First, the peace chiefs typically understood the stakes better than any outsider observer.

They had direct experience of what military conflict with the United States looked like.

They were making an informed calculation, not a naive one.

Second, the argument that resistance produced better outcomes than accommodation is not obviously supported by the historical record.

The nations that chose sustained armed resistance — including the Lakota, whose brilliant military campaign of 1876 was followed by the permanent destruction of their political autonomy — did not achieve better outcomes for their people than the nations that chose negotiation.

The outcomes were uniformly bad; the question was how bad, and on what terms.