Not because his analysis was poor, but because the system was inadequate to the commitments it had made.

That inadequacy killed him and his wife and the people of his camp.

It is one of the defining failures of American political history, and it is a failure that the descendants of those who were killed at Sand Creek and the Washita continue to live with.

Black Kettle’s story is theirs.

It belongs to the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people first.

It belongs to American history second.

It should be part of what every American knows about how this country was made.