October 1867. At the urging of tribal leaders, the council site shifted to Medicine Lodge Creek, a location of traditional ceremonial importance. Preliminary talks addressed grievances over the earlier destruction of a Cheyenne village by General Winfield Scott Hancock’s forces, helping to establish a workable atmosphere before formal negotiations opened on October 19.
Aftermath
On October 21 the Kiowa, Comanche, and Kiowa-Apache signed the first two treaties, ceding more than sixty thousand square miles of hunting grounds for a roughly three-million-acre reservation in southwestern Indian Territory along with houses, schools, and annual supplies. One week later the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho concluded a similar agreement. The Senate ratified all three treaties in July 1868, yet Congress failed to appropriate sufficient funds promptly, and many tribal members continued to hunt and travel beyond reservation boundaries.
Legacy
The Medicine Lodge agreements marked an early federal effort to systematize the reservation policy across the southern Plains, accelerating the confinement of nomadic tribes and the opening of former hunting lands to settlement. Subsequent congressional actions, including the Dawes Act and unilateral land cessions, further diminished the promised territories, culminating in the Supreme Court’s 1903 Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock decision that affirmed Congress’s plenary power over Indian affairs. The episode also contributed to the formal end of treaty-making with Native nations in 1871.
Why It Matters
The Medicine Lodge agreements represented a major U.S. effort to manage Native relations through diplomacy rather than solely warfare, though they failed to prevent further conflicts like the Washita campaign. They accelerated the reservation system and the displacement of Plains Indians, influencing federal Indian policy for decades.
Related Questions
Why did the United States pursue treaties at Medicine Lodge instead of continued warfare?
After costly conflicts following the Civil War, Congress sought a less expensive diplomatic solution to separate tribes from expanding settler routes and railroads.
What lands did the tribes cede and what did they receive in return?
The tribes relinquished more than sixty thousand square miles of hunting territory for smaller reservations in Indian Territory together with annual supplies of food, clothing, and equipment.
Did the Medicine Lodge treaties bring lasting peace?
No; inadequate government funding, continued hunting off-reservation, and later land reductions led to renewed violence including the Washita campaign in 1868 and the Red River War.
How did the treaties affect later U.S. Indian policy?
They advanced the reservation system and contributed to the 1871 congressional decision to end formal treaty-making with Native nations, replacing it with statutes and executive actions.
What role did tribal leaders play in the negotiations?
Chiefs such as Satanta, Ten Bears, and Black Kettle attended and spoke at length, though many later protested that interpreters and written terms misrepresented the agreements.
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America 250 Atlas: Medicine Lodge Treaty Signed with Plains Tribes is part of U.S. presidential, constitutional, or national civic history.
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Sources
- Medicine Lodge Treaty, Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed 2026-07-06.