The fact that his risk ultimately cost him his life, and his wife’s life, is not proof that his approach was wrong.

It is proof that the approach was taken in a world that was not responsive to it in the way that it should have been.

The Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people who carry Black Kettle’s memory are also the evidence that his approach was not entirely without result.

His band, his followers, the people he led — many of them survived.

Their descendants are the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma today.