Signing were such chiefs as White Antelope (Cheyenne), Little Owl (Arapaho), Big Robber (Crow) and Conquering Bear, whom the whites persuaded the Sioux to elect as head chief. Assiniboine, Mandan, Gros Ventre and Arikara chiefs also signed. The Shoshone traveled over 400 miles but were not asked to sign because they were not from the Plains.

With few exceptions, the tribes honored the treaty until 1864, when the whites’ demand for land pressured the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho into warfare, ending the hope for peace which had prompted “The Great Smoke.”

OTHER TIDBITS: This treaty was the final step of the month-long “Great Smoke” and was meant to set clear boundaries for the land claimed by the Plains tribes and the land that was open to settlement from the East. Making it happen was a huge challenge, though, since Congress cut Superintendent Mitchell’s funding in half leading up to the conference, and a cholera outbreak on a supply ship coming up the Missouri River threatened to scare off several of the tribes! The wagon train that was supposed to bring all the ceremonial gifts to start the event left late, and the bison herds that Superintendent Mitchell had been counting on to feed the thousands of people didn’t materialize! To make matters worse, the Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache hadn’t showed up, but the Shoshone, who hadn’t been invited, did!

The Council relocated to Horse Creek, and though it wasn’t customary to start any kind of negotiation without the presenting of gifts, the first puffs of the peace pipe started on September 8th. The tribes had to designate a representative chief, even though that idea was totally foreign to some of the tribes. That took four days, so the actual negotiations ran from the 12th until the 17th. Since the gifts still hadn’t arrived, the council wasn’t able to disband for another three days after the talks were concluded!

In the end, the US government did not keep its promises. It promised to pay annuities to the tribes for 50 years, then cut that down to ten. It delayed paying the tribes, often for years, which built up tensions and ultimately erupted into a 25-year war starting in 1854! Another treaty followed, but it, too, was eventually ignored by the US government.