Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty Site

Along Medicine Lodge Creek, in October of eighteen sixty-seven, the United States government negotiated the largest peace council in the history of the southern Plains. Between five thousand and fifteen thousand people gathered here: Comanche, Kiowa, Plains Apache, Southern Cheyenne, and Southern Arapaho. The United States promised peace, protection, and guaranteed hunting rights south of the Arkansas River.

The tribes accepted reservations in Indian Territory, today's Oklahoma, in exchange. Ten Bears of the Comanche signed on October twenty-first; the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho, including Black Kettle's people, signed on October twenty-eighth. The peace lasted less than a year.

The Smithsonian called it an agreement that changed the Plains tribes forever, mostly because neither side kept it.