The painful history of Sand Creek

Trees along the Sand Creek massacre site

Go to the site of the Sand Creek massacre looking for answers, and you might come away with even more questions. 

In fact, you probably should have a stack of questions. How does a white person approach and write about the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site? Among the 400-plus National Park Service, only this remote place on Colorado’s Eastern Plains bears the name “massacre.” Other so-called battlefields deserve the same designation, but what the cavalry did at Sand Creek has been considered horrific since its occurred more than 150 years ago. 

To reach it requires a drive across the Eastern Plains to the farmland east of Eads, where the park service operates a small museum dedicated to the Sand Creek Massacre. The drive might seem too long for the view, an overlook of a cottonwood grove along a dry creek bed, which once housed a camp of Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians. But it’s a necessary pilgrimage, a place visitors need to feel up close. 

On Nov. 29, 1864, one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history turned his otherwise placid spot into a bloodbath. The Sand Creek Massacre was among the worst atrocities committed by U.S. Cavalry during conflicts with Native peoples. The village of Cheyenne and Arapahos had moved within reservation land in eastern Colorado (when it was still reservation), and early one morning soldiers descended upon the village with guns blazing, ignoring that one chief had flown both the U.S. flag and a white peace flag above his tipi. 

Col. John Chivington knew the warriors were away, leaving only young boys and old men to lead the village’s defense. So he and 700 cavalry went after the village of Black Kettle and other chiefs who thought peace negotiations with the federal government extended some protections. 

Death counts vary but nearly 200 Indians were killed, mostly woman and children. Even in 1864, the massacre drew disgust and derision. Bodies were mutilated. The incident also consolidated support among different tribes. 

Not a battleground

The closest town, Chivington, is named for the man who led the slaughter. In recent years, some people have raised the issue of changing its name, but I feel the dying town suits its namesake. What better tribute to a butcher than a clutch crumbling barns and decayed houses. Chivington resigned his commission before he could face a tribunal, and never received any punishment for his role in the massacre. Let a dead town be his legacy.

I first learned about the massacre from James Michener’s Centennial, a fictional history of Colorado’s Eastern Plains that depicted those terrible events. The TV version has to hint at the ugliness. The massacre site was rediscovered during archaeological digs searching for its location, and the land was transferred to the park service. 

While the unit is small and development light, Sand Creek feels a like a pilgrimage site, a place where ugly events can provide insights. I wanted to visit in wintertime, when weather conditions were similar to the massacre, as Sand Creek would have been dry and the nearby trees bare. Not all cavalry members went along with the massacre. 

Among the soldiers who refused to join the massacre, Cpt. Silas Soule testified against Chivington and was murdered in 1865. Still, the murderous events had their defenders among the soldiers who were there. 

The actual massacre site is off-limits due to its sacred nature for the tribes. A short trail leads to an overlook, where a dated stone marker refers to Sand Creek as a battle, not a massacre. Park service informational signs remedy this, and provide an accounting of the massacre and the temporary village erected on the small creek. Placards throughout the park go into disturbing detail about what the soldiers did. 

The massacre has ties to the nearest park unit, Bent’s Old Fort. George Bent, whose father founded the trading post on the Arkansas River when it formed the border between the U.S. and Mexico, was among the survivors of the massacre. The younger Bent had a Cheyenne mother and was living with the Cheyenne at the Sand Creek camp. During the massacre, George Bent took a bullet in the hip and ended up with other survivors in a sand pit along the river, where they were only saved by the cavalry running out of ammunition. 

It took me almost two years in Colorado to make the pilgrimage, but I already expect to come back to Sand Creek someday. It’s hard to process. I found myself out that far while searching for solitude, and plunging into the site’s painful history brought an entirely different experience. On the way home, I took a quiet state highway that passed through a number of fading towns and still couldn’t shake the simple solemnity of the place.

I walked the ridgeline with the park’s one trail, and had only the prairie winds for company. her visitors I saw when to the overlook and left, so I suggest taking the trail. The 3-mile out-and-back gives a visceral recounting of events as one moves further from the cottonwood grove where the camp stood. It was a little too early in the season for rattlesnakes, and signs everywhere to warn of their presence. 

But the land and environment have other impacts, the gusty winds swaying the skeletal cottonwoods, a strangely spiritual feel despite the darkness of actions on those creek banks. I don’t know that any writing could cover all the emotions Sand Creek conjured. 

By traversing the grounds and imagining a terrible moment in U.S. history, we can learn from Sand Creek. The trail or even the historic site won’t provide any easy answers, but the site has been preserved with respect for those who lost their lives here, Native peoples with little means to defend themselves and wholly undeserving of so ugly a fate.