The Sand Creek Massacre

In late November of eighteen sixty-four, Chief Black Kettle of the Southern Cheyenne had every reason to believe his village was safe. He had traveled to Fort Lyon three weeks earlier and met with Army commanders. He had been told to move his people to Sand Creek, in the high plains of southeastern Colorado, and camp there under the protection of the United States government. He had done that. He had even flown an American flag and a white flag above his lodge.

At dawn on November twenty-ninth, Colonel John Chivington arrived at Sand Creek with approximately seven hundred soldiers of the Colorado Volunteer Cavalry and four howitzers. The village held mostly women, children, and elderly men. Most of the young warriors were away hunting.

Between one hundred fifty and two hundred thirty Cheyenne and Arapaho people were killed. Congressional investigations that followed condemned the attack explicitly. Testimony from Army officers who were present described soldiers taking scalps and mutilating bodies. Chivington was celebrated in Denver as a hero. He was never criminally charged. He resigned his commission and went into business.

The historical record does not resolve the gap between what was done and what followed from it. No prosecution. No reparation at the time. The treaties that came after Sand Creek were honored until they were not, which did not take long. The massacre accelerated warfare across the entire Southern Plains for a generation, as Cheyenne, Arapaho, Lakota, and allied nations responded to what had happened at Sand Creek.

The Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site was designated in two thousand seven. It sits in the high, flat plains east of Pueblo, far from the mountains and the ski towns and the scenic corridors that most visitors think of as Colorado. Getting there requires intention. The site is quiet. The creek is narrow. There is a small visitor center with documented accounts from both survivors and soldiers. The flags Black Kettle flew are in the historical record. The Army's own after-action reports document what happened. The gap is not in the evidence.