Asymmetrical Warfare On The Great Plains: A Review Of The American Indian Wars-1865-1891

Lieutenant Colonel Lowell Steven Yarbrough

• Publisher: Normanby Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781782896531
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

The American Indian policy, formulated at the turn of the 19th century, significantly impacted the national military strategy. President Jefferson's plan for Indian removal became the cornerstone for federal policy. Congress would bear the responsibility for crafting the nation's Indian policies, but the burden for execution was left to an unprepared and undermanned Army.
From the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the principal mission of the Army was fighting Indians. Returning to the Western frontier the Army attempted to fight the Indians using the tactics that proved successful in the Civil War. The diverse Great Plains tribes, using raids and ambushes, successfully fought a thirty-year war against a superior military force. It would finally take the unorthodox tactics of several field commanders to bring an end to the fighting.
This paper examines the national policy and the means used to implement it. The paper examines asymmetrical warfare through its discussion on critical shortcomings in military preparedness and strategy. The past several conflicts that U.S. military forces have participated in (Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan) suggest that the American Indian Wars offer valuable strategic lessons.

ASYMMETRICAL WARFARE ON THE GREAT PLAINS, A REVIEW OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN WARS--1865-1891

“The first, the supreme, the most far-reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish...the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its nature. This is the first of all strategic questions and the most comprehensive.”—Carl von Clausewitz {1}

PURPOSE

The darkened silence is broken by the image of a cavalry unit’s guidon flapping in the wind and a narrator’s voice telling of the defeat of Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his Seventh Cavalry Regiment at the Battle of Little Bighorn. The next scene shows mounted Indian warriors gathering to head out on the warpath against the white man, and finally concludes with two cavalry troopers pursuing a runaway stagecoach. Once stopped, the troopers discover the body of the dead army paymaster and the shaft of an Indian’s arrow stuck in the wagon. The trooper, staring at the arrow, pessimistically states that it appears pay is not coming for another three months. This opening scenario from John Ford’s movie “She Wore a Yellow Ribbon” begins the fictitious tale of a crusty old cavalry officer, portrayed by John Wayne, at the end of his career and his last fight against the Indians before his retirement from Army service. This movie, along with so many other Hollywood portrayals of American Indians as bloodthirsty savages, perpetuates the image we have of the Indians that fought against the white man in the old Southwest, doing little justice to actual historical truth. What is the truth? How did inferior Indian tribes fight such an effective war against a technologically advanced Army? How did the national policy dealing with the Indian tribes influence the Army’s military strategy? How did the Army finally defeat the Indians? The answers to these questions may possibly provide some doctrinal application relevant to the type of warfare the United States anticipates it may likely face in future conflicts.

Soon after the concerted terrorist attack against America on 11 September 2001, President George W. Bush spoke to the American people telling them that they needed to be prepared to fight a long and costly war against terrorism. He told them that this would be like no other war fought by America’s sons and daughters, and that the enemy would be evasive, elusive, and that victory would not be easy to define:

“This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat. Our response involves far more than instant retaliation and isolated strikes. Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen.”{2}

It is unlikely that the scenes from this war on terrorism, flashed on television screens in America’s homes by the various news organizations, will be similar to the horrid images of wounded and dying American soldiers seen during the Vietnam War or endless lines of enemy prisoners of Operation Desert Storm. The scenes will probably not look like the black and white film clips of World War II and Korea. What will they look like? The grotesque image of the dead soldier being dragged through the street in Somalia or mass genocide like that in Rwanda might provide a small glimpse of the type of warfare we, as a nation and an Army, may be called upon to fight in the 21st century. Could the President have related the nation’s impending war against terrorism to the battles and campaigns fought against the American Indians in the last half of the nineteenth century? To describe the war on terrorism he could have possibly used a scene from a John Ford movie showing a gallant cavalry charge chasing off attacking Indian warriors, only to have the same warriors attack and kill civilians on a stagecoach later in the movie.

Could Hollywood films resemble the live action news clips we may see in future conflicts—the war on terrorism, peacekeeping operations in the Balkans, or Africa? This paper examines the United States’ policy concerning the American Indians and the political and military means used to implement the policy during the latter half of the 19th century. It discusses the Indian warrior as a guerilla fighter, using asymmetrical warfare against the unprepared frontier Army.

Asymmetrical warfare is defined as “battles between dissimilar forces. These battles can be extremely lethal, especially if the force being attacked is not ready to defend itself against the threat.”{3} Lastly, this paper highlights the critical importance of the development of viable national political and military strategies for conducting military operations of asymmetrical characteristics, similar to those envisioned by President Bush and his war on terrorism.

“The mind-set of war must change. It is a different type of battle. It's a different type of battlefield. It's a different type of war. And that, in itself, is going to be a real challenge for America and those other nations who understand that, because sometimes — look, the mission is to root out terrorist activities. And there's a variety of ways in which that can happen. Clearly, one of our focuses is to get people out of their caves, smoke them out, get them moving and get them — is about as plainly as I can put it.”{4}

UNITED STATES INDIAN POLICY IN THE 19TH CENTURY

In 1801, President Thomas Jefferson became the third president of a young American nation, whose boundaries stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River and from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, with a population of approximately five million people. Even with the vastness of this new republic, consisting of approximately one thousand square miles, two-thirds of the nation’s five million people lived within fifty miles of tidewater.{5} Because of the political turmoil taking place on the European continent, the Louisiana Territory, the land between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, was available for purchase from France. President Jefferson understood the political, social, and economical importance of expanding the western boundaries of America. Great interest in the exploration and development of this land was shared with Spain, France, England, and Russia. Most important, however, was the fact that this land was already in the possession of scores of Indian tribes that were determined to hold on to it.{6} This dilemma provided Thomas Jefferson and his successors with a vexing political problem. From the day President Jefferson commissioned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to commence the exploration of a western route to the Pacific Ocean, he would be faced with the development and implementation of a national policy dealing with the many Indian tribes that inhabited the lands west of the Mississippi River.

