The decision-makers of 1868 were solving the immediate problem of the Bozeman Trail conflict.

The decision-makers of 1874 and 1876 would make different choices when different economic interests were at stake.

The Bison and the Longer Story

The story of Red Cloud’s War takes on additional dimensions when placed in the context of what was simultaneously happening to the material foundation of the Lakota way of life: the bison herds.

The systematic destruction of the bison herds on the Great Plains was not incidental to American westward expansion — in the assessment of many historians, it was a deliberate policy, or at least a policy that was consciously encouraged because it served the specific goal of making Plains Indian communities dependent on the federal government for food.

General Philip Sheridan, who commanded the Army on the southern plains, was reported to have said that the hide hunters who were destroying the southern herd were doing more to eliminate the “Indian problem” than the Army could have done in thirty years.