Pawnee Scouts

656 Imperialism and Expansionism in American History including Fetterman, huddled together among some large rocks and most of the cavalry a mile further on. Nearly all of the soldiers died from arrow, spear, knife, or club wounds; only six sustained gunshot wounds. According to Native testimony, it took the warriors about 20 minutes to eliminate the infantry and another 20 to deal with the cavalry. It is impossible to ascertain what Fetterman was thinking or what happened after he left the fort. However, it is evident that, rather than relieve the woodcutters, he crossed the ridge. Maybe he was chasing decoys, as Native eyewitnesses claim, or perhaps he was circling around behind the woodcutters or trying to intercept retreating warriors. Whatever his reasoning, two things are clear: first, that the warriors attacked his command from both sides a half mile after it crested the ridge, and second, that the cavalry was far in advance of the infantry by then. His superiors initially held Carrington responsible for what happened and relieved him of command, but an official report eventually exonerated him. By then, however, the press and the general public were disinclined to accept his innocence. At first, Carrington cited a lack of military personnel and equipment in his own defense. Such claims posed political problems for his superiors, who were embroiled in a post–Civil War struggle over resources and jurisdiction, and they suppressed them. Lacking the political standing to criticize Generals Grant and Sherman, Carrington shifted the blame to Fetterman, who he claimed disobeyed orders. From then on, Carrington insisted that he had ordered Fetterman to relieve the woodcutters and not to cross the ridge under any circumstances. Carrington’s orders to Fetterman remain a point of controversy. That no one heard Carrington issue those orders and that he actually watched Fetterman head toward the ridge without redirecting him suggests to some that Carrington approved of Fetterman’s actions. Carrington did give similar orders to Grummond before he departed, but whether Grummond conveyed them to Fetterman remains unknown. Other officers have also been criticized. Some people think Grummond carelessly allowed his cavalry to be lured ahead of the infantry by decoys. They argue that had the infantry and cavalry stuck together, they might have succeeded in warding off the warriors. Captain Tenodor Ten Eyck, who led the reinforcements, has also been accused of being slow and overly cautious in his approach and of cowardice and drunkenness. Carrington spent the rest of his life trying to restore his reputation. Eventually his wife, Margaret, told his side of the story in Ab-sa-ra-ka, Home of the Crows, which derives from the journals she kept while at Fort Kearny. Debra Buchholtz See also: Lakotas or Western Sioux; Red Cloud Further Reading Brown, Dee. The Fetterman Massacre. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1962. Calitri, Shannon Smith. “‘Give Me Eighty Men’: Shattering the Myth of the Fetterman Massacre.” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 54, no. 3 (2004): 44–59. Carrington, Margaret I. Ab-sa-ra-ka, Home of the Crows: Being the Experience of an Officer’s Wife on the Plains. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983 (1868). Pahá Sapa. See Black Hills Pawnee Scouts (1864–1876) The years following the Civil War saw an increase in violence across the American West as the U.S. Army sought control over the Plains Indians’ movements. With the Army Act in 1866, Congress authorized the enlistment of up to 1,000 Indian scouts to provide much-needed assistance in the A4128C_Magoc_Vol-2.indd 656 16/09/15 6:50 PM Controlling the Indians, 1835–1903 657 conquest of the American West. American officials also believed that the exposure to military life might instill Euro-American values of discipline and obedience in American Indian scouts and have a “civilizing effect” upon them. Although Indian scouts were envisioned only to provide reconnaissance for the regulars, army-Indian cooperation often resembled more the alliances of near-equal partners than the limited role envisioned by the authors of the Army Act. The employment of the Pawnee scouts not only provides an example of how the U.S. Army exploited intertribal conflicts, but also how the Pawnees themselves utilized military service to defend their homelands. The first enlistment of Pawnee scouts dates back to 1857 when five Pawnees were recruited during the Cheyenne campaign and took part in the battle at South Fork at the Salomon River. However, it was from 1864 through 1877 during the height of warfare on the central and northern Plains that the Pawnee scouts established their fame. The scouts became renowned for their service and loyalty as they participated in the Powder River Campaign (1865); guarded the Union Pacific Railway (1867–1868); joined in the Republican River Expedition and the Battle of Summit Springs (1869); undertook freelance scouting operations (1870–1874); and were part of General Greenville Four members of the Pawnees Scouts in 1869. While brothers Frank and LuDodge’s punitive Powder River Campaign against ther North are often credited with organizing the group that became famous for fighting Indians hostile to the Union Pacific Railroad, the Pawnees had the Sioux, Cheyennes, and Arapahos. In the first half of the 19th century, the their own reasons for sending war parties against the Lakota and Cheyenne. (Library of Congress) Pawnees lived in four bands; the Chauis (Grands), Kitkehahkis (Republicans), and Pitahauerats (Tappages) formed what was known as the South Bands while the Skidis maintained their own political