A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling over the Memory of Sand Creek
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Accused of cultural insensitivity and threatening to despoil critical episodes from Colorado’s past, Hillard responded. To the descendants, he insisted that he had the tribes’ best interests at heart. To his non-Indian detractors, he made more promises while issuing veiled threats couched in accusations of elitism. Referring to the casino he hoped to build for the Cheyennes and Arapahos, Hillard declared, “The tribes want to escape the cycle of poverty.” He also said, “The proposition that Indians should stay poor but noble only comes from those who haven’t experienced poverty.” He guaranteed that the deal contained something for everyone. The casino, he surmised, would generate massive tax revenue, as much as $1 billion annually, for Coloradans. But if the state obstructed his plans, he would have to litigate: “These claims, if left unresolved, will cloud title to land and water in a large portion of Colorado.” Such statements had the ominous ring of a protection racket. “Nice state you’ve got here,” Hillard seemed to be implying, “it would be a shame if something terrible had to happen to it.” As for Steve Brady’s and Laird Cometsevah’s worries, he explained, “Reparations are entirely right. But they have to know it’s a tough shot. So let’s be real about it, the Homecoming Project could help their entire tribes.” In the end, he concluded, his plan might face long odds, but it merited the risk because the payoff would be huge: “Even if there’s just a one percent chance, that’s significant.” And so, despite heavy early losses, Hillard doubled down on red.32
But then, after receiving more negative press for linking the Homecoming Project and the memorialization of the massacre, Hillard changed his bet. In a press release apparently designed to win Laird Cometsevah to his side, Hillard untangled the two initiatives, explaining that the Homecoming Project “does not seek reparations for the Sand Creek Massacre”; “does not and will not prejudice the individual claims of the Sand Creek Descendants”; and “will make certain that the federal government is aware of Article 6, and that it is not diminished through the Homecoming Project.” Hillard added privately to Cometsevah: “You can be assured that Council Tree Communications and Native American Land Group, including their principals and any affiliates are in agreement with ensuring that Article 6 of the Little Arkansas Treaty of 1865 remains intact and undisturbed by this project.” He moved forward with his plan to win a small reservation near Denver’s busy international airport. In early spring 2004, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes filed claim for 27 million acres of Colorado property. Pushing to settle, one of the tribes’ lawyers let slip that “in similar cases, such claims have made it expensive for landowners to get title insurance, and in the worst cases, they have interfered with land sales.” The Cheyennes and Arapahos were dabbling in historical irony, tampering with legal instruments of private property in the state that white settlers had taken from their ancestors.33
Even as Hillard retreated from Sand Creek, Alexa Roberts and Steve Brady remained frustrated about the Homecoming Project. Hillard’s play, they feared, could still kill the historic site by dividing the descendants or leaving Congress with the sense that memorializing the massacre had something to do with casinos. At a meeting held just after Hillard wrote his reassuring note to Laird Cometsevah, the Northern Cheyenne descendants were wary of their Southern Cheyenne kin. Otto Braided Hair suggested that the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes’ status as a landowner had tilted the playing field: some descendants were more equal than others in planning the site. Alexa Roberts warned that Congress would kill the trust legislation if it were “tainted” by Indian gaming. Cometsevah and Joe Big Medicine replied that Hillard’s posture had shifted, that he would distance himself from Sand Creek and provide support for efforts to secure Article 6 reparations. Norma Gorneau, another Northern Cheyenne descendant, later bemoaned associating the massacre with gambling: “The casino thing became a real distraction. It slowed us down from doing our important work. Every day we talked about gambling was another day that the massacre site wasn’t being protected.”34
