by Enss, Chris
Chivington was suspicious of the guide. “I haven’t had an Indian to eat for a long time,” Chivington snapped at the guide. “If you fool with me and don’t lead us to that camp, I’ll have you for breakfast.” Not long after the verbal altercation the guide urged his horse onward. The troops followed after him. No one spoke or slowed down until dawn, when they reached a ridge overlooking a sprawling valley. Below them in the far distance were the Indian camps.[34]
The Cheyenne camps lay in a horseshoe bend of Sand Creek north of an almost dry streambed. Black Kettle’s tepee was near the center of the village, and the tepee of White Antelope, one of the leaders of the Dog Soldiers, was to the west. Indians under the leadership of Cheyenne Chief War Bonnet were situated to the west of the camp as well. On the east side, slightly separated from the Cheyenne, was Left Hand’s Arapaho camp. All together there were about six hundred Indians in the creek bend; two-thirds of them were women and children. Most of the warriors were several miles to the east, hunting buffalo.[35]
The Indians, asleep in their lodges, were unaware that trouble was on the horizon. Black Kettle and the other Indian leaders were so confident all was well and would remain so that they did not keep a night watch. The morning was quiet. Mochi and the other women in the tribe awoke before sunrise to begin gathering firewood and preparing the morning meal. Infants and small children were cared for, and Mochi helped mothers with the chore. She didn’t have any children of her own but knew when the time came the other women would help her when needed. With the exception of the herd of Cheyenne ponies on the south bank of the Sand Creek that were acting a bit anxious, there was nothing out of the ordinary. Mochi carried on with her duties, concerned for nothing apart from feeding her family and keeping them warm.[36]
The peaceful morning was reminiscent of a morning in a story the elders told of two warriors named Sweet Medicine and Standing-on-the-Ground. Both men arrived on a serene setting where the Cheyenne people were playing a game. Both men were painted and dressed alike. Sweet Medicine claimed the paint he wore was medicine paint and had great powers. Standing-on-the-Ground said that the paint he wore was given to him by Ma-ta-ma, the old woman that lived in the water, and he added that the paint was spiritual paint. Standing-on-the-Ground accused Sweet Medicine of lying about the origin of his paint and demanded proof he was telling the truth. Sweet Medicine accused Standing-on-the-Ground of being a spy who copied Sweet Medicine’s way of dressing.[37]
A decision was made within the tribe that both men should go to see Ma-ta-ma so she could prove who was telling the truth. The men agreed and met with the old woman that lived in the water and told her of their dispute. She was wise and stern and was pleased they had come to see her. “You both have something to learn,” Ma-ta-ma told them, “and I will teach you. You think of your pride and not the people.”[38]
Ma-ta-ma served them a meal and challenged them to eat what had been prepared without arguing. She also encouraged them to eat all they wanted. The more the men ate, the more food appeared on their plates. “See, there is plenty for both,” Ma-ta-ma pointed out. “That is the way it is with spiritual power. Watch, and I will give you new paint.” She painted each of them with red, all over, and on each she painted the sun and the moon, in yellow. Then she tied a feather from the eagle’s wing, painted red, in the scalp lock of each young man. “This is the way you are to dress from now on,” she said.[39]
Then, while they sat with Ma-ta-ma and listened to her words, she showed them many wonderful things. The walls of the room seemed to disappear, and as far as the eye could see, to the left was a great herd of buffalo, blackening the prairie there were so many. To the right there were great fields of green growing corn, and to the back was a herd of horses, pawing and stamping. She told them what these were and how they would serve the people in days to come, for they were new.[40]
This drawing shows the relative locations of Cheyenne tepees and the members of the Colorado Volunteers at the start of the battle of Sand Creek.
The Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, X-33806
Then she showed them people fighting, and when they looked more closely they saw themselves among the fighters, dressed and painted red with the sun and moon in yellow and the red feather in their scalp locks, just as they were then.[41]
“You see, you will fight together,” she said, “and you will win, if you will heed my words.” Then she taught them many things that would be helpful to the people. They listened carefully, remembering what she taught. Then she gave a dish of meat to Sweet Medicine.
