Grant's Peace Policy, Custer and its aftermath

What the specification asks for

“The failure of Grant's Peace Policy towards Native Americans, Custer's Last Stand and its aftermath.” — examined through consequence. Incandio is aligned to specification 4HI1; it is not published by, endorsed by or affiliated with Pearson.

1 · Understand it

The Peace Policy

Grant's Peace Policy, announced in 1869, proposed to replace war with a programme of reservations, Christian missionary administration of Indian agencies, education and the encouragement of settled farming. Its stated aim was to end frontier warfare by assimilation rather than by extermination, and it was presented as a humane alternative to the previous policy.

It should be assessed on its own terms and it fails on them. Its assumption was that Native peoples should cease to be Native peoples, since the reservations were intended to end nomadic life, missionary administration was intended to end Native religions, and the boarding schools that followed removed children from their families.

It also failed on its own practical terms. Reservation land was repeatedly reduced when it was found to be valuable, treaty rations and payments were reduced or stolen by agents, and the destruction of the buffalo herds — accelerated by commercial hunting and by an army that understood the herds as the plains nations' commissariat — removed the economic basis of independence on the plains.

The Black Hills and Little Bighorn

The Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868 recognised the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation and closed the area to white settlement. In 1874 an army expedition commanded by George Custer confirmed the presence of gold there, prospectors entered in numbers, and the government first attempted to buy the Hills and then, when the Lakota refused, ordered the nations of the unceded territory onto reservations by a date in the winter of 1876.

The campaign that followed produced the battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876, in which a large Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho encampment destroyed five companies of the Seventh Cavalry and killed Custer and about two hundred and sixty of his men.

It was the most complete Native victory of the plains wars and it was catastrophic for the victors. The news reached the east around the centenary of independence, public opinion demanded a response, Congress appropriated funds for new forts and campaigns, and within a year the army had forced the surrender of most of the leadership. The Black Hills were taken by an Act of Congress in 1877 attached to the reservation's rations.

The general lesson

The mechanism deserves to be stated plainly because it recurs elsewhere in the specification. A victory against a state with far greater reserves can produce a worse settlement than a defeat would have, because it converts an administrative problem into a political one that the stronger side then answers with its full weight.

The aftermath was reservation policy hardened by the allotment legislation of 1887, which broke communal holdings into individual plots and opened the surplus to white purchase, reducing Native landholding enormously over the following decades; the suppression of religious practice; and compulsory boarding schools.

The Ghost Dance movement of 1890 and the killing of around two hundred and fifty Lakota, many of them women and children, at Wounded Knee in December of that year are usually taken as the end of armed resistance on the plains. In 1980 the Supreme Court held that the taking of the Black Hills in 1877 had been unlawful and awarded compensation; the Lakota have declined to accept the money, since accepting it would confirm the sale of land they say was never sold.

2 · Learn it — the notes

The dates that earn marks

1868–69

The Fort Laramie treaty recognises the Black Hills; Grant announces the Peace Policy. Why this date: It establishes both the guarantee and the policy that the gold discovery would override.

1874

An expedition under Custer confirms gold in the Black Hills and prospectors enter. Why this date: A treaty guarantee gave way to a mineral discovery, exactly as in Georgia in 1829.

June 1876

Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho destroy five companies of the Seventh Cavalry at the Little Bighorn. Why this date: The most complete Native victory of the plains wars produced a far harsher federal response.

1877–90

The Black Hills are taken by Congress; allotment follows in 1887 and Wounded Knee in 1890. Why this date: It is the aftermath the victory accelerated.

The figures, and how far to trust them

• About 260 — Men of the Seventh Cavalry killed with Custer at the Little Bighorn. (Counts differ slightly; five companies were destroyed.)
• Around 250 — Lakota killed at Wounded Knee in December 1890, many of them women and children. (Estimates range higher; the figure is disputed.)
• 1877 — The Act of Congress taking the Black Hills, held unlawful by the Supreme Court in 1980.