By late May, more Coloradans had wearied of Steve Hillard. Jim Spencer, a columnist at the Denver Post, acknowledged, “there’s no question the U.S. mistreated the Cheyenne and Arapaho. But this looks more like a sweet deal for developers and a few tribal leaders than restitution for the rank-and-file.” Pointing to Hillard’s carrot-and-stick strategy, Spencer warned, “Coloradans are not interested in being pushed around by people making extravagant threats.” Especially with the stakes so high, he concluded–without acknowledging the painful historical ironies—“What isn’t fun is out-of-state Indians screwing with the title to your house.” Sensing in June that he had public opinion on his side, Colorado governor Bill Owens announced his opposition to the project. Members of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Business Committee responded with a public relations blitz, explaining the economic hardships afflicting their people. Only half of their constituents had jobs, they said, and per capita income on their reservation hovered around $8,000 annually. So even though approximately 80 percent of the two hundred tribes with gaming throughout the nation were losing money or barely breaking even on their ventures, one tribal spokesman explained, “That’s why a casino in Colorado looks like hope.”35
Rumors circulated throughout August that Senator Stevens would attach a so-called midnight rider to an upcoming appropriations bill, sneaking the Homecoming Project into federal law. Senator Campbell responded by inviting Steve Hillard to Washington to discuss his proposition with the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, which Campbell chaired. It would be a “briefing,” a low-key session, Campbell’s staff informed Hillard, rather than a formal “hearing.” But when Hillard arrived on September 8, he found himself facing off with Governor Owens and Colorado’s congressional delegation. The meeting became testy when Owens accused Hillard of “blackmail.” The Department of the Interior’s lead attorney then explained that the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes’ land claims had been settled in 1965. Darrell Flyingman, who had just become chairman of the business committee, questioned the fairness of that deal. He snapped at Owens, “Would you sell Colorado to us for 2.75 cents an acre?” Owens replied coolly that no, he would not, but the terms had been approved by the tribes, and he “wouldn’t want to second-guess [their] tribal council.” After the meeting, Hillard displayed the bravado that had in the past served him well in tense negotiations, observing of Owens’s demeanor: “The seeds of settlement are sown in his discomfort.” Owens, for his part, seemed more concerned that Senator Stevens might still outflank him, quipping of the Alaska lawmaker, “[He] won’t return my phone calls.”36
Despite Hillard’s brave face, Senator Campbell had effectively killed the Homecoming Project. Nevertheless, fallout from the episode would linger for years to come. Part of a national trend in which Indian tribes engaged in “reservation shopping”—the practice of asserting ownership over parcels of land, typically developed property located in a distant state, and promising to relinquish those potentially nettlesome claims in exchange for a new reservation on which a casino could be built—Hillard’s deal prompted frenzied discussions among governors and members of Congress. But Alexa Roberts shifted her attention to other issues: the uncertain status of the trust legislation then wending its way through the Senate; morale among the descendants, who struggled to stand united; and some of her neighbors in Kiowa County, who were growing increasingly frustrated as the historic site’s gates remained padlocked.37
Because the relevant land still lay in private hands, the NPS could not open the Sand Creek site to the public throughout summer and fall 2004. NPS administrators fretted over questions of liability in the event that a trespasser twisted an ankle in a prairie dog burrow or snagged a limb on a piece of stray barbed wire. Both Kiowa County and NPS officials also worried about the prospect of someone starting a blaze that might destroy historic materials before spreading to a neighboring ranch. And absent a management plan, including interpretive guidelines, the proprietors, the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, refused to throw open the front door fo
r tourists, who they feared might use the sacred site in inappropriate ways. Nevertheless, people clamored for a chance to visit Sand Creek, peppering Alexa Roberts with requests for permission. Roberts recalled, “most of the folks who inquired with us were nice enough, but a few just wouldn’t take no for an answer.” In those cases, she wondered: “Would they vandalize the site? How could we keep the place safe?” The more publicity Sand Creek received, the more unwanted interest became a problem. Roberts hoped the trust legislation would work its way through Congress quickly, making it possible to open the site.38