“This is your proof,” she said. “Take it to the Cheyenne. Tell them, too, that when the sun goes down, I will send the buffalo back.”[42]
She gave a dish of cooked corn to Standing-on-the-Ground. “Take this food to the Cheyenne,” she said. “It will prove your words.” She gave him seed corn and taught him how it was to be planted and cared for. “Tell them they must guard the corn for seven years. They must not give it away or allow it to be stolen. If they fail, it will be bad for them.”[43]
The corn was planted and grew, and the buffalo did come. According to the legend this was to show the Indians that the Cheyenne leaders should always see that the old people and the orphan children were fed and cared for. When morning came, Sweet Medicine and Standing-on-the-Ground placed a tobacco offering on a disk of red stone. They then went out and surrounded the herd of buffalo and killed a great many. When they had enough, Sweet Medicine made them stop killing, and the women dressed the meat and prepared the skins for robes and moccasins.[44]
That night they had a great feast, and the story of what Ma-ta-ma had taught Sweet Medicine and Standing-on-the-Ground was told again and again. Night turned into day; all was quiet and still, and everyone was confident it would stay that way.[45]
At daybreak on November 29, 1864, the sound of the drumming of hooves on the sand flats interrupted the hushed routine of the Indian women and children. Some of the women believed it was only buffalo running hard in the near distance. Neither Mochi nor any of the other members of the tribes along the Sand Creek were alarmed. They went about their duties oblivious to any danger.[46]
1. Patricia Kinney Kaufman, My Mother’s People to Colorado They Came, 33; Reginald S. Craig, The Fighting Parson: Biography of Colonel John M. Chivington, 144–46.
2. Craig, Fighting Parson, 181.
3. Ibid., 182–83; Daily Tribune, October 16, 1971.
4. Craig, Fighting Parson, 176.
5. Preston Holder, Hoe and Horse on the Plains: A Study of Cultural Development among Native American Indians, 104–5.
6. Ibid.
7. Craig, Fighting Parson, 184.
8. Report of the Secretary of War Sand Creek Massacre, Senate Document 142, 18–24.
9. Daily Tribune, October 16, 1971; Delphi Weekly Times, September 8, 1865.
10. Kaufman, My Mother’s People, 33.
11. Proclamation from Governor Evans to Colonel Chivington and Colonel Chivington to Troops, November 9, 1863.
12. Craig, Fighting Parson, 190.
13. Ibid., 182–83; Chronicles of Oklahoma.
14. Chronicles of Oklahoma; Craig, Fighting Parson, 182–83.
15. Craig, Fighting Parson, 157–58; Susan Brownmiller, Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape, 140–41.
16. Brownmiller, Against Our Will; Jacob P. Dunn, Massacres of the Mountains, 219–24.
17. Dunn, Massacres of the Mountains, 219–24.
18. Denver Republican, May 18, 1890.
19. Ibid.
20. Craig, Fighting Parson, 181.
21. Ibid., 186; Delphi Weekly Times, September 8, 1865; Patrick Mendoza, Song of Sorrow: Massacre at Sand Creek, 88–89.
22. Craig, Fighting Parson, 183–84; Report of the Secretary of War Sand Creek Massacre, Senate Executive Document 142, 104–5.
23. Report of the Secretary of War Sand Creek Massacre, Senate Executive Document 26, 211–12; Craig, Fighting Parson, 182; Letter from L. W. Colby to
Lt. Colonel Samuel F. Tappan.
