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INDIAN SCOUTS AND AUXILIARIES WITH THE U.S. ARMY IN THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI WEST, 1860-1890
Abstract
A notable feature of Indian-White conflict in the Trans-Mississippi West after the Civil War was the frequency with which the U.S. Army employed Indians to aid in fighting and subduing other Indians. The prevalence of this phenomenon suggests the possibility of making some broad generalizations about Indian-white relations during the period, regarding both armed conflict and other types of cultural interaction. In 1866, an act of Congress provided for the enlistment of Indians to serve as scouts; this act, however, only regularized a practice followed on the frontier since colonial times. Frontiersmen did not invariably regard all Indians as fit only for extermination; many were willing to cooperate with some Indians against a common enemy. Soldiers in the regular army often behaved similarly, when Indian-white conflicts reached serious proportions. Volunteer forces, who faced major Indian resistance in the West during the Civil War, also sought the assistance of Indians, even to the extent of their formal enlistment in military units. After the Civil War the army employed Indian scouts in most conflicts in the West, both for reconnaissance duty and as fighting auxiliaries. Field commanders frequently protested restrictions on the numbers that could be enlisted legally. At the same time, military opinion remained divided on the value of Indians as combat troops, and on the weaknesses of the regular forces that were implied by extensive use of Indian help. Few Indians who served the army had any sense of betraying fellow Indians. Intertribal hostilities made many of them eager to form an alliance with the whites. Intratribal divisions often made some Indians willing to fight against persons whom the whites perceived as the scouts' fellow tribesmen. They found this activity a more acceptable way of adjusting to changing conditions than the mode of assimilation planned by white civil authority. Indian-white contact and conflict, therefore, were generally not as simple as our historical models have indicated. The neat opposition of Indian and white, on closer examination, appears fragmented, with boundaries difficult to draw.
Subject Area
American history
Recommended Citation
DUNLAY, THOMAS WILLIAM, "INDIAN SCOUTS AND AUXILIARIES WITH THE U.S. ARMY IN THE TRANS-MISSISSIPPI WEST, 1860-1890" (1980). ETD collection for University of Nebraska-Lincoln. AAI8018677.
https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/dissertations/AAI8018677