Treaty of Medicine Lodge (Cheyenne and Arapaho), 1867

What happened

On October 28, 1867, at Medicine Lodge Creek, seventy miles south of Fort Larned, Kansas, the same seven U.S. commissioners who signed the Kiowa and Comanche treaty signed with the Cheyenne and Arapaho. They were Nathaniel G. Taylor, William S. Harney, C. C. Augur, Alfred H. Terry, John B. Sanborn, Samuel F. Tappan and John B. Henderson.

Article 2 set apart a district for the tribes' "absolute and undisturbed use and occupation." Its northern line is the 37th parallel, "the said line being the southern boundary of the State of Kansas." Its other sides follow the Cimarron River, also called the Red Fork of the Arkansas, and the Arkansas River. No one but government officers, agents and employees could settle there.

In Article 11 the tribes agreed to relinquish "all right to occupy permanently the territory outside of their reservation." They reserved the right to hunt south of the Arkansas "so long as the buffalo may range thereon," and no white settlements were to be allowed within three years on the old reservation defined by the 1865 Little Arkansas treaty. They agreed to withdraw opposition to the Smoky Hill River railroad and to allow peaceful construction of railroads that did not cross the reservation.

In Article 10, in place of money annuities under the 1865 treaty and earlier ones, the United States agreed to deliver clothing every October 15 for thirty years. Article 12 required three-fourths of adult males to sign any cession of reservation land. The Oklahoma Historical Society says the Medicine Lodge treaty settled the Southern Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche and Kiowa on reservations in Indian Territory.

Summarized with AI assistance from 4 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error