During the days of the trapper and the emigrant, the Indian had been generally peaceful, despite occasional pilferings and “greenhorn” alarms. Indeed, many white traders, such as Robidoux, had freely intermarried with the Indians. The migration of 1849, giving evidence of the white man’s strength, coupled with his wanton slaughter of the life-giving buffalo, caused some uneasiness among the tribes. In October 1850, Col. E. V. Sumner with a company of mounted infantry en route to Fort Laramie met and counseled with one band of Sioux at Scotts Bluff. They, like their red brethren throughout the plains, were full of complaints. To quiet them, old mountain man Thomas Fitzpatrick, Indian agent for the Upper Platte, engineered the greatest Indian peace council ever held on the Plains. This was at Horse Creek, a few miles west of Scotts Bluff. In September 1851 around 10,000 Indians from the tribes of the Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, Crow, Snake, Ree, Gros Ventre, and Assiniboin assembled at Fort Laramie. The U. S. Government was represented by Fitzpatrick; the famed missionary, Father De Smet; Robert Campbell (one of the founders of Fort Laramie); and D. D. Mitchell, superintendent of Indian Affairs at St. Louis. Jim Bridger and other oldtimers showed up to help keep peace among traditional enemies. Because there was not grass enough for the horses of this vast assemblage, the council moved downriver. It was an historic occasion with much colorful pageantry. The negotiations went smoothly, and by “the First Treaty of Fort Laramie” the Indians promised to permit peaceful passage of travelers through their domain in exchange for an annuity of $50,000 in provisions and trade goods. This peace treaty, like so many others, was soon broken. In August 1854 a misunderstanding between an Oglala Sioux and a Mormon emigrant, compounded by the inexperience of Lt. John L. Grattan from Fort Laramie, led to the massacre of Grattan, 30 soldiers, and his interpreter 8 miles east of Fort Laramie. This was “avenged” in September 1855 by the slaughter of innocent Brule Indians by an expeditionary force under Gen. William S. Harney, near Ash Hollow. En route to Fort Laramie, the cavalrymen trooped through Mitchell Pass with over 200 fresh Indian scalps in their baggage. [Illustration: _“The Gorge, Scott’s Bluff.” sketched by Dodge in 1865._ From Perkins’ Trails, Rails and War.]