ABSTRACT
Things moved quickly after the November 3 meeting at which President Grant informed his key cabinet members and generals that he planned to authorize military force against the off-reservation Indians. Six days later Commissioner of Indian Affairs Edward Parmelee Smith and Secretary of the Interior Chandler, whose department included the Indian Bureau, received a report on the western Sioux (Lakota) from Indian Inspector E.C. Watkins. Chandler immediately forwarded the report to Secretary of War Belknap. In it, Watkins noted that the reservation Indians were increasingly unhappy about their living conditions. As for those wandering beyond the reservation boundaries, the “true policy, in my judgment,” he declared, “is to send troops against them in the winter, the sooner the better, and whip them into subjection. They richly merit punishment for their incessant warfare, and their numerous murders of white settlers and their families, or white men wherever found unarmed.” 1 While the action he advocated merely echoed the decision already made, his harsh words clearly reflect the tone and tenor of the anti-Sioux sentiment so widespread in official ranks at the time. Planning for a winter campaign against the non-treaty Indians was already quietly under way. But, at the insistence of the Indian Bureau, the roamers were to be given one last chance to turn themselves in before those plans were put into motion and made public. The delay frustrated General Sheridan but the Indians’ refusal to take advantage of the opportunity offered them, which surprised no one, only served to further justify military action. It also helped mitigate political fall-out and silence objections voiced by Friends of the Indian groups in the aftermath.
