Reconstruction

The Civil War put the Union to the test and the Union has passed. There would be no secession and no slavery. But between slavery and equal rights there was room and the forces colliding over these issues were fierce and unforgiving. First of all, encouraged by presidential expression of leniency, southern leaders produced a set of vicious regulations known as the Black Codes. These were the laws which before the war had applied to “slaves…” Now they were shifted without modifications onto “ex-slaves…” The Confederates also sent “lily-white” delegations to the convening Congress. Congress was in no mood to readmit them without some change in their attitude. First they would have to meet conditions. Among these were that each State should ratify the Thirteenth Amendment abolishing slavery and the new Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing civil liberties. After that representatives could be elected to Congress. Meanwhile the South was divided into five military districts under the command of the Army. Under the protection of Federal Troops, blacks and whites began to build strong and essentially just structures within which to live. Blacks and landless whites voted and held public office. By 1870 the procedures had all been completed and most Federal Troops were removed from southern soil. By 1877 the process was complete. The entire South had settled into a pattern of segregation and “white supremacy”.

Underlying Reconstruction lay principles important to modern civilized nations: civil rights, racial equality, federal powers. These issues remained essentially unexamined. But the currents of the times favored freedom and these currants would ultimately carve their way back into the “unreconstructed” south.

The First Sioux War

When the railroads began to bring white people into prairies the Indians at first tried to drive the newcomers from their hunting grounds. But soon they saw that this was impossible. So they made treaties with the government in Washington, giving up large pieces of their land for white farmers to settle upon. In 1851 the Pawnee people signed away an area that today forms most of the state of Nebraska. In 1858 the Sioux gave up an area almost as big in South Dakota. In the 1860s the Comanche and the Kiowa gave up land in Kansas, Colorado and Texas. In return to such agreements the government promised to leave the Indians in peace on the lands that remained theirs.

The war began innocuously enough. In 1866 the Army, seeking to build some forts along the Bozeman Trail, sent scouts to survey for sites. The Bozeman Trail was an important route to the gold fields of Virginia City in Montana Territory. It also ran through some of the very best hunting grounds of the Sioux Indians. The Sioux and their Cheyenne allies, led by Chief Red Cloud, decided to defend these rich and sacred hunting grounds. Nonetheless, the Army proceeded to build forts along the trail. Fort Kearney and Smith were put under siege by the Sioux. The Indians continued their ferocious attacks on trespassers. In 1866 Captain William Fetterman and 80 men were annihilated. The Army arranged for the large convoys through the dangerous land. In 1868 Custer led a dishonorable charge against a peaceful Indian village. Chief Black Kettle and his unprepared men, women and children were barbarously massacred. Once again the Indians fought victoriously and in the Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1869 the Army finally agreed to abandon Forts Kearney, Reno and Smith. The government also agreed to furnish food and some other supplies to the Indians if they would remain on their reservation. Land east of the Bighorn and north of the Platte River was designated Indian land. The government gave a solemn promise the lands would remain Sioux property “as long as the grass should grow and the water flow”.

As in all Indian victories, white reaction was bitter and intense. Gold fever and land fever clouded white judgement. Baiting Indians into open resistance, then relentlessly tracking them down, remained unofficial government policy. Indians were increasingly restricted to their reservations, but often these did not offer subsistence living. The Indians tended to stay put in winter, receiving what few supplies filtered to them through the sticky fingers of corrupt Indian agents. In early summer their nomad instincts and hunting patterns reasserted themselves and brought the Indians into conflict with the Army, settlers and trespassers once again. The whites, as a rule, echoed General Sheridan’s sentiments: “The only good Indian is a dead Indian”. If, like General George Crook, an army began man began to deal fairly, he could be dismissed overnight. The Treaty of Fort Laramie brought an end to the First Sioux War, but not an end to genocidal skirmishes.