An incident at Sand Creek: Thanksgiving's other side

Aside from its obvious theme of giving thanks for abundance, one feature of Thanksgiving is its celebration of a brief, though failed, ideal in our history: harmony between white settlers and the native Indians. In that light, it is especially poignant that Thanksgiving this year [ed.-1999] comes only a few days away from the 135th anniversary of another event of settler-Indian interrelationship.

Unfortunately, that event was not of the ideal that Thanksgiving celebrates.

Like the original Thanksgiving, the November 29, 1864, incident at Sand Creek, Colorado, also was not wholly typical of Indian-white interaction. But it was, regrettably, more typical than the harmonious vision of Pilgrims and Squanto. Its story should be remembered by all Americans loyal enough to want to fix our national record and reorder it for a better tomorrow.

The story begins near the end of the U.S. Civil war period.

In the chill, wee hours of November 29, 1864, a large group of armed men rode out on the plains of the American West. Among them was U.S. Army Captain Silas Soule, who was especially worried. They were headed out to a Cheyenne Indian camp from Fort Lyon, many dozen miles southeast of a trading settlement called Denver, in the federal territory called Colorado.

Soule was not worried about the Indians. In fact, he and some other officers had made a quiet agreement among themselves that the men under their command, regular troops, would open fire only in self-defense.

Captain Soule and the other regulars were not comfortable with the main force they rode alongside. These were ill-trained frontiersmen assembled into a makeshift territorial militia. They were commanded by a burly Methodist parson, Colonel J. M. Chivington, whose rhetoric had profoundly unnerved the regulars. It further did nothing to instill confidence within Soule and the others to know that many of these militiamen in the 700-man force were drinking whiskey to keep warm in the late fall, nighttime chill.

It was not precisely clear to them why the Colorado federal territory militia was even headed to the Sand Creek camp. True, deadly fighting between whites and the Cheyenne had broken out. But the camp at Sand Creek was expressly out of the fighting.

Inside the Indian camp at Sand Creek slept about 500 or more people. They were headed by a respected old chief named Black Kettle, one of many Cheyenne chiefs. Most chiefs were not in full agreement with him or each other on relations with the whites. Black Kettle, however, was convinced that the whites were his friends, and moreover, he knew the size and industry of white America and its forces.

He wanted no trouble for his people. Sand Creek was in a safe area, as decreed by the American authorities.

Black Kettle had been involved in the unfolding of recent events. He had been present when a treaty had been signed not too long before which protected Indian control of a territory running from the west Kansas plains into the Rocky Mountains. That area was the greater part of a place called "Colorado" by the whites. Whites could travel through and mine the gold in the mountains, but their presence was supposed to be transitory and subject to Indian approval.

Still, following reports of gold in Colorado, and the increasing prioritization of communications with the West Coast, white settlers had poured in anyway. Black Kettle had traveled to the place called Denver to ask that the people leave after mining was finished..

The situation had turned violent when some Indians were accused of poaching farm animals and shots were exchanged. The Cheyenne had no central control and different groups reacted differently. The whites, however, were organized and acted in a coordinated fashion. The politically ambitious Governor Evans began calling up militia, a popular step as this kept the volunteers out of the Civil War draft and the possibility of fighting a trained and well-armed adversary.

The troubles escalated on one occasion where Black Kettle was present. He and a Cheyenne party rode along the plains and encountered a militia force. This made the chief nervous, but another Cheyenne leader with him, Lean Bear, was naturally bold and rode directly up to greet them.

He had good reason not to fear, he had with him letters of friendship and a medallion personally given to him by the Great Father, whom the whites called Abraham Lincoln. There also existed a picture taken of Lean Bear from that visit. He and three other chiefs at the White House were photographed sitting next to the Great White Father’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln.

As Lean Bear approached the troops, waving his medallion, he was shot. Some soldiers then rode out of the line and fired into the chief and a companion as they lay dead and dying on the ground. The Cheyenne got angry and Black Kettle could not restrain them completely. The white soldiers fled. The word was soon out among the Cheyenne that the whites wanted war and were out for murder.

