Key anniversary of Colorado slaughter remembered Saturday
Five days of events began Saturday to remember what’s widely considered the most shameful moment in state history.
About 200 Native Americans, many of them children, women and elderly, were killed on the morning of Nov. 29, 1864, during an attack by 700 Army troops and volunteers on the Sand Creek village.
The former village site, in what is now Kiowa County near the Kansas state line in eastern Colorado, became a national historic site that was dedicated in 2007.
“It’s something that Colorado hasn’t always recognized,” said Kathy Sturdevant, a history professor at Pikes Peak Community College. “It’s not as remembered as it should be. But at least today it’s more correctly remembered and better understood than when I moved here three decades ago.”
Sturdevant said the victims, members of Arapahoe and Cheyenne tribes, were sent by territorial Gov. John Evans to the village, or went there willingly, and told they’d be under protection by nearby Fort Lyon.
The troops attacked at dawn.
“There had been some raids on cattle and settlements previously,” Sturdevant said of the tribes. “But nothing that deserved being massacred. There was an opinion among whites that Native Americans endangered the ability to make Colorado Territory a success and were a barrier to civilization.”
Sturdevant said the villagers displayed an American flag and a white flag of surrender to show their peaceful intentions.
“Many horrible things were done to their bodies when or after they were killed,” she said. “They were mutilated and those mutilated body parts were taken to Denver for public display.”
Some of the troops later spoke out against the slaughter and mutilation. The attack led to three federal investigations and ruined the careers of Evans and Col. John Chivington, who led the attack.
Jim Bear Running Montoya, an Apache and president of the Colorado Springs Indian Center, said the tragedy convinced most people that the attack was wrong, regardless of the reason behind it.
“That’s not an honorable way to be a warrior,” he said. “But it happens in war. I think it’s something that we’re trying to overcome.”
Montoya said the 1970 movie “Soldier Blue” is the best depiction he’s seen of what happened at Sand Creek.
