I drove to Roman Nose State Park as a worried young man in 1990, seeking some resolve and solace.
Roman Nose State Park Once a winter campground of the Cheyenne tribe, this area now is a scenic retreat set on a canyon bluff that over-looks ancient mesas.
The park is named after Chief Henry Roman Nose, who is not to be confused with the Roman Nose shown in the beginning (Chief Henry Roman Nose is not the primary one I would discuss with a ranger, although he mentioned him first).
I had started setting up my tent when a ranger came by to take my camping fee. He was very conversational and mentioned a procession that had occurred there. Also, he told me that there was a lodge where Chief Henry Roman Nose had done the Inipi ceremony (sweat bath) as he pointed northwards. Then, the ranger mentioned Roman Nose, and for some reason that’s what caught my interest. “Who’s Roman Nose?” I asked ignorantly. “A Dog Soldier," he said. “He’s different things to different people.” That’s all I remember him saying. A feeling of mystery came over me after he left. I finished setting up camp. The Inipi that he claimed Chief Henry Roman Nose had used was on a little hill with a small stream below it running under an undersized bridge. I dipped my head in the cold stream to clear my mind and walked up the hill. The Inipi was on the south side of the hill, and its frail structure looked like it’d been there for ages. If what the ranger said was true, it had been there for more than a century. Its willow structure looked feeble, and the grass in it was about a foot tall. I sat it in much that afternoon, evening, and that next morning finding the strength to face my own challenges; yet, when I left I did not understand why Roman Nose was “different things to different people.” That answer as I now know, lies much in his connection to the Sand Creek Massacre.
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."
Personal Conclusions
I recall how the Inipi that Chief Henry Roman Nose was said to have sweat in by the ranger in 1990 was gone in 2003, but that little stream and bridge were still right below the hill where it once was. Also, I remember what he said, “Roman Nose was different things to different people.”
To finally answer why he was “different things to different people” in my view now: he was a hero to the Cheyenne and Arapaho because of all their lives he saved; but, he was a villain to the likes of Chivington, because of all their lives he saved. Roman Nose did not bring more death to his people by defensively fighting, because the “villains” were going to attempt exterminating all of them regardless. Consequently, Roman Nose was also a “villain” to the 26th president. Different things to different people, indeed.
(Bold mine)
American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World
Nothing ever was done to Chivington, who took his fame and exploits on the road as an after-dinner speaker. After all, as President Theodore Roosevelt said later, the Sand Creek Massacre was "as righteous and beneficial a deed as ever took place on the frontier." 130
Author is a member of the Metis Nation of the United States