It is in the face of such statements, such protests as these, that the United States Government has gone steadily on with its policy, so called, in regard to the treatment of the Indian.
In 1854 the report from the Upper Missouri region is still of peace and fidelity on the part of all the Indians who joined in the Fort Laramie treaty. "Not a single instance of murder, robbery, or other depredation has been committed by them, either on the neighboring tribes parties to the treaty or on whites. This is the more remarkable, as before the treaty they were foremost in the van of thieves and robbers—always at war, pillaging whoever they met, and annoying their own traders in their own forts."
In the summer of this year the Cheyennes began to be dissatisfied and impertinent. At a gathering of the northern band at Fort Laramie, one of the chiefs demanded that the travel over the Platte road should be stopped. He also, if the interpreter was to be relied on, said that next year the Government must send them out one thousand white women for wives. The Southern Cheyennes had given up to their agent some Mexican prisoners whom they had taken in the spring, and this act, it was supposed, had seemed to the northern band a needless interference on the part of the United States. Moreover, it was a matter constantly open to the observation of all friendly Indians that the hostiles, who were continually plundering and attacking emigrant trains, made, on the whole, more profit out of war than they made out of peace. On the North Platte road during this year the Pawnees alone had stolen several thousands of dollars' worth of goods; and, in addition to this, there was the pressure of public sentiment—a thing which is as powerful among Indians as among whites. It was popular to be on the war-path: the whites were invaders; it was brave and creditable to slay them. Taking all these things into account, it was only to be wondered at that these Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and Sioux kept to the provisions of their treaty at all. Nevertheless, the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, and some bands of the Sioux continued peaceable and friendly; and in 1855 they begged to be supplied with a farmer to teach them how to farm; also with a blacksmith. Their agent strongly recommends that this be done, saying that there is not "in the whole Indian country a more favorable location for a farm for grazing stock and game than the South Platte. In a very short period of time the Arapahoes and Cheyennes would become fixed and settled, and a part of each tribe—the old women and men—would become agriculturists; rude, it is true, yet sufficiently skilful to raise corn, potatoes, and beans, and dwell in cabins or fixed habitations."