24. Craig, Fighting Parson, 184; Report of the Secretary of War Sand Creek Massacre, Senate Executive Document 142, 29.
25. Report of the Secretary of War Sand Creek Massacre, Senate Executive Document 142, 29.
26. Kaufman, My Mother’s People, 33.
27. Craig, Fighting Parson, 184.
28. Ibid., 184–86.
29. Mendoza, Song of Sorrow, 88–90.
30. Craig, Fighting Parson, 186–87; Report of the Secretary of War Sand Creek Massacre, Senate Document 26, 47.
31. Report of the Secretary of War Sand Creek Massacre, Senate Document 26, 47; Craig, Fighting Parson, 186–87.
32. Kaufman, My Mother’s People, 33.
33. Denver Republican, October 5, 1894; Craig, Fighting Parson, 188–89.
34. Ibid.
35. Delphi Weekly Times, September 8, 1865; George E. Hyde, Life of George Bent: Written from His Letters, 151–53.
36. Hyde, Life of George Bent, 151–53; Peter Harrison, Mochi: Cheyenne Woman Warrior, 4–5; Patrick M. Mendoza, Ann Strange-Owl-Raben, and Nico Strange-Owl, Four Great Rivers to Cross: Cheyenne History, Culture and Traditions, 63–65.
37. Grace Jackson Penney, Tales of the Cheyennes, 15–18; George Bird Grinnell, “Some Early Cheyenne Tales,” Journal of American Folklore.
38. Grinnell, “Some Early Cheyenne Tales”; Penney, Tales of the Cheyennes, 16–20.
39. Ibid.
40. Grinnell, “Some Early Cheyenne Tales”; Penney, Tales of the Cheyennes, 18–21.
41. Ibid.
42. Grinnell, “Some Early Cheyenne Tales”; Penney, Tales of the Cheyennes, 19–23.
43. Ibid.
44. Penney, Tales of the Cheyennes, 20–25.
45. Ibid.
46. Elbert County Banner, September 1, 1899.
Chapter 4
Nothing Lives Long
Colonel John Chivington and representatives of the First and Third Colorado Cavalry rode hard and fast from the sun-touched butte where they’d been waiting at the Indian encampment along Sand Creek. A bugler sounded the charge as the horses’ hooves drummed and the soldiers shouted, reins in their teeth and guns in their fists.[1] Members of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes living in the path of the cavalry hurried from their lodges and frantically scattered in different directions. Mothers scooped young children into their arms and ushered elderly men and women to clusters of trees. Braves grabbed weapons in order to defend themselves from the surprise invasion.[2]
Several of Chivington’s troops raced to the paddock where the Indians’ horses were corralled. Without the herd the Indians would be at a disadvantage, unable to pursue attackers or flee from the chaos. Just before the flood of soldiers arrived on the scene, Colonel Chivington urged his men to “recall the blood of wives and children spilled on the Platte and Arkansas [Rivers].”[3]
The full force of the cavalry’s strike yielded immediate devastation. Bullet-ridden children fell where they once played; mothers lay dying with their babies in their arms; elderly women and men collapsed from gunshot wounds in their backs. It was a killing frenzy. Some Indians managed to escape without injury and take refuge in thick brush and behind scattered rock outcroppings.[4]
The massacre at Sand Creek, Colorado between United States troops and Cheyenne. Women and children panic behind the trees in the foreground, while warriors and soldiers fight among tepees in the background.
The Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, X-33805
Black Kettle tried desperately to keep his people from panicking. He clung to the belief that the attack would cease when the soldiers noticed the American flag unfurled. He and Chief White Antelope huddled at the base of the flag post. They only ran for cover when they realized the soldiers were hell-bent on annihilating them.[5]
Fearless Cheyenne women and braves stood their ground, refusing to leave without a fight. The men exchanged shots with the soldiers and the women fought using spears and knives, all of which gave members of the tribe a chance to retreat slowly up the dried streambed. Many Cheyenne and Arapaho were killed as they ran to hide in the banks of the Sand Creek.[6]
Indian horses spooked by gunfire broke away from the soldiers trying to drive them from the encampment. Indian women who managed to capture and calm a horse long enough to climb onto its back were shot. Their lifeless bodies slid from the backs of the horses onto the hard earth. Braves on foot who dared charge the relentless soldiers were stopped in their tracks with a barrage of bullets.[7] According to accounts from those who witnessed the battle, children who ventured out of hiding waving white flags and mothers who pleaded for their infants’ lives were beaten with the butt of the soldiers’ guns and then scalped.