Soon enough, white transportation and communication were cut. Raids and retaliations grew fierce and as happens in a struggle where neither side sees the other as fully human, atrocities followed. The bodies of a scalped white woman and two near-beheaded children were displayed in Denver. "Anger and revenge mounted all day long," a Denver resident would relate years later. "The people . . . remained to talk over Indian outrages and means of protection and reprisal."

Sioux Indians had infiltrated to raid and the Cheyennes admitted that some Sioux wanted to clean out the whites from the area. Many were enraged by the war in the Dakota area where the federal troops, under Abraham Lincoln’s personal friend General Pope, had fought a war against the Sioux in 1862, which Pope had urged to make into "a war of extermination."

Efforts had been made to stop the Colorado fighting by an earlier commander of Ft. Lyon. Edward Wynkoop had initially viewed the Indians "without exception as being cruel, treacherous, and bloodthirsty." But during personal interaction with some Cheyenne chiefs he had modified his views, impressed at times to feel that he was "in the presence of superior beings."

Major Wynkoop unilaterally provided rations for Indians who came wandering to his fort. The Indians were complying with a circular from Governor Evans preventing them from traveling outside certain designated areas like Ft. Lyon. If they remained beyond those travel limits, they were to be killed on sight as hostiles. The Great Father was angry, the Governor told them. This was not wholly false. Lincoln’s military department chief had indeed urged Evans to not make peace but press war forward to punish the Cheyennes.

The travel restrictions, among other things, prevented hunting. The Cheyenne, like most North American Indians, were nomadic hunters, and such was their subsistence. Like other Indians, they refused to take up agriculture -- a politically and economically stupid decision to be sure. But it was a sincere one guaranteed by treaties which the whites often failed to respect.

Wynkoop had brought Black Kettle and others to meet with Governor Evans and his key militia man, J. M. Chivington. Evans and Chivington assured them that if they stayed in the designated areas they would not be regarded as hostile. And so Black Kettle and his band had moved to Sand Creek in an authorized area.

But Evans privately fumed that this peace effort frustrated the purpose of the militia he had raised: "They have been raised to kill Indians and they must kill Indians." Wynkoop was then replaced at Ft. Lyon with another officer, Major Anthony. People from Black Kettle’s band called him "the red-eyed man" because of his puffy eyes.

They did not know how to read Anthony. He had opened fire on Indians who came to trade and also asked members of this hunter people to turn over weaponry. A few guns and bows and arrows were retrieved.

(I interrupt for an editorial. Whom governments destroy, they first disarm. And restrict trade.)

But Anthony’s behavior appeared not entirely unfriendly. He greeted Cheyenne leaders warmly and gave them special good news. They were free to leave the Sand Creek lodging camp for hunting in the area. This meant they might be able to be self-sufficient in the winter.

It also meant that most of the strong fighting age braves would be away from the Sand Creek camp for an extended period.

At Fort Lyon, regular officers like Silas Soule were unnerved especially by the arrival in the last week of November of J.M. Chivington. The bearded, burly minister brought with him several hundred new militiamen. The troops, he said, were to go to Black Kettle’s camp at Sand Creek.

The pre-mission discussions disturbed the Ft. Lyon men, particularly Captain Soule and Lieutenants Cramer and Connor. Colonel Chivington had thundered to them, "Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians!" Then the soldierly parson had added: "I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God’s heaven to kill Indians."

It is not clear if they were also aware of the speeches Chivington gave to his amateur force. In one, when asked how to fight in situations where Indian children were involved, he said "Kill and scalp all, big and little. Nits make lice."

At dawn on November 29, 1864, the 700 or so troops, aided by a half-breed man they had kidnapped, arrived at the camp at a bend in the mostly dry Sand Creek. Some of the troops veered off to seize the camp’s horses, apparently to secure the area and perhaps take booty. The camp also had a conspicuous feature: a huge American flag flying overhead.

Added to this sight as the troops approached were a lot of Indians screaming and scurrying.

