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What did the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867 require southern Plains tribes to do?
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Plains Wars
View of the army camp at Hidden Wood Creek during Lieut. Col. George Armstrong Custer's Black Hills expedition, 1874; photograph by W.H. Illingworth.
Under the 1867 Medicine Lodge Treaty, southern Plains tribesāincluding the Kiowa, Comanche, Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Kiowa Apacheāwere required to relocate to reservations in western Indian Territory.1
In exchange for these concessions, which also opened the region to white settlement and railroads, the tribes were promised government annuities and retained the right to hunt buffalo south of the Arkansas River. Additionally, the tribes were expected to refrain from attacking white settlers. Despite these terms, the agreement was largely unsuccessful, as neither the U.S. government nor the tribes consistently adhered to the spirit or the letter of the treaty, leading to continued conflict.12