But a specific, limited trust: the proposition that the American political system contained within it the resources for better behavior than Sand Creek had represented, and that engaging with those resources was the best available option.

This trust was not irrational.

The congressional investigation of Sand Creek was real, and it produced real condemnation.

The peace faction in Washington — senators like Doolittle, reformers like the philanthropists who supported the peace policy — was real, and it had real political influence.

The alternative to engaging with the American political system was armed resistance, which Black Kettle correctly assessed as producing worse outcomes for his people.

What made the trust tragic rather than naive was that it was betrayed not by the peace faction that Black Kettle was trusting but by the military faction that the peace faction was unable to control.