Why The Body Count Is Misleading

The four recorded Native dead at Palo Duro Canyon deserves more analysis than it typically receives, because the low number is not simply a coincidence — it reflects the specific nature of Mackenzie’s operation.

Mackenzie’s goal at Palo Duro was not to kill as many people as possible.

His goal was to destroy the camps and the resources.

He understood, as Sheridan understood, that the way to end off-reservation resistance was not mass killing — which would require finding and engaging a mobile, well-mounted, highly motivated population in terrain of their choosing — but material destruction.

The families who escaped the canyon were not invisible to Mackenzie.