Indian Army Scouts

From the early colonial period to the end of the 19th century, Native Americans fought alongside European and later Euro-American forces against other indigenous peoples. Because of the distinctive nature of such warfare, with its emphasis on mobility and surprise, the U.S. Army came to rely greatly on the assistance of Indian scouts and auxiliaries to locate and fight hostile indigenous peoples. Indian scouts did much more than guide troops through unfamiliar terrain and locate hostile camps. They carried dispatches between commands, spearheaded attacks against enemy villages, caught Army deserters, policed the reservations, escorted scientific expeditions and railroad crews, and on various occasions saved troops from starvation in the field or from disaster in battle. Indian scouts contributed significantly to the conquest of North America.

Indians enlisted as scouts for a variety of reasons. When serving against their enemies, scouts fought to gain war honors, to exact revenge, to acquire horses and plunder, to earn additional income to support their families, or to escape the confines of the reservation. The situation was more complex when they served against people of their own nation. In such cases, factional, clan, or band considerations often played an important role. Sometimes scouts sought to persuade their fellows to surrender peacefully to prevent unnecessary bloodshed. In other cases, the scouts hoped to win the favors of the Army and obtain better bargaining positions for their people in future negotiations with the government. Pawnee, Arikara, Crow, Apache, Seminole, Delaware, and Shoshone scout units received national attention. In reality, however, Native Americans from virtually all nations, sometimes in large numbers, served as scouts for the Army at some point.

The Army Reorganization Act of 1866 formalized the use of Indian scouts. It authorized the Army to enlist 1,000 scouts, but official counts were rarely kept, and at times the Army appears to have deployed many more than were formally authorized. The scouts, employed by the Quartermaster Department, received the same pay as regular troops and were furnished guns, uniforms, and horses. As soldiers they were cost-effective, requiring little training, and they could be discharged when their services were no longer needed. They were also highly effective in combat. They posed a great threat to the independence of hostile tribes. Unsurprisingly, tribes that provided Indian scouts often became the target of revenge expeditions by other Native Americans. The Sioux and the Cheyenne, for example, intensified their raids against the Arikaras and Pawnees in the 1870s in part to discourage them from allowing their warriors to enlist as scouts.

Indian scouts remained distinctly apart in terms of Army organization and doctrine for various reasons. First, the War Department remained focused on conventional Europeanstyle warfare and, following the Mexican War, regarded [Page 360]Native American resistance to U.S. expansion merely as a “distraction.” Hence, it failed to develop procedures that would allow the Army to deal more effectively with indigenous peoples. Second, some senior officers believed that the use of Indian scouts diminished the Army's prestige. Third, the Interior Department, which was in charge of Indian affairs, objected to the use of Indian scouts because such employment supposedly retarded the department's “civilization” policies. Finally, the greatest prejudice against the use of scouts was the widespread fear that Native Americans could not be trusted. Incidents such as the 1881 “Cibicu mutiny,” when some Apache scouts turned against the Army during a fight, aroused the suspicions of commanding officers. In reality, such incidents were extremely rare. In fact, Indian scouts proved to be loyal soldiers and the desertion rate among them was much lower than among regular soldiers. Thirteen scouts won Congressional Medals of Honor.

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