Park Service Seeks to Pinpoint Site of 1864 Sand Creek Massacre

A cold wind blows across the high plains sage country, a silent scene of fiery sunsets and endless horizons.

Somewhere here amid the fallow, fenced grain fields, the Big Sandy Creek once ran red with the blood of dozens of Cheyenne and Arapaho men, women and children. They were killed, scalped and mutilated by hundreds of volunteers in the Colorado Militia.

The Sand Creek Massacre that cold morning of Nov. 29, 1864, is unknown to many Americans today, but it is as close as yesterday to the Cheyenne and Arapaho. Still, there are questions about how many people were killed and where the massacre occurred.

Now the National Park Service is working along with tribal advisors to pinpoint the site of the attack so it can be nominated as a national park. They are using high-tech tools, aerial photographs, oral histories of the tribes and archival research.

“Never has justice been done or things done to satisfy the spirits” of those slain at Sand Creek, said Robert Tabor, vice chairman of the Cheyenne-Arapaho in Oklahoma.

“Sand Creek itself defined the United States’ relations to all Indian people. It is time we set the ground aside and made it a national park,” said state historian David Halaas.

The bill to fund the Sand Creek study was pushed through Congress last fall by Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.), who is part Cheyenne.

“The massacre was a shameful part of American history. The women and children slaughtered there, many of whom were my ancestors, should respectfully be remembered and honored,” Campbell said last year.

On that bitter sunrise long ago, the Colorado volunteers under Col. John M. Chivington, supported by four small pack howitzers, attacked the camp of Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle and 500 or more Cheyenne and Arapaho along Big Sandy.

War between the pioneers and plains tribes had been full blown for months, with atrocities committed by both sides. Chivington and his volunteers were spurred to action by the slaughter of a family, an attack that most believe was unconnected to Black Kettle and his people.

The number reported killed at Sand Creek varies widely, from 63 to 500. Halaas believes the death toll was around 160.

Adding to the tragedy was that Black Kettle believed he had entered into a peace agreement with the U.S. Army. Historians say when the first shots were fired on the camp of about 130 lodges, Black Kettle raised an American flag and a white cloth of truce to signal parley.

It only drew more fire. Black Kettle escaped with many others.

When word of the massacre reached the East, both Congress and the military launched inquiries. Chivington resigned, as did the new commander of Ft. Lyon, whose troops took part in the attack.

The question of the site, long thought to be on the Dawson property northeast of Eads, in Kiowa County, arose recently when a state Historical Society search failed to turn up any conclusive evidence.

That site, on private property, is closed to the public. The owner declined to comment.

“We know where it is. . . . But according to the National Park Service they have to document or pinpoint the Sand Creek area,” said Laird Cometsevah, a chief of the Southern Cheyenne in Oklahoma.

His great-grandfather Cometsevah, along with his family, escaped the massacre.

“As far as the Cheyenne are concerned, the Dawson site was the main camp area of Chief Black Kettle when they were attacked,” Cometsevah said.

Tabor is not so sure.

“Even nowadays you don’t camp with the wind at your face. . . . The way the bluffs are established there [at the Dawson site] the camp would have been in the open.”

“The site we located is south. I visited that location, and there are bluffs that would block the north wind, plenty of vegetation and water available,” Tabor said. He has asked the park service to check that site.

The search area is in high plains sage country, gray and tan in winter, now broken by the stubble of fenced grain fields and dotted with cattle where buffalo once roamed. It is big, silent country set against a western horizon seldom broken by tree and never by mountain peak.

The search committee consists of Cometsevah, Tabor, representatives of the Northern Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho, the Colorado Historical Society, landowners and Park Service coordinator Rick Frost.

Periodic flooding in the area has washed away evidence over the last century, but searchers are hoping to find tools, bone fragments or other relics from the period by using core samples, maps, metal detectors and other methods. A final report to Congress must be made by August 2000.

Once the site is verified, Cometsevah would like a memorial with the names of those killed as well as those of the survivors.

“My family would like to see it left in as much of its natural state as possible. It needs to be preserved,” Cometsevah said.

Although the search continues, Tabor said the final determination will be made by the old ways.

“We usually listen to the wind and watch the animals. There is a lot of eagle sightings there.

“Native Americans believe spirits come and visit” their death site, “especially when there’s been sudden, unexpected or untimely deaths. The spirits are not ready to rest. The creator has a time for each of us. There is still a lot of unrest,” Tabor said.

The Sand Creek Massacre did not occur in a vacuum.

Two cultures had collided on the plains: one to preserve a nomadic hunter-warrior way of life, the other to establish an economy of agriculture and commerce.

The Civil War was raging in the East, leaving frontier Army posts lightly garrisoned and poorly equipped.

Throughout 1864, raids on wagon trains, ranches and farms were increasing, with pioneers killed, stock driven off, women and children taken captive.

Pioneers were enraged by the deaths of the Hungate family on a ranch southwest of Denver. Accounts of the day said the man was shot, the woman stabbed and “violated.” Both were scalped; their two young daughters were nearly decapitated.

Their bodies were brought to Denver and put on display, rousing panic, anger and vengeance in the populace, and the calling up of the Colorado Militia by Territorial Gov. John Evans.

Such victims were the battle cry of the Colorado volunteers, but Sand Creek became the rallying cry of the plains tribes.

Halaas said Cheyenne Dog Soldiers united with Sioux and Arapaho.

“About 2,000 warriors stayed together from January through October 1865. Hundreds [of white settlers] were killed,” Halaas said.

“The impact of Sand Creek ended 12 years later at the Little Big Horn,” where Lt. Col. George Custer and his 7th Cavalry unit were massacred, he said.