The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 72, July 1968 - April, 1969 Page: 353
498 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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General John Pope and the Southern Plains Indians
had been of some influence upon General William T. Sherman and
General Ulysses S. Grant, and while the establishment of the Quaker
Policy and the Peace Policy by President Grant did not entirely follow
Pope's recommendations, it did offer hope for some improvement.
The Quaker Policy was an administrative course which permitted
the various religious denominations to select the Indian agents and
superintendents. It placed the Quakers in control of the Central Su-
perintendency, which corresponded roughly with Pope's Department
of the Missouri, but the Quaker officials did not believe in punish-
ment or in the use of force. They believed that kindness, honesty,
and good treatment would keep the tribes at peace, and under their
administration the reservations became places of refuge for Indian
raiders.
The Peace Policy, the official governmental policy toward the In-
dians, attempted to make the reservation system effective by making
the Indians comfortable on their reserves and uncomfortable when
they were absent. They were to be fed and cared for while they re-
mained on their lands, but they were to be forced to remain there.
Misdeeds were to be punished."
Under the Peace Policy the Army was empowered to deal with
Indians who were off the reservations, but it was not permitted, much
to the consternation of General Pope, to take preventive action upon
the reservations. Nor was it permitted to punish raiding parties once
they had returned to the reserves. Under these circumstances, war
parties from the Kiowa-Comanche and Cheyenne-Arapaho agencies
struck at will during the early 1870's, ravaging the Texas frontier and
demonstrating a remarkable lack of respect for the power and wishes
of the government. Finally in the summer of i874, hostilities broke
out on a large scale, and the Army was authorized to deal with the
hostiles wherever they were found.'
The Indian campaign of 1874 and 1875 taught the Kiowas, Co-
manches, and Southern Cheyennes to respect the power of the gov-
ernment, but it did not settle the Indian problem on the Southern
3Robert Utley, "The Celebrated Peace Policy of General Grant," North Dakota His-
tory, XX (July, 1953), 126-127, and Henry E. Fritz, The Movement for Indian Assim-
ilation, 186o-18go (Philadelphia, 1963), 72-81, discuss these changes in Federal Indian
policy.
4Donald J. Berthrong, The Southern Cheyennes (Norman, 1963), 372-388, and Wil-
liam H. Leckie, The Military Conquest of the Southern Plains (Norman, 1963), 185-
188, discuss the background of hostilities.153
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 72, July 1968 - April, 1969, periodical, 1969; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117146/m1/187/?rotate=270: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.