1872 to 1875

Tensions on the plains increased as Americans, including Quaker reservation officials, put more pressures and restrictions on Kiowas and other Native peoples. Indians experienced hunger when rations failed to arrive. Diseases circulated with frequency. Attempts at farming withered in the sun. Quakers and other Protestants involved in the Peace Policy continued to celebrate the humanitarian impulse behind their work. Kiowas and their allies, on the other hand, devised plans for pushing Americans out of their homelands. Some invoked dreams and visions that inspired attacks on Americans. By 1874, the region was at war as Kiowas, Comanches, Cheyenne, and Arapahos orchestrated a pan-Indian revolt. The Americans, however, crushed their effort. The Red River War, as well as other Indian-American conflicts, left Quakers and other Peace Policy supporters searching for reasons to justify the nation’s policy of putting religious representatives at the forefront of Indian affairs.