Chief Black Kettle,
I want you to give all these chiefs of the soldiers here to understand that we are for peace, and that we have made peace, that we may not be mistaken by them for enemies.
A Cheyenne cemetery is in the same direction as where my mother told me she watched gypsies camp through her west window as a girl, about ½ mile from her house. I have reverently walked though that Cheyenne cemetery as early as ten, looking at the headstones and wondering who they were and where they came from. I did not know then, that in that cemetery were descendants from the Sand Creek Massacre.
The Approaching Genocide Towards Sand Creek
Simultaneously, Roman Nose led the Dog Soldiers in battle,
while Black Kettle strove for peace.
Why did Roman Nose and the Hotamitanio (Dog Soldier Society) need to defend their sovereignty and way of life? The answers to that one question rest in: the Great Horse Creek Treaty (1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie), volunteer soldiers, John Chivington, white encroachment with the Pike's Peak gold rush of 1858, the "renegotiation" of the "Great Horse Creek Treaty" at Fort Wise, the Civil War soldiers who encroached on promised land, and the murder of Lean Bear. The first core point is that hunting rights and land claims were not surrendered in the Great Horse Creek Treaty (1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie).
The territory of the Cheyennes and Arrapahoes, commencing at the Red Butte, or the place where the road leaves the north fork of the source; thence along the main range of the Rocky Mountains to the head-waters of the Arkansas River; thence down the Arkansas River to the crossing of the Santa Fe road, thence in a northwesterly direction to the forks of the Platte River, and thence up the Platte River to the place of beginning.
Second of all, the Pike's Peak gold rush of 1858 brought white encroachment by ways of pony express riders, telegraph wires, stagecoaches, and more and more military forts whose soldiers (at least in the Sand Creek Massacre) included volunteer soldiers under the command of Col. John Chivington (1). To illustrate, here is a poster from 1864 that portrays the recruitment of volunteer soldiers.
Clearly, Roman Nose had sufficient reason to defend his people. Matters became worse for the Cheyenne and Arapaho as the white encroachment increased dramatically with the Pike's Peak gold rush of 1858, despite the land being promised them in the Great Horse Creek Treaty (1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie). The Territory of Colorado was then "declared" a decade after that treaty, and politicians wanted to "renegotiate" the Great Horse Creek Treaty at Fort Wise. It was far from a compromise, it was theft.
Source ARTICLE 1.
"The said chiefs and delegates
of said Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes of Indians do hereby cede and relinquish to the United States all lands now owned, possessed, or claimed by them, wherever situated, except a tract to be reserved for the use of said tribes located within the following described boundaries, to wit:..."
Some "negotiation," 38 of the 44 Cheyenne chiefs did not sign it.
Dee Brown. "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee." p. 69:
"...When the Cheyennes pointed out that only six of their forty-four chiefs were present, the United States officials replied that the others could sign it later..."(1)
Adding still more misery, were facts that hunting was scarce on this land tract, nor was it suited to farming. Also, white encroachment from the Pike's Peak gold rush escalated, while Civil War soldiers roamed onto their grounds. Then, Chivington, the butcher of Sand Creek, began his campaign of extermination and genocide.
Source 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.
Chief Black Kettle was promised complete safety by Colonel Greenwood as long as he rose the U.S flag above him (1). Black Kettle persisted in his calls for peace in spite of continuing exterminations and the shooting of Lean Bear.
(All bold mine)
Source
Lean Bear, a leading peacemaker who had previously met with President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C., was shot from his horse without warning by U.S. troops during a Kansas buffalo hunt.
The troops were acting under orders from Colonel John M. Chivington who commanded the military district of Colorado: "Find Indians wherever you can and kill them" (The War of the Rebellion, 1880-1881, pp. 403-404).
Perplexed by the continuing genocide, Black Kettle sent for Little White Man, known as William Bent. Almost prophetic, both agreed a war was about to be born if nothing changed. Black Kettle's peaceful attempts tragically failed, even though he took his people to Sand Creek, fully expecting peace. His last effort for peace was raising the U.S. flag just prior to the massacre.
Source "...Though no treaties were signed, the Indians believed that by reporting and camping near army posts, they would be declaring peace and accepting sanctuary. However on the day of the "peace talks" Chivington received a telegram from General Samuel Curtis (his superior officer) informing him that "I want no peace till the Indians suffer more...No peace must be made without my directions."
Chivington, butcher of the Sand Creek Massacre
Source "the Cheyennes will have to be roundly whipped -- or completely wiped out -- before they will be quiet. I say that if any of them are caught in your vicinity, the only thing to do is kill them." A month later, while addressing a gathering of church deacons, he dismissed the possibility of making a treaty with the Cheyenne: "It simply is not possible for Indians to obey or even understand any treaty. I am fully satisfied, gentlemen, that to kill them is the only way we will ever have peace and quiet in Colorado."
