But the specific catastrophe of the Black Hills gold rush, the Great Sioux War of 1876-77, the Wounded Knee massacre of 1890, the grinding poverty and desperation of reservation life at the end of the nineteenth century — these were not inevitable outcomes.

They were the products of specific policy choices.

Red Cloud had created the conditions for a different outcome.

He had won a war, signed a treaty, and — in the years that followed — done everything within his means to use the political process to protect what the treaty had promised.

The failure of that effort was not due to anything he could have done differently.

It was due to the specific choices made by the United States government when American economic interests created pressure to violate the treaty.