Black Kettle stood watching the bloody event in disbelief. He made a white flag of truce and raised it under the American flag. It had no effect upon the soldiers. Chivington’s persistent orders to continue to pursue the enemy were strictly followed. Black Kettle grabbed his wife, and the two fled toward a creek bed. The bark of the rifles all around him was steady, and there seemed to be no escape for the Cheyenne leader. Black Kettle’s wife was struck by several bullets, and the concussion of the shots knocked her face-first onto the ground. Black Kettle tried to get her onto her feet again, but her injuries were too serious. The cavalry was bearing down on him quickly and he was forced to leave his wife’s body behind. He continued running until he reached the sandy creek bed. He hid in the dry wash under a thick overgrowth of brush.[8]
White Antelope attempted to halt the attack by raising his arms in the air and shouting in English for the troops to stop. His plea went unanswered. “Nothing lives long,” he could be heard saying as the soldiers pressed on toward him, “only the earth and the mountains.”[9] An overzealous soldier rode up to the seventy-three-year-old chief and shot him to death at point blank range. The soldier then dismounted his horse, removed a knife from the canvas belt around his waist, and proceeded to scalp and dismember White Antelope’s body. He cut off the Indian’s nose, ears, and genitalia.[10]
Mochi was among the numerous Indians frantic to escape the slaughter. She watched her mother get shot in the head and heard the cries of her father and husband as they fought for their lives. Mesmerized by the carnage erupting around her, she paused briefly to consider what was happening. In that moment of reflection one of Chivington’s soldiers rode toward her. She stared at him as he quickly approached, her face mirroring shock and dismay. She heard a slug sing viciously past her head. The soldier jumped off his ride and attacked her. Mochi fought back hard and eventually broke free from the soldier’s grip. Before the man could start after her again she grabbed a gun lying on the ground near her, fired, and killed him.[11]
The Sand Creek Massacre reached an end at four o’clock in the afternoon on November 29, 1864.[12] When Colonel Chivington and his men put away their weapons, a grim stillness hung in the air. Apart from the sound of suffering from wounded and dying Indians and horses being driven away from the encampment, all was deathly quiet. More than one hundred Indians had been killed in the raid. The First Colorado Cavalry had lost only seven men. The temporary cease-fire was interrupted by a mammoth blaze. Chivington had ordered all the lodges in the Indian camp burned to the ground. He didn’t want any of the Arapaho or Cheyenne leaders who survived to return to the encampment and reestablish the area as their base.[13]
Prior to the blaze being ignited, Chivington and his troops searched through the Indians’ belongings. Among the items were clothing, pictures, and jewelry taken from settlers and their wagon trains during raids by the Indians.[14]
Long after night had fallen, survivors of the massacre crawled out of the brush in the creek beds. It was bitter cold, and blood had frozen over their wounds. The only thought in their minds was to flee eastward toward Smoky Hill and join the warriors from other tribes.
According to George Bent, a Cheyenne-American and former Confederate soldier who was living at Black Kettle’s camp
during the Sand Creek Massacre, the journey to Smoky Hill was a struggle for the survivors of the bloody battle. “It was a terrible march,” George wrote in his memoirs, “most of us being on foot, without food, ill-clad and encumbered with women and children.” The survivors traveled fifty miles to their destination. “As we approached the camp there was a terrible scene,” George later wrote. “Everyone was crying, even the warriors, and the women and children were screaming and wailing. Nearly everyone present had lost some relatives or friends, and many of them in their grief were gashing themselves with knives until the blood flowed in streams.”[15]