(It is worth noting also that the Fuhrer from time to time expressed admiration for the "efficiency" of the American genocide campaign against the Indians, viewing it as a forerunner for his own plans and programs.)
Unaware of Curtis's telegram, Black Kettle and some 550 Cheyennes and Arapahos, having made their peace, traveled south to set up camp on Sand Creek under the promised protection of Fort Lyon. Those who remained opposed to the agreement headed North to join the Sioux.
The Sand Creek Massacre of November 29, 1864
"Nothing lives long," he sang, "only the earth and the mountains." Black Kettle and his people had every reason to expect complete safety from their bloodshed after agreements for peace were made and Dog Soldiers left to join the Sioux. Nonetheless, Chivington's troops advanced on the Cheyenne and Arapaho near dawn on that day. The sound of those approaching hooves must have sounded ominous, as U.S. soldiers inevitably chased the defenseless Cheyenne and Arapaho by horse and foot with knives and guns. Their victims had to be positioned before ripping off scalps, cutting off ears, smashing out brains, butchering children, tearing breastfeeding infants away from their mother's breasts, and then murdering those infants. The "Bloody Third" soldiers necessarily had to kill the infants before cutting out their mother's genitals. The one question I never read asked in the congressional hearings was, "Didn't you disgraceful soldiers realize they were family?"
Kurt Kaltreider, PH.D. "American Indian Prophecies." pp. 58-59:
-The report of witnesses at Sand Creek: "I saw some Indians that had been scalped, and the ears cut off the body of White Antelope," said Captain L. Wilson of the first Colorado Cavalry. "One Indian who had been scalped had also his skull smashed in, and I heard that the privates of White Antelope had been cut off to make a tobacco bag of. I heard some of the men say that the privates of one of the squaws had been cut out and put on a stick..." John S. Smith... All manner of depredations were inflicted on their persons; they were scalped, their brains knocked out; the men used their knives, ripped open women, clubbed little children, knocked them in the heads with their guns, beat their brains out, mutilated their bodies in every sense of the word...worse mutilation that I ever saw before, the women all cut to pieces...children two or three months old; all ages lying there.
From sucking infants up to warriors, Sand Creek being a deliberate massacre is not contested, especially since the "Bloody Third" set the village in flames.
The Cheyenne Stan Hoig
By 3:00 P.M. the shooting had ceased, and the troops began looting the village. Some of the one-hundred-day volunteers took scalps. John Simpson Smith escaped harm, but his half Indian son Jack was captured and murdered; his corpse was harnessed to a horse and dragged around the campsite. Black Kettle and his wife managed to escape. The bodies on the battlefield included those of One Eye and Arapaho chief Left Hand.In his report, Chivington claimed that four hundred to five hundred Indians had been killed, compared with a loss to his own forces of nine killed and thirty-eight wounded. He tried to glorify the Sand Creek Massacre by referring to it not as a slaughter but as “one of the most bloody Indian battles ever fought on these plains.”
Source Letters written by those at Sand Creek From Lt. Silas Soule to Maj. Edward Wynkoop, Dec. 14, 1864:
"The massacre lasted six or eight hours...I tell you Ned it was hard to see little children on their knees have their brains beat out by men professing to be civilized....They were all scalped, and as high as a half a dozen [scalps] taken from one head. They were all horribly mutilated...You could think it impossible for white men to butcher and mutilate human beings as they did there, but every word I have told you is the truth, which they do not deny...I expect we will have a hell of a time with Indians this winter."
Then, they took all the evidence back to Washington and hid it.
Source Before departing, the command, now the "Bloody Third", ransacked and burned the village.
The surviving Indians, some 300 people, fled north towards other Cheyenne camps.
Medicine Calf Beckwourth sought Black Kettle to ask him if peace was yet possible, but Black Kettle had moved out to be with relatives. Leg-in-the-Water replaced Black Kettle as the primary chief; so, Beckwourth asked Leg-in-the-Water if there could still be peace. Principle chief Leg-in-the-Water responded with these powerful words.
Dee Brown. "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee." p. 94:
"The white man has taken our country, killed all of our children. Now no peace. We want to go meet our families in the spirit land. We loved the whites until we found out they lied to us, and robbed us of what we had. We have raised the battle ax until death." (1)
Sand Creek memorial run ignites emotions; Cheyenne/Arapaho runners confront city of Denver
Chivington later took to the Denver stage, where he charmed audiences with
his stories of the massacre and displayed 100 Indian scalps, including the
pubic hair of women.
If you missed it, here is Washita Massacre of November 27, 1868: 149th Anniversary (Update)
and