This article considers the event of a single year, 1873, to explain how President Ulysses S. Grant’s federal Indian policy led to the Indian wars of the late nineteenth century. Some historians have argued that Grant’s so-called Peace Policy failed due to systemic mismanagement and corruption; others have suggested it was due to administrative incompetence or ambivalence, while still others have accused the administration of cynicism in its approach to Indigenous affairs. This article argues that the Peace Policy reflected the unresolved tensions inherent in the era’s zeitgeist and that it failed to usher in a lasting peace because it did not account for the enmeshed reality of life in the American West where the boundaries and borders between Indian reservations and settler communities were entangled to say the least. The article begins with a detailed consideration of the Grant administration’s Indian policy as articulated by Francis Amasa Walker in the winter of 1872–73. Largely overlooked by historians of post–Civil War Indian policy, Walker was an influential thinker in his day whose policy recommendations emphasized the moral necessity of proprietary individualism and racial segregation on isolated reservations. The article then turns to the unfolding drama of the Modoc War (1872–73) to explore why the federal government abandoned the project of peacefully incorporating Indigenous people into the body politic, leading to a harsher and more militant approach to Indian affairs. By focusing on the nexus of ideas and events as they played out at this critical historical juncture, this article argues that the Modoc War was the precipitating event that marked the end of Grant’s so-called Peace Policy and the resumption of the Indian wars in the decades following the Civil War.

中文翻译：

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文明与野蛮之间：重建时代的联邦印第安政策如何导致印第安战争

本文考虑了 1873 年这一单一年份的事件，以解释尤利西斯·S·格兰特总统的联邦印第安政策如何导致 19 世纪后期的印第安战争。一些历史学家认为，格兰特所谓的和平政策因系统性管理不善和腐败而失败；其他人认为这是由于行政无能或矛盾心理，而还有一些人指责行政当局在处理土著事务时玩世不恭。本文认为，和平政策反映了那个时代的时代精神中固有的未解决的紧张局势，它未能带来持久的和平，因为它没有考虑到美国西部生活的纠缠现实，印第安保留地和边界之间的边界和边界定居者社区至少可以说是纠缠在一起。文章首先详细考虑了弗朗西斯·阿马萨·沃克 (Francis Amasa Walker) 在 1872-73 年冬天阐述的格兰特政府的印度政策。内战后印第安政策的历史学家在很大程度上忽视了沃克，他在他那个时代是一位有影响力的思想家，他的政策建议强调了专有个人主义和种族隔离对孤立保留地的道德必要性。然后，文章转向莫多克战争（1872-73 年）正在展开的戏剧，探讨为什么联邦政府放弃了将土著人民和平融入政体的项目，从而导致对印度事务采取更严厉、更激进的态度。通过关注在这个关键的历史关头上演的思想和事件的联系，