The American flag had been given to Black Kettle by an Army officer some months before in Kansas. He had assured the Cheyenne chief that as long as he remained under the flag he would be safe. Black Kettle now emerged from his central lodge to find a huge number of armed soldiers approaching. The screams that could be heard were from confused and panicked women and children who woke to the sight of the men moving to encircle the camp. Most of the Cheyenne men were gone, hunting out on the plains and Smokey Hill. After all, they had just been assured by the commander of Ft. Lyons that it was safe to leave.

Black Kettle moved to calm his screaming people. They will not harm us, he advised repeatedly, if you stay here under the flag. He urged them to gather there; many did. Meanwhile, another old chief named White Antelope moved forward to greet the soldiers.

When the two groups were a few dozen yards apart, it started. From somewhere among the whiskey-sodden troops, shots sounded as they moved forward. Though untrained, ill-coordinated, and amateurly commanded, they were able to advance against the poorly defended camp of peaceful Indians. Many troops simply shot anyone they found. They fired into the camp lodges where mostly women and children huddled.

"We of course took no prisoners," a solider recalled of his unit.

White Antelope ran forward shouting and waving his arms. "Stop! Stop!" he cried in English. Women began exposing themselves to convince the soldiers that they were not braves. It did no good. "They . . . begged for mercy but the soldiers shot them all," one survivor saw. White Antelope realized the inevitable. He folded his arms and stood his ground, defiantly and fatalistically singing a Cheyenne death song, "nothing lives forever, except the earth and mountains."

In another place, hiding women sent out a child of about 6 with a white flag apparently hoping that would assure the invaders of their peacefulness. The child was gunned down within a few steps.

Soule and other regular officers held many of their own troops back. Some of the attackers took a few Indians and half-breeds alive, but it was not popular. A known half-breed man was found and he heard one of his captors say "Shoot him! He’s no better than a damned Indian." The man did survive, however.

But the attack continued. Some of the few male Indians remained behind and tried to surround the women and children to shield them. A few were seen by a soldier charging "on the whole company singly, determined to kill someone before being killed themselves."

The desperate improvised defense was hardly effective, but the attack was not efficient either. Most Indians ran off successfully, including Black Kettle. As many as 500 escaped to survive the attack; some escapees also provided cover fire for others by camping out in the river bank. But killing continued inside the Sand Creek camp after the initial firing was over and the camp was captured.

An eyewitness recalled that "there seemed to be an indiscriminate slaughter of men, women, and children. . . . I saw a little girl about 5 years of age who had been hid in the sand; two soldiers discovered her, drew their pistols and shot her, and then pulled her out of the sand by the arm. I saw quite a number of infants in arms killed with their mothers."

Perhaps 100 to 200 or so Cheyenne, mostly old men, women, and children, lay slaughtered in the camp. Some survived after being beaten and wounded. A great many may have been killed by the federal forces as they huddled for protection beneath the American flag.

The killings at Sand Creek were conjoined with the savagery normally dealt to those regarded as savages. "Everyone I saw dead was scalped," one observer recalled. "I saw one squaw cut open with an unborn child . . . lying by her side." Looting, and of a ghoulish variety, also occurred. The fingers on one body were removed to get the rings. One soldier looted material from White Antelope’s corpse that he proposed to make into a tobacco pouch. The material he wanted to use was the dead Indian’s testicles.

These were not isolated accounts from the Sand Creek victors. "I did not see a body of man, woman, or child but was scalped," Army Lieutenant James Connor would remember, "and in many instances their bodies were mutilated in the most horrible manner." Connor recalled that he "heard one man say that he had cut out a woman’s private parts and had them for exhibition on a stick." He also learned of "numerous instances" where female private parts were severed and the men "stretched them over the saddle-bows and wore them over their hats while riding in the ranks."

The attackers had suffered casualties of about nine dead and several dozen wounded. Several of the injuries may have been inflicted by other attackers out of incompetence and drunkenness.

At night, the surviving, scattered, hiding Indians began heading off towards their warriors who had been out hunting. It was so cold that some recalled their blood freezing over their wounds. They moved "without food, ill-clad, and encumbered by women and children," one male remembered.