The people to place

• Ulysses S. Grant — President whose Peace Policy of 1869 sought assimilation rather than war.
• George Custer — Confirmed gold in the Black Hills in 1874 and was killed at the Little Bighorn in 1876.
• Sitting Bull — Hunkpapa Lakota leader of the resistance to removal from the unceded territory.

How historians disagree

Attributed interpretations, never voiced — the AO4 seam.

• The 'victory worsened the settlement' reading: The destruction of Custer's command converted a frontier dispute into a national political demand, so a state with far greater reserves answered with its full weight and the Black Hills were taken within a year. Contested by The reading that the outcome was already determined by the buffalo's destruction, railway construction and the government's decision to take the Black Hills, so the battle accelerated a process rather than causing it..

What students say — and what is actually the case

Not this: Grant's Peace Policy was an attempt to leave Native peoples alone.

This: It aimed at assimilation: reservations to end nomadic life, missionary administration to replace Native religions, and schooling to remove children from their families.

Not this: The Little Bighorn was a serious setback for the United States.

This: It destroyed five companies and produced a far larger federal effort within months. The victory was followed by the surrender of most of the leadership and the taking of the Black Hills in 1877.

Two things students merge

Blurred: A military victory and a political outcome.

The distinction: The Lakota won the battle and lost the Black Hills within a year, because the defeat mobilised a state with far greater reserves. The distinction is the strand's whole point.

Blurred: The Peace Policy and peace.

The distinction: The policy's aim was to end warfare by ending Native peoples' separate existence. Judging it a failure because fighting continued misses that it was also failing at what it claimed to want.

What a Grade 9 answer holds here

A Grade 9 answer explains why the Lakota victory was catastrophic for the Lakota. Destroying five companies of cavalry in the centenary summer converted a frontier dispute into a national demand, and a state with unlimited reserves answered with its full weight — so the Black Hills, guaranteed by treaty in 1868, were taken by Act of Congress within a year of the battle that was won to keep them.

3 · How it is examined

This strand is genuinely set through: Paper 2 Section B (a) (6 marks — “Explain TWO ways in which … was different from ….”); Paper 2 Section B (b) (8 marks — “Explain TWO causes of ….”); Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii) (16 marks — “How significant was … in …, in the years …? / How far were … responsible for …, in the years …? You may use the following in your answer: • [prompt] • [prompt]. You must also use information of your own.”).

What earns marks: The Black Hills sequence: treaty in 1868, gold in 1874, Act of Congress in 1877. It is the same pattern as Georgia in 1829, which makes it a continuity across the option.

The cap that bites here: The 16-mark question requires three aspects; two will not reach the top band.

4 · Prove it — the questions

Answered inside Incandio, where a marker checks what a correct answer must contain and tells you which half was missing. The marking stays in the app; the questions are here.

1. Explain TWO ways in which Grant's Peace Policy was different from earlier policy towards Native Americans. [6 marks · Paper 2 Section B (a)]
2. Explain TWO causes of the failure of Grant's Peace Policy. [8 marks · Paper 2 Section B (b)]
3. Explain TWO consequences of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. [8 marks · Paper 2 Section B (b)]
4. How significant was the Little Bighorn in the history of Native Americans, in the years 1783–1877? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]
5. How far were government policies towards Native Americans changed, in the years 1783–1877? [16 marks · Paper 2 Section B (c)(i) or (c)(ii)]

Carry on through the option

• Previous lesson: The Civil Rights Acts and the Reconstruction Amendments
• Also in this key topic: Johnson, the Reconstruction Act and Black Reconstruction
• Key topic 5 · A More Perfect Union? 1865–77 · America: from new nation to divided union, 1783–1877 · the option's timeline · Incandio History
• The other key topics of America: Building a new nation, 1783–1809 · Westward expansion and Native American removal, 1803–49 · Slavery, the South and the causes of secession, 1850–61 · Civil War and the end of slavery, 1861–65