In the meantime, Chuck and Sheri Bowen, apparently frustrated but also emboldened by their experience with the OIW a year earlier, seized an opportunity. With demand for access to a Sand Creek memorial far outstripping supply, the Bowens in June 2004 began offering tours of their family ranch. Advertising online and with fliers, they promised customers “a unique educational experience!” and a detailed recounting of their personal quest to find the Sand Creek site. Participants would “hear all the arguments” and then decide for themselves where the violence had unfolded. A testimonial from NPS archeologist Doug Scott suggested, “the Bowen land contains an incredibly important part of the archeological record related to Sand Creek,” while another blurb from Jeff Broome asserted, “artifacts do not lie, and 3,000 battle and village related artifacts remove all doubt about where the village and battle was on November 29, 1864.” Broome’s endorsement concluded: “For the past 3 years I have brought students to the Bowen property, and without question, it is there that the fight took place.” The Bowens still wanted to claim authority over the massacre’s geography. If tourists visited their land while the NPS site remained closed, they might seize control of the debate.39
With stories about the Homecoming Project splashed on the front pages of the local papers, the Bowens’ new business soon began attracting attention from reporters. And though both Chuck and Sheri Bowen promised that they would not “be involved in the controversy” swirling around the site, explaining that their tours would forgo contentious interpretation in favor of just-the-facts-ma’am narration, they nevertheless found themselves at the center of another storm surrounding Sand Creek. The problems started when the Bowens tried to drum up customers on the Kiowa County website. Sharon Pearson, the site administrator, explained that the webpage belonged to her, and that she felt no obligation to allow people to “promote and advertise their personal business” there. She also intimated that she remained skeptical about the Bowens’ claim that the massacre had taken place on their property. The Bowens fired back. They noted that their tours were a Kiowa County concern, reiterated that they had found more artifacts on their land than the NPS had discovered within the confines of the Dawson ranch, and promised that when confronted they would “NOT back down.” Once again, the Sand Creek discussion forum threatened to devolve into a pixelated shoutfest, a place where disgruntled parties could air their grievances and trade “personal slurs.”40
The arguments droned on for months, recapitulating many of the issues from the previous summer, when members of the OIW had sparred with their detractors on the Kiowa County website. This time, though, the Bowens made their own case, defending their methodology and good name. One commenter, assuming that the descendants were as interested in properly locating the site as anyone else was, wondered “why the Indian tribes themselves are not on the bandwagon proclaiming [that] Bowen’s land is the real site?” He then speculated that the Bowens were driven less by the unrelenting search for historical truth that they identified as their priority than by “the almighty dollar.” Only an hour elapsed before Chuck Bowen, whose rapid response suggested that he had taken to bird-dogging the website, posted an angry rebuttal. He fumed that his family had “NEVER ASKED for any money” before complaining about a double standard: “Nobody seems to have a problem with Dawson selling for almost 10 times the appraised value … and no one even mentions that the town of Eads and surrounding towns … are wanting nothing more than ‘to cash in’ on the Sand Creek Site.” By contrast, he insisted that he and his wife wanted only “the TRUTH to be told.” He stated, “We have a majority of the site, which the NPS knows and the Indians know.” The Bowens again cast themselves as victims of a cabal organized to rob them of credit that rightfully should have been theirs. Federal authorities, collaborating with Native people, were running roughshod over the West’s history and landowners.41
Bill Dawson, once among the most pugnacious stakeholders in the memorialization process, had been observing the fray from the comfort of the study in his new home in Colorado Springs. To that point, Dawson had remained silent. But he could not allow Chuck Bowen’s charges to stand unchallenged in cyberspace. Suggesting that the Bowens were indeed looking for a payday, Dawson pointed back to his neighbors’ offer, years earlier, to sell out for $15 million. “Tired of [the] cheap shots on this forum,” he challenged Chuck Bowen to come see him “in person” or to “select a neutral battleground” where the two men apparently could settle their differences once and for all.42