Chivington’s "victory" had expected consequences. The area Indians were both infuriated and terrified. Across the prairies, different tribes rose up in support and revenge. But, as usual, the whites could not be defeated and the fear from the incident drove Indians away from white areas.

Chivington portrayed Sand Creek as a great victory against 500 enemy warriors. The scalps of the dead women, men, and children were paraded in Denver at the Opera House to the boisterous sound of patriotic music. "A brilliant feat of arms," the Rocky Montain News proclaimed.

In Washington, uglier reports circulated and a Congressional investigation followed. Eventually, it was determined that the Sand Creek incident was an unjustified act. America was officially contrite. A "foul and dastardly massacre," declared the Senate investigating commission. Meanwhile Chivington had retired out of the military and, while Governor Evans was disgraced, no one was ever prosecuted for the action.

By the next summer, Black Kettle found himself sought out by white leaders and military officials. War had gone badly for most of the Indians but the whites seemed eager to settle. He was presented with a treaty that permitted the Cheyenne to settle in Kiowa land south of Colorado. In that treaty all land claims to Colorado were waived by the Cheyenne (and also the Arapaho tribe). Train and stage routes had been slated by the US government to pass through parts of that territory. Land titles needed clouds removed from them.

Black Kettle announced, "Again I take you by the hand, and I feel happy." He told the American negotiators that "these people that are with us are glad to think that we have peace once more, can sleep soundly and," he added with no light implications, "that we can live." Black Kettle was one of those unfortunate leaders in history faced with the thankless dilemma of deciding what was the best way, if any, for his followers to survive.

He signed.

"It will be a very hard thing to leave the land God gave us," another chief, Little Raven, pleaded. "We hate to leave these grounds. . . . There is something strong for us -- that fool band of soldiers that cleared out our lodges and killed our women and children. This is hard on us. There at Sand Creek -- White Antelope and many other chiefs lie there; our women and children lie there. Our lodges were destroyed there . . . and I do not feel disposed to go off to a new country and leave them."

But he too had been persuaded to agree when government agent James Steele spelled out a grim, realistic, if somewhat circular, argument:

"Unfortunately for you, gold has been discovered in your country, and a crowd of white people have gone there to live, and a great many of these people are the worst enemies of the Indians. . . . You are in constant danger of being imposed upon and you have to resort to arms in self-defense." There was, he told them, "no part of the former country large enough where you can live in peace." The proof for this cynical but true argument had been supplied at Sand Creek.

And so Colorado, and its land titles, was cleared of troublesome Indians.

A photo of Mary Todd Lincoln still exists in which she stands in the White House alongside four Indian chiefs. One of them would soon die of tuberculosis. Another, Lean Bear, as we have seen, was shot by troops under her husband’s ultimate command, while waving letters of friendship from him. Two others, War Bonnet and Stand in the Water, also did not survive the photograph very long. They had followed instructions and, as peaceful Cheyenne, went to the camp at Sand Creek. It is likely that their scalps were also displayed at the Denver Opera house by J. M. Chivington and his men and their mutilated bodies were left behind.

Mary Lincoln’s husband, the Great Father and Emancipator, also died violently soon after. In 1865, before his death, he proclaimed a policy of malice toward none and charity toward all. Several months after his death, Black Kettle and the other chiefs were compelled in the above-discussed treaty to agree to clear out of their hunting lands and the burial land of their murdered loved ones.

This, however, represented no real change in policy.

In 1864, a few months before Sand Creek, Great Father Lincoln had boasted to Congress that his administration had successfully removed large numbers of Indians from vast acreage in the West and had placed them into centers where they would be "civilized," by which the Chief Executive of a freer nation expressly meant "Christianized."

Today, the site of the Sand Creek massacre is near a town that is said to be more like a ghost town as the old West disappears. Still, it is the nearest populated center to the location of the incident for visitors. For historians and interested persons, the name preserves some memory of the incident, even today.

The town is Chivington, Colorado.

Happy Thanksgiving.