“I want peace and believe it can only be achieved through union.”
W.T. Sherman
This conviction permeated Sherman’s thought during and after the Civil War. It also influenced his thinking and tasks as U.S. Army Lieutenant General in the years that followed. Peace is a fragile reality when it exists at all and often comes at the cost of war. As the westward expansion exploded Sherman had to grapple with responsibility of protecting both the settlers moving westward and the people who were being forcibly moved off of their ancestral homelands to accommodate this expansion. It was anything but peaceful.
Officials in Washington hoped for a peaceful transition, even if was just little more than wishful thinking. Opinions varied to what degree they thought it possible. Nevertheless a “Peace Commission” was formed in 1867 comprised of military personal and civilians who had some knowledge of or sympathies with the Native Americans of the great plains. Ironically Sherman was made the head. The Commission’s task was to negotiate with peoples inhabiting the land between the states whose culture and histories were as different as the languages they spoke and the territories they claimed. Land mass west of the Mississippi through the Rockies was equal or greater than all existing states combined.
How did Sherman accept this new assignment? Perhaps he considered it little more than his job, one that enabled him to feed his family. Or perhaps as in the years of the Civil War, he thought it was his duty to do his best in securing peace for the diversity of peoples in the U.S. and its claimed territories. In either case the Peace Commission’s preliminary meetings and final treaties were layered with complexities. Further, there has never been any agreement on whether or not they even succeeded. Meetings involved several peoples inhabiting vastly disputed territories. This combined with inadequate resources, poor communication and bureaucratic corruption in Washington DC were just some of the obstacles that continuously worked against making any negotiations relevant or binding. Sherman foresaw these difficulties even before beginning his assignment. His skepticism was well grounded. Nevertheless he accepted the challenge, hoping for the best. In less than three years after the close of the Civil War he gladly left Washington and relocated his family to St. Louis. Soon afterwards he met with the Commission and began their travels west of the Missouri.
I hope to God you will not ask me to go to any other country except my own.
Barboncito, Navajo Chief, 1868
After meeting with leaders of several tribes in the northern plains, Sherman and Samuel F. Tappan set out towards the end of May traveling to Fort Sumner to meet with the Navajo interned at Bosque Redondo. They had been held for close to four years as prisoners by the U.S. government in lands that were desolate and close to uninhabitable. Several bands totaling by some counts 9,000 persons had been forcibly removed from their homelands and marched 300 miles to the east. Known as the Long Walk hundreds died along the way or soon afterwards. The relocation was a financial disaster and was costing the U.S. government thousands of dollars a day. It was a national embarrassment and disgrace.
What Sherman saw when he arrived at the end of May 1868 must have shocked him and angered him. Hundreds of families lived in squalid conditions, ordered by his government to ranch and farm in an area that was suitable for neither. Many were starving. Some claim that Sherman was indifferent or even antithetical to peaceful resolutions of conflict and negotiations. However, a close read of the preliminary proceedings and negotiations as in those with the Navajo indicate otherwise.
Meetings began with Navajo leaders began on May 28th. Sherman asked them to select their representatives and a spokesperson. Three days of talks followed. He listened through two translators to Barboncito, Manuelito and others. Sherman sought to resolve not only the main concern-where they wished to relocate but also additional grievances, which included the fact that Mexican and American settlers throughout the South West and Mexico held hundreds of Navajo women and children in bondage. Sherman just fought and won a war to secure the freedom of enslaved people. Thus it was his sincere belief that the US government would indeed prosecute and punish anyone holding anyone in bondage. And he promised this to the Navajo. As a man who tried to keep true to his word. Sherman experienced repeated disappointments when his own government could not or would not follow through on what were necessary conditions of justice and peace.
When the Navajos were first created four mountains and four rivers were pointed out to us inside of which we should, live, that was to be our country and was given to us by [God]
Barboncito
Probably in his impatience to resolve a complicated matter or more aptly put, a government induced disaster, Sherman proposed that the Navajos move to designated ‘Indian Country’ that is, the territories south of the Arkansas River. These lands were then being used to relocate several tribes resisting assimilation. He supposed it would be a favorable option because land was suitable for farming and ranching. It was also off limits to white settlers. But the Navajos rejected that proposition and their will prevailed. Sherman soon agreed that it was to their advantage and the US government’s best interest that the Navajo return to their ancestral homelands and for the reasons that the Navajos themselves had determined.
The talks and negotiations concluded with the signing of the treaty, early in the morning of June 1, 1868. I was ratified by Congress on July 25th and signed by President Andrew Johnson on August 12th. Shortly afterwards approximately 8,000 Navajo men, women, elders and children gathered their horses, mules, sheep and goats and together began their long walk home to their four sacred mountains. In his formal greeting to Sherman when he arrived to Fort Sumner, Barboncito declared he had made three pairs of moccasins for the occasion. He had already worn two for the meetings. The third pair he undoubtedly was saving for the journey home with a dream and destiny for the people:
After we get back to our country, it will brighten up again and the Navajos will be as happy as the land, black clouds will rise and there will be plenty of rain. Corn will grow in abundance and everything will look happy.
Barboncito, June 1, 1868
