The West Old & New December Vol. II Issue XII | Page 7

The Sand Creek Massacre
Also known as the Chivington Massacre, the Battle of Sand Creek or the Massacre of Cheyenne Indians
“Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians! ... I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God's heaven to kill Indians. ... Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice.”
Col. John Milton Chivington
The Sand Creek Massacre was an atrocity in the Indian Wars that occurred on November 29, 1864, when a 700-man force of
Colorado Territory militia attacked and destroyed a peaceful village of Cheyenne and Arapaho encamped in southeastern Colorado
Territory, killing and mutilating an estimated 70–163 Indians, about two-thirds of whom were women and children. The location
has been designated the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site and is administered by the National Park Service.
By the terms of the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie between the United States and seven Indian nations, including the Cheyenne
and Arapaho, the United States recognized that the Cheyenne and Arapaho held a vast territory encompassing the lands between
the North Platte River and Arkansas River and eastward from the Rocky Mountains to western Kansas. This area included presentday southeastern Wyoming, southwestern Nebraska, and most of eastern Colorado, and the westernmost portions of Kansas.
In November 1858, the discovery of gold in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, then part of the Kansas Territory, brought on the
Pikes Peak Gold Rush. There was a flood of migrants across Cheyenne and Arapaho lands. They competed for resources and some
settlers tried to stay. Colorado territorial officials pressured federal authorities to redefine the extent of Indian lands in the territory,
and in the fall of 1860, A.B. Greenwood, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, arrived at Bent’s New Fort along the Arkansas River to
negotiate a new treaty.
On February 18, 1861, six chiefs of the Southern Cheyenne and four of the Arapaho signed the Treaty of Fort Wise with the
United States, in which they ceded most of the lands designated to them by the Fort Laramie treaty. The Cheyenne chiefs included
Black Kettle, White Antelope (Vó'kaa'e Ohvó'komaestse), Lean Bear, Little Wolf, and Tall Bear; the Arapaho chiefs included Little Raven, Storm, Shave-Head, Big Mouth, and Niwot, or Left Hand.
The new reserve, less than one-thirteenth the size of the 1851 reserve, was located in eastern Colorado between the Arkansas
River and Sand Creek. Some bands of Cheyenne, including the Dog Soldiers, a militaristic band of Cheyenne and Lakota that had
evolved beginning in the 1830s, were angry at the chiefs who had signed the treaty. They disavowed the treaty and refused to
abide by its constraints. They continued to live and hunt in the lands of eastern Colorado and western Kansas, becoming increasingly belligerent over the tide of white migration across their lands. Tensions were high particularly in the Smoky Hill River country of Kansas, along which whites had opened a new trail to the gold fields. Cheyenne who opposed the treaty said that it had been
signed by a small minority of the chiefs without the consent or approval of the rest of the tribe; that the signatories had not understood what they signed; and that they had been bribed to sign by a large distribution of gifts. The whites, however, claimed that the
treaty was a "solemn obligation". Officials took the position that Indians who refused to abide by it were hostile and planning a
war.
The beginning of the American Civil War in 1861 led to the organization of military forces in Colorado Territory. In March
1862, the Coloradans defeated the Texas Confederate Army in the Battle of Glorieta Pass in New Mexico. Following the battle,
the First Regiment of Colorado Volunteers returned to Colorado Territory and were mounted as a home guard under the command
of Colonel John Chivington. Chivington and Colorado territorial governor John Evans adopted a hard line against Indians, whom
white settlers accused of stealing livestock. Without any declaration of war, in April 1864 soldiers started attacking and destroying
a number of Cheyenne camps, the largest of which included about 70 lodges, about 10% of the housing capacity of the entire
Cheyenne nation. On May 16, 1864, a force under Lieutenant George S. Eayre crossed into Kansas and encountered Cheyenne in
their summer buffalo-hunting camp at Big Bushes near the Smoky Hill River. Cheyenne chiefs Lean Bear and Star approached the
soldiers to signal their peaceful intent, but were shot down by Eayre's troops. This incident touched off a war of retaliation by the
Cheyenne in Kansas.
Black Kettle, a chief of a group of around 800 mostly Northern Cheyenne, reported to Fort Lyon in an effort to establish peace.
After having done so, he and his band, along with some Arapaho under Chief Niwot, camped out at nearby Sand Creek, less than
40 miles north. The Dog Soldiers, who had been responsible for many of the raids on whites, were not part of this encampment.
Assured by the U.S. Government's promises of peace, most of the warriors were off hunting buffalo, leaving only around 60 men,
and women and children in the village. Most of the men were too old or too young to hunt. Black Kettle flew an American flag
over his lodge, since previously the officers had said this would show he was friendly and prevent attack by U.S. soldiers.
Setting out from Fort Lyon, Chivington and his 700 troops of the 1st Colorado Cavalry, 3rd Colorado Cavalry and a company of
the 1st Regiment New Mexico Volunteer Cavalry marched to Black Kettle's campsite. James Beckwourth, noted frontiersman,
acted as a guide for Chivington. On the night of November 28, soldiers and militia drank heavily and celebrated their anticipated
victory. On the morning of November 29, 1864, Chivington ordered his troops to attack. Two officers, Captain Silas Soule and
Lieutenant Joseph Cramer, commanding the First Colorado Cavalry companies D and ,?????????????????????????
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