182 CALENDAR HISTORY OF THE KIOWA [eth.ann.17 



tion (see the calendar). This treaty merits extended notice, inasmuch 

 as it changed the whole status of the Kiowa and their allies from that 

 of independent tribes with free and unrestricted range over the whole 

 plains to that of pensioners dependent on the government, confined to 

 the narrow limits of a reservation and subject to constant military and 

 civilian supervision. For them it marks the beginning of the end. 

 Moreover, on the provisions and promises of this treaty are based all 

 the arguments for and against the late unratified agreement of 1892. 

 It will be necessary first to review the situation. 



For a number of years the Indian problem on the plains had been 

 constantly growing more serious. The treatment accorded by Texas 

 to her native and border tribes had resulted in driving them northward 

 to the country of upper Red river and the vicinity of the Santa F6 

 trail, where they were a constant menace both to the trading caravans 

 and to the frontier settlers of Kansas and Colorado. In addition to 

 the old Santa F6 trail the thousands of emigrants to California and 

 Oregon had established regular roads across the plains, in the north 

 along the North Platte and in the south along the base of the Staked 

 plain, while the discovery of gold in Colorado in 1858 brought a flood 

 of white settlement into the very heart of the Indian country, driving 

 away the buffalo and narrowing the range of the tribes. Encroach- 

 ments and reprisals were becoming chronic, and it was evident that 

 some arrangement must be made by which the wild tribes could be 

 assigned a territory remote from the line of settlement and travel, 

 where they might roam and hunt undisturbed, without danger of com- 

 ing into ciillision with the whites. 



The conditions a few years previous are well summed up by the 

 veteran trader William Bent, at that time agent for the Cheyenne and 

 Arapaho, in an official report dated October u, 1859. In it he says: 



The Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribes scrupulously maintain peaceful relations with 

 the whites and with other Indian trilies, notwithstanding the many causes of irrita- 

 tion growing out of the occupation of the gold region, and the emigration to it 

 through their hunting grounds, which are no longer reliable as a certain source of 

 food to them. These causes precijiitate the necessity of immediate and sufificiout 

 negotiations for the safety of the whites, the emigrant roads, and the Indians. . . . 



The Kiowa and Com.inche Indians have for two years appeared in full numbers 

 and for long periods upon the Arkansas, and now permanently occupy the country 

 between the Canadian and Arkansas rivers. This is in consequence of the hostile 

 front opposed to them in Texas, by which they are forced toward the north, and is 

 likely to continue perpetual. ... A smothered passion for revenge agitates these 

 Indians, perpetually fomented by the failure of food, the encircling encroachments 

 of the white population, and the exasperating sense of decay and impending extinc- 

 tion with which they are surrounded. . . . 



I estimate the number of whites traversiug the plains across the center belt to 

 have exceeded sixty thousand during the present season. The trains of vehicles and 

 cattle are frequent and valuable in ])roportion. Tost lines and private expresses are 

 in constant motion. The explorations of this season have established the existence 

 of the precious metals iu absolutely infinite abundance and convenience of position. 

 The concourse of whites is therefore constantly swelling and incapable of control or 



