“The Lawless Whites on Our Frontier Must be Restrained”: Outlaws, Cheyennes, and the Origins of the Red River War, 1874–1875

Abstract In the years following the end of the Civil War, the federal government sought to incorporate the trans-Mississippi West more completely into the national body politic. Despite its claims to sovereignty, the government often exercised little practical control over the region. During the 1870s, the actions of outlaws—stock thieves in particular—in western Indian Territory exposed the limits of federal power on the southern plains. Disagreements over Indian policy, scarce resources, competition between economic and political interest groups, and contested jurisdictional boundaries undermined efforts by the Office of Indian Affairs and the U.S. Army to maintain regional stability. As the situation grew worse on the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Reservation, the possibility of war loomed. When the government continually demonstrated its inability to protect Native interests and property, the Southern Cheyennes joined their Comanche and Kiowa allies in a final, unsuccessful war against the United States.