Colorado Territory during the 1850's and 1860's was a place of phenomenal growth in Colorado homes spurred by gold and silver rushes. Miners by the tens of thousands had elbowed theirway into mineral fields, dislocating and angering the Cheyennes and Arapahos.
The Pike's Peak Gold Rush in 1858 brought the the tension to a boiling
point. Tribesmen attacked wagon trains, mining camps, and stagecoach lines
during the Civil War, when the military garrisons out west were reduced
by the war. One white family died within 20 miles of Denver. This outbreak
of violence is sometimes referred to as the Cheyenne-Arapaho War or the
Colorado War of 1864-65.
Governor John Evans of Colorado
Territory sought to open up the Cheyenne and Arapaho hunting grounds to
white development. The tribes, however, refused to sell their lands and
settle on reservations. Evens decided to call out volunteer militiamen
under Colonel John Chivington to quell the mounting violence.
Evans used isolated incidents
of violence as a pretext to order troops into the field under the ambitious,
Indian-hating territory military commander Colonel Chivington.
Though John Chivington had once belonged to the clergy, his compassion
for his fellow man didn't extend to the Indians.
Sand Creek Massacre
In the spring of 1864, while the
Civil War raged in the east, Chivington launched a campaign of violence
against the Cheyenne and their allies, his troops attacking any and all
Indians and razing their villages. The Cheyennes, joined by neighboring
Arapahos, Sioux, Comanches, and Kiowas in both Colorado and Kansas, went
on the defensive warpath.
Evans and Chivington reinforced
their militia, raising the Third Colorado Calvary of short-term volunteers
who referred to themselves as "Hundred Dazers". After a summer of scattered
small raids and clashes, white and Indian representatives met at Camp Weld
outside of Denver on September 28. No treaties were signed, but the Indians
believed that by reporting and camping near army posts, they would be declaring
peace and accepting sanctuary.
Black Kettle was a peace-seeking
chief of a band of some 600 Southern Cheyennes and Arapahos that
followed the buffalo along the Arkansas River of Colorado and Kansas. They
reported to Fort Lyon and then camped on Sand Creek about 40 miles north.
Shortly afterward, Chivington
led a force of about 700 men into Fort Lyon, and gave the garrison notice
of his plans for an attack on the Indian encampment. Although he was informed
that Black Kettle has already surrendered, Chivington pressed on with what
he considered the perfect opportunity to further the cause for Indian extinction.
On the morning of November 29, he led his troops, many of them drinking
heavily, to Sand Creek and positioned them, along with their four howitzers,
around the Indian village.
Black Kettle ever trusting raised
both an American and a white flag of peace over his tepee. In response,
Chivington raised his arm for the attack. Chivington wanted a victory,
not prisoners, and so men, women and children were hunted down and shot.
With cannons and rifles pounding
them, the Indians scattered in panic. Then the crazed soldiers charged
and killed anything that moved. A few warriors managed to fight back to
allow some of the tribe to escape across the stream, including Black Kettle.
The colonel was as thourough
as he was heartless. An interpreter living in the village testified, "THEY
WERE SCALPED, THEIR BRAINS KNOCKED OUT; THE MEN USED THEIR KNIVES, RIPPED
OPEN WOMEN, CLUBBED LITTLE CHILDREN, KNOCKED THEM IN THE HEAD WITH THEIR
RIFLE BUTTS, BEAT THEIR BRAINS OUT, MUTILATED THEIR BODIES IN EVERY SENSE
OF THE WORD." By the end of the one-sided battle as many as 200 Indians,
more than half women and children, had been killed and mutilated.
While the Sand Creek Massacre
outraged easterners, it seemed to please many people in Colorado Territory.
Chivington later appeared on a Denver stage where he regaled delighted
audiences with his war stories and displayed 100 Indian scalps, including
the pubic hairs of women.
Chivington was later denounced
in a congressional investigation and forced to resign. When asked at the
military inquiry why children had been killed, one of the soldiers quoted
Chivington as saying, "NITS MAKE LICE."
Yet the after-the-fact reprimand of the colonel meant nothing to the Indians.
As word of the massacre spread
among them via refugees, Indians of the southern and northern plains stiffened
in their resolve to resist white encroachment. An avenging wildfire swept
the land and peace returned only after a quarter of a century. |
