The Southern Plains peoples did not lose independence because of one battle or one leader.

They lost it because the conditions that had supported independent life on the Plains — abundant bison, political independence, the geography of the open Plains — were systematically dismantled by a combination of commercial hunting, disease, American settler expansion, and military force.

The Battle of Palo Duro Canyon was the moment when the military dimension of this dismantlement reached its most effective expression.

Other historians — including Robert Utley, whose work on the frontier Army is standard reference material, and William Leckie, who wrote extensively about the Buffalo Soldiers (though that’s primarily the 9th and 10th Cavalry) — have analyzed Mackenzie’s campaign in the context of the Army’s evolving strategy for the Southern Plains.