The distinction between Black Kettle’s band and the Dog Soldiers was not invisible to American officials.

It was known.

It was simply not acted upon.

The winter campaign strategy did not make that distinction, and the consequences fell on Black Kettle’s people.

The Treaty System: How It Was Supposed to Work and Why It Didn’t

The American treaty system with Indigenous nations was not, in its formal legal conception, a mechanism for dispossession.

It was supposed to be a mechanism for negotiated relations between the United States and sovereign nations — relations that would establish territorial boundaries, create trade frameworks, and address conflicts through diplomatic rather than military means.

The treaties of the mid-nineteenth century — Fort Laramie 1851, Fort Wise 1861, Little Arkansas 1865, Medicine Lodge 1867 — were all formally ratified by the Senate and carried the full legal force of international agreements.