At around the same time, Sheri Bowen, simultaneously playing the roles of peacekeeper and provocateur, addressed a cutting reply to Dawson. She and her husband did not “have any problem with [Dawson] selling [his] land for a lot more than any one else in Kiowa County could get. That’s the American way.” The Bowens would even allow that “some important things happened” in the South Bend, so long as Dawson admitted that “90% of [the massacre] happened” on their land. “It is a little difficult to argue,” she suggested, “against all our documented artifacts.” Still, she said, she and her husband would comfort themselves with the truth, facts that even the NPS acknowledged in private: “The NPS knows what we have and have chosen not to recognize it for whatever reason.” She added: “what we have is VERY important information and it is being suppressed.” Despite being robbed of their just due, she concluded: “Chuck will continue metal detecting and mapping the artifacts by GPS and I’ll continue to pray that the truth comes out eventually.”43
Alexa Roberts watched the drama unfolding on the Sand Creek discussion forum with a feeling of déjà vu. Congress was deliberating about placing the Dawson property into federal trust. And the specter of the Homecoming Project still complicated that bill’s prospects. Plus, Roberts knew, newspapers serving the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes were covering the controversy over the Bowens’ tour business. John Sipes, a tribal historian, suggested, “If Eads, Colorado … hopes for economic benefits from the historic site, the perspective of Sand Creek descendants needs to be heard.” Roberts believed, “if we can just open, the fighting will stop.” If people visited the site, she hoped, skepticism surrounding its authenticity would diminish, and the Bowens would not have a platform from which they could criticize the NPS and descendants.44
With Roberts frustrated about the slow pace of progress on the site, she looked east. Festivities in Washington, DC, buoyed her spirits, suggesting that some federal-tribal collaborations could eventually succeed. On September 21, 2004, more than 20,000 indigenous people from throughout the Americas gathered in the nation’s capital. They met to celebrate the opening of the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). Built of wavy limestone blocks, nodding to cliff dwellings in the American West, the five-story NMAI looked unlike anything else in the city, its unique architectural design accentuated by its remarkable location: a spot on the National Mall, one of the most prestigious and symbolically resonant pieces of real estate in the United States. For scores of Native activists, scholars, and political figures, including Ben Nighthorse Campbell, the NMAI’s site on the Mall and inclusion in the Smithsonian Institution suggested a ritual claiming of space, a declaration of “survivance” that echoed throughout the building’s exhibit halls. So while critics piled on, panning the NMAI’s focus on cultural persistence at the expense of rigorous interpretation—a typical reviewer sniffed the “unmistakable air of ethnic boosterism” wafting around the array of artifacts and mult
imedia presentations that greeted visitors in the galleries—many Native people viewed the museum as a triumph. Wilma Mankiller, former principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, hailed the NMAI as “an important opportunity to show tribal people as participants in a living culture, not something in museums or history books.”45
The opening of the NMAI also demonstrated how deeply memories of Sand Creek reached into contemporary Native affairs. The museum had traveled a serpentine path to the National Mall. Around the turn of the twentieth century, as the United States became more urban, more industrial, and less white, George Heye, a second-tier oil baron, followed the lead of men like Teddy Roosevelt: he went west, measuring his manhood and allaying his growing racial anxieties by traveling among Native people, who at the time most observers saw as part of a vanishing race. Bitten by the collecting bug during one of his trips, Heye began acquiring vast holdings of indigenous artifacts from throughout the Americas. He eventually put together a collection that numbered, by some counts, in excess of a million pieces. In 1916, Heye crammed his trove into an exhibition and research space in Harlem, New York. He called the repository the Museum of the American Indian. For two decades, Heye’s collection thrived in upper Manhattan. But the museum, along with the rest of the United States, fell on hard times during the Great Depression, and fund-raising became more difficult. Heye’s death in 1957 exacerbated the museum’s financial woes. In the 1960s and 1970s, new leadership struggled to revive the once-proud institution, but a series of high-profile scandals surrounding the sale of treasures from within the collections suggested the need for a revised strategy.46