The Peace Commission, created by Congress in 1867, issued reports that made the pragmatic case for treaty negotiation over continued military confrontation.

The commissioners argued that the cost of the current approach was too high, that the civilian use of the Bozeman Trail had effectively ceased, and that the political risks of continuing an unpopular and failing war outweighed the strategic value of maintaining the forts.

The reports also argued — in the specific language of the era’s paternalistic assumptions about Indigenous peoples — that the best way to “civilize” the Lakota and other nations was not through military subjugation but through the gradual introduction of farming, schools, and Christianity.

This argument was not driven by respect for Lakota rights; it was driven by a specific vision of transformation that assumed Indigenous cultures needed to change fundamentally.