President Jefferson’s land expansion policies did not provide the envisioned geographical benefits to everyone. Neither black slaves nor Indians had much of a role, and each group was subjected to different forms of unequal treatment. Jefferson thought differently of Indians than he did of the slaves. He considered Indians to be savages, but was not convinced that they were biologically inferior to the white race. Therefore, the basic essence of Jeffersonian Indian policy was coexistence with the white race through the transforming process of civilization, culminating in their actual intermarrying into the dominant Anglo-American society.{7} Jefferson believed that "civilization would bring peace" between Indians and settlers. Under his leadership the national government placed its "greatest hope in its policy of bringing civilization to the Indians." Jefferson constantly urged tribal leaders to change their lifestyle in order to require less land for their people. Jeffersonian Indian policy fitted well with the growing land needs of Anglo-American pioneers. The policy accepted the inevitability of the pioneers’ advance across the frontier with the federal government maintaining firm, though regularly changing, boundaries through an orderly, managed progression of settlements made possible by periodic land openings.{8} Despite President Jefferson’s strong commitment to Indian civilization, his proposed program to domesticate the Indians was never successful. Congress, and other government senior officials, refused to sufficiently support it, fiscally or politically. “Cynical politicians regarded the nation’s ‘Indian problem’ as solvable through the steady advance of hardy American pioneers; in due time extermination rather than assimilation would rid the nation of this vexing complication to its expansion, growth, and development.”{9} The policy of his immediate successors—James Madison, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams—carried over in varying degrees the Jeffersonian style of managing the Indian tribes. Gradually, however, removal and segregation by exile into the trans-Mississippi wilderness eclipsed coexistence and assimilation as cornerstones of federal management of the eastern tribes.{10}

Following the War of 1812 there occurred a phenomenal burst of Anglo-American settlement and development in the Old Northwest, Old Southwest, and Mississippi Valley. The region’s ultimate destiny, however, according to local politicians was retarded by the continuing presence of Indian nations who occupied choice lands. Moreover, with the admission of more and more states to the Union, the power of the West in national political affairs was growing. The region’s ever-larger delegation of congressmen and senators was unanimously committed to exiling resident tribes into the trans-Mississippi region.{11} This strong sentiment of racism and deprivation against the Indian would cause the post-war Congress to adopt tribal removal as the United States Government’s unofficial Indian policy. Removal was made a basic tenet of most treaties signed between the government and the Indian tribes, and the first major removal treaty was signed by the Delaware tribe in 1818. In the Southeast, the Choctaw and Creek signed removal treaties in 1820 and 1821 respectively.{12} By 1830, this policy of tribal removal became the Federal Government’s official policy when Congress signed the Indian Removal Act, delegating President Andrew Jackson authority to set up districts within the western Indian Territory for Eastern peoples who agreed to relocate. During his frontier career, Andrew Jackson and his soldiers had slain thousands of Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles, however, these southern Indians were still numerous and clung stubbornly to their tribal lands, which had been assigned to them forever by white men’s treaties. In his first message to Congress, President Jackson recommended that all these Indians be removed westward beyond the Mississippi River. Although enactment of such a law would only add to the long list of broken promises made to the eastern Indians, Andrew Jackson was convinced that Indians and whites could not live together in peace and that his plan would make possible a final promise that would never be broken again.{13} The act also provided indemnities to the Indians for assistance in moving and for protection. Entire tribes were forced to resettle, and several wars resulted when Native Americans refused to accept resettlement.{14}

The period between 1830 through 1860 brought little change to the government’s policy of Indian relocation. Beginning in 1849 and lasting through the 1860’s, mining would dominate the scene with thousands of new settlers rushing westward to strike it rich in the newly discovered silver and gold mines in areas of California, Colorado, Nevada, and Montana.{15} However, by 1850 the period of Indian removal was for the most part over, with only scattered groups of Indians remaining east of the Mississippi River. West of the river, the Federal Government organized a reservation system to separate white settlers and Indians. It was inevitable that the uncontrolled rush of fortune-seekers would create the conditions for conflict with the Indians.

The period between 1860-1890 was an incredible era of violence, civil war, greed, audacity, sentimentality, undirected exuberance, and an almost reverential attitude toward the ideal of personal freedom for those who already had it. During this time the culture and civilization of the American Indian was destroyed, and out of that time came virtually all the great myths of the American West.{16}

“The rush of settlers across the Plains in search of gold and silver brought them into conflict with the Indians, as they repeatedly encroached on Indian lands. In an effort to head off trouble, the government negotiated the Treaty of Fort Laramie with Indian leaders, in which Indian Territory was defined and the tribes agreed to refrain from hostile acts against the settlers. It was not long before this treaty was broken by the government who reneged on agreed upon payments, by the settlers who refused to recognize Indian Territory, and by the Indians who did not always agree with their leaders.”{17}

By 1875 the United States Government’s Indian policy was turning toward concentration of tribes either in Indian Territory or on large regional reservations.{18} For the next forty years, the Federal Executive Branch implemented the reservation policy as ruthlessly as Andrew Jackson had implemented the removal policy.{19}

“The central government under the Articles of Confederation and the new constitution hoped to convince Indians to follow...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• ABSTRACT
• PURPOSE
• UNITED STATES INDIAN POLICY IN THE 19TH CENTURY
• BIBLIOGRAPHY