alliances. A semisedentary people, the Pawnees lived in earth lodges along the Republican, Platte, and Loup Rivers in what is today Nebraska and Kansas. During the summer and fall, the Pawnees hunted buffalo on the Plains to the west, which frequently put them in conflict with the Lakotas, Cheyennes, and Arapahos who also hunted the diminishing herds. By 1850, several epidemics and continual intertribal warfare with surrounding tribes greatly decreased the Pawnee population. Outnumbered and hoping to rekindle a tenuous alliance with the United States, the Pawnees signed a treaty with the United States in 1859 that granted them a small reservation on the Loup River in exchange for protection from the heavy raids of the Lakotas and their allies. In 1864, the U.S. Army asked the Pawnees to assist in their own battles with the Lakotas, which the Pawnees readily accepted. The campaigning of the first enlisted Pawnee battalion was unspectacular, but it drew attention to the leadership qualities of Lieutenant Frank North (1840–1885) and his brother Frank (1846–1935). Frank would command all subsequent campaigns of the Pawnee scouts and their history became closely associated with the North brothers. The Norths grew up in Columbus, Nebraska, a frontier settlement adjacent to the Pawnee reservation, where their family had relocated in the 1850s. The acquaintance with the Pawnees began in 1859 when Frank worked as a clerk and translator at the newly established agency at the Loup River in Nebraska. Subsequently, Frank turned into a trusted friend and adviser of the Pawnees. The fact A4128C_Magoc_Vol-2.indd 657 16/09/15 6:50 PM 658 Imperialism and Expansionism in American History that he never married into the tribe might have also given him the status of an unbiased outsider whose advice would be heard when good judgment was needed. In his capacity as an officer of the scouts, he served as mediator between the Pawnees and the U.S. Army, ensuring the continuous flow of arms, ammunition, horses, and pay to the Pawnee people who in return accepted him as, if not a leader, at least a voice of authority. The Pawnee scouts provided invaluable service to the U.S. Army. They regularly fought alongside their white comrades, serving well beyond their assigned roles as trackers and scouts. The effectiveness of the Pawnee scouts can be attributed to a great extent to the military qualities of the scouts whose tactics, style, and conduct of warfare remained distinctly Pawnee although they were officially enlisted in U.S. uniform. Throughout their service the Pawnee people (who call themselves Chahiksichahiks—men of men) adhered to their traditional mode of warfare: they continued to cut horses and count coup on their enemies; they frequently changed names in recognition of brave deeds and celebrated their exploits with victory dances; and they continued to carry their medicine on the warpath and prepared for battle with their own customs. Pawnees, for example, observed intertribal boundaries when they enlisted. Each company or platoon was composed of members of one of the four bands and their own elected officers. From a Pawnee perspective, siding with the U.S. Army reinforced traditional Pawnee warrior culture and helped ensure cultural survival. Serving as scouts, or “wolves” for the U.S. Army allowed Pawnees to uphold the cultural traditions of their ancestors, as only the fulfillment of prescribed warrior accomplishments could earn men a place in their tribal societies. In that sense, the Pawnees apparently used service in the U.S. Army to continue their martial customs and traditions. Although the Pawnee scouts proved their worth by helping the U.S. military defeat Lakota and Cheyenne resistance to American expansion, they hastened their own removal from their homeland. In 1876, amidst their loyal service to the U.S. Army, the Pawnees were pressured to sign away their last tracts of land and were resettled in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), where their descendants live today. The special relationship between the Pawnee nation and the U.S. military, however, has continued to the present day. Under the American flag, Pawnees have served during World War I and World War II, in Korea and Vietnam, and in current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Matthias Voigt See also: Buffalo Cultures; Great Peace of 1840; Indians of the Eastern Plains; Lakotas or Western Sioux Further Reading Bruce, Robert. The Fighting Norths and Pawnee Scouts, Narratives and Reminiscences of Military Service on the Old Frontier. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1932. Dunlay, Thomas W. Wolves for the Blue Soldiers, Indian Scouts and Auxiliaries with the United States Army, 1860–90. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982. Van de Logt, Mark. War Party in Blue, Pawnee Scouts in the U.S. Army. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010. Peace Policy The “peace policy” of the United States toward Native Americans in the late 19th century was the name reformers attached to a series of federal statutes and changes in administrative structures that were aimed at assimilating Native Americans into Euro-American culture. The peace policy is generally associated with President Ulysses S. Grant, who served between 1869 and 1877, but many of its principles date at least to the Civil War. By the middle of the 1850s, it was clear that previous attempts to solve “the Indian Problem” by moving Native groups onto the Great Plains was no longer a feasible option. According to most policymakers, there were only two remaining possibilities: assimilation or extermination. Thus the goal A4128C_Magoc_Vol-2.indd 658 16/09/15 6:50 PM