Analysis: Accounts of the Sand Creek Massacre

Date: 1864–1865

Authors: various

Genre: articles; testimony

Summary Overview

Of all the dark events that occurred in the American West, of all the crimes perpetrated against Native peoples by the United States Army, few had as many far-reaching consequences as the Sand Creek Massacre. On November 29, 1864, 700 men of the Colorado Territory militia, led by Colonel John M. Chivington attacked a Cheyenne and Arapaho camp along the Big Sandy Creek. The action resulted in the death and mutilation of scores of Native Americans, many of them women and children, and several of the principal chiefs of the Cheyenne nation. The result of continued encroachment by settlers on Native land, racism, and the political ambitions of a bloody-minded commander, the massacre, sadly, was neither the first nor would it be the last incident of its kind. It marked just another chapter in the conquest of the West and the destruction of Native peoples. The massacre also set into motion a cycle of violence that would result in the deaths of many settlers, soldiers, and ultimately nearly cost the Cheyenne and Arapaho everything they had left.

Defining Moment

In the popular imagination, film, literature, and even standard history textbooks, the settling of the West is most often presented as a glorious victory over nature. In just a single generation, Americans were able to tame a vast wilderness stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. But the reality was much darker. At the time of first contact, North America was teeming with life. Thousands of independent cultures inhabited the vast territories across the whole of the continent. As Europeans moved in, they brought with them disease, notions of property, and feelings of racial superiority, born out of a sense of divine righteousness. Possessing superior technology and a grim determination to push ever further West, American settlers flooded the interior, clashing with Native peoples, whom they considered savage and inferior.

From the very beginning, the United States government seemed to adopt a split approach to Native Americans. On the one hand, the expansion of American power over the whole of the continent was seen as crucial not just to the economic stability of the young nation, but also to its safety. On the other hand, the United States was a democracy, founded on the principles of freedom and mutual respect. The Native peoples thus presented a quandary. How does one dispossess a population, while actively pursuing a policy of territorial annexation and consolidation?

Out of this murkiness came a double-edged policy. On the one hand, the government would attempt, usually in good faith, to sign treaties with Native tribes guaranteeing territorial rights and safety. On the other hand, the government would often encourage commanders in the field to respond forcefully to tribes threatening American settlers. These settlers, in turn, encroached on Native lands with the full support of local and federal policymakers.

In 1851, the Fort Laramie Treaty (not to be confused with the Fort Laramie treaty of 1868) gave several Native peoples, including the Cheyenne and Arapaho control over a vast stretch of territory across the northern plains. However, the discovery of gold in 1858 triggered a massive influx of settlers into the region. Clashes soon erupted between the tribes and the settlers, and therefore, the US government quickly amended the treaty, greatly reducing Native land holdings. Resentment grew among the tribes, creating pro-war and pro-peace factions within the Cheyenne, most notably the hawkish Dog Soldiers. With the outbreak of the Civil War, tension only grew between Native peoples and settlers, and the territory's governor encouraged military commanders to begin attacking Cheyenne settlements.

In 1864, the peaceful factions of the Cheyenne, led by chiefs Black Kettle and White Antelope, hoping to avoid bloodshed, negotiated with territorial authorities to settle their people north of Fort Lyon, on the eastern plains. Guaranteed rations and safe conduct by the military, the elements of Cheyenne and Arapaho, made camp. Then, in November, forces led by Colonel John Milton Chivington, a former Methodist minister turned rabid anti-Indian Army commander, attacked the encampment, slaughtering as many as 200 men, women, and children. At first, the pubic celebrated the event as a military victory against hostile bands of savage Indians; but as details emerged of what really happened, federal authorities had no choice but to launch an investigation into what would later be called the Sand Creek Massacre.

Author Biography

The primary sources in this case consist of two unsigned editorials featured in the Rocky Mountain News, followed by the testimony of John S. Smith. Not much is known about Smith. An Indian agent and an interpreter, he worked extensively with the Cheyenne and Arapaho, being personally acquainted with the tribes' chiefs, including Black Kettle, as well as the local Colorado militia commanders. He had a half-Cheyenne son named Jack, who was killed on the orders of Colonel Chivington.

Document Analysis

The first document in the series is an editorial featured in the Rocky Mountain News, shortly after the events at Sand Creek. Roaring with pride, the article is triumphant and celebratory, extolling the actions of Colonel Chivington and his soldiers in what it describes as being “among the brilliant feats of arms in Indian warfare.” Setting the scene, the article describes the treacherous trek of the soldiers into hostile territory. Marching for days through heavy snows, the men were exposed to the elements and danger at every turn. They reached Fort Lyon and soon after made for the enemy, bravely and without the slightest hesitation. They fell upon the enemy, the Native warriors fighting back ferociously despite the surprise attack. And in the end, the brave Colorado militiamen triumphed. “It was estimated that between three and four hundred of the savages got away with their lives,” laments the article, but of those killed, perhaps as many as five hundred, tellingly, there were no wounded or prisoners taken. According to the editorial the action was an unmatched triumph, and the Colorado soldiers “covered themselves with glory.”

As we see by the second document, another editorial from the Rocky Mountain News, things unraveled quickly. We learn that a Congressional investigation is about to be launched into the events at Sand Creek. Colonel Chivington and his troops were suspected of perpetrating a massacre of men, women, and children. Immediately defensive, the editorial blasts the “high officials” in Washington who would make such unfounded accusations and slander Colorado's brave fighting men. “Probably those scalps of white men, women and children, one of them fresh, not three days taken, found drying in [Sand Creek], were taken in a friendly, playful manner” the editorial mocks. The Cheyenne and Arapaho were savages who “fought like devils” and deserve neither sympathy nor mourning—these marauders, thieves, and murderers. Case closed.

The third document consists entirely of the testimony of Indian agent and interpreter, John S. Smith, who was a first-hand witness to the events of November 29. Smith makes it clear that the Cheyenne and Arapaho at Sand Creek were ordered by the military to remain where they were and were peaceful. Unlike other bands, those at Sand Creek had not attacked settlers, and in fact, when Chivington's troops arrived that morning, Black Kettle, one of the chiefs of the Cheyenne immediately ran both an American flag and a white peace flag over the top of his lodge. It mattered not. According to Smith, as the Cheyenne and Arapaho began to flee, the militia attacked. Many of those attempting to run were soon cornered and surrounded at the bank of the river and fired upon from all sides. After the smoke cleared it was obvious that many of those killed were women and children. Soon after, many of the bodies were mutilated by the American soldiers—torn apart, scalped, and sliced. Later that same evening, Smith's own son, a half Cheyenne who had surrendered, was shot, seemingly on the direct orders of Colonel Chivington.

Smith speculates that Chivington, who knew that the tribes gathered at Sand Creek were peaceful, attacked not only out of his hatred for Native peoples, but also in pursuit of his own political ambitions. Settlers in Colorado Territory were fervently hostile to the Cheyenne and Arapaho, and Chivington hoped to leverage the attack to win himself a state-wide office.

Bibliography and Additional Reading

Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. 1970. New York: Holt, 2007. Print.

Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States. Boston: Beacon P, 2014. Print.

Kelman, Ari. A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling over the Memory of Sand Creek. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 2013. Print.

Stannard, David E. American Holocaust: The Conquest of the New World. New York: Oxford UP, 1992. Print.