A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling over the Memory of Sand Creek

by Ari Kelman

  12. Steve Brady interview, September 12, 2003; Laird Cometsevah interview, May 12, 2003; William Dawson interview, June 18, 2003; Richard Ellis interview, May 25, 2005; David Halaas interview, September 26, 2003.

  13. Quotes from William Dawson interview, June 18, 2003. See also Steve Brady interview, September 12, 2003; Laird Cometsevah interview, May 12, 2003; Richard Ellis interview, May 25, 2005; David Halaas interview, September 26, 2003; Alexa Roberts, superintendent, Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, interview by author, April 29, 2003, Denver, CO, tape recording, in author’s possession; Douglas Scott interview, October 3, 2003.

  14. Quotes from Lamar Daily News, August 2, 1950. See also Kiowa County Press, July 28, 1950; Lamar Daily News, July 22, 24, 26, August 6, 1950.

  15. In an interview conducted in 2005, Modupe Lobode, the Colorado Historical Society’s chief historian at the time, described the contents of notes made by Leroy Hafen, chief historian in 1950, accompanying the Historical Society’s plans for the obelisk. Hafen alluded to the politics impinging on the memorialization process. Lobode regretted that the notes had been lost. Modupe Lobode, chief historian, Colorado Historical Society, interview by author, June 3, 2005, Denver, CO, tape recording, in author’s possession. “Sand Creek: ‘Battle’ or ‘Massacre,’ ” casualty statistics, and “one of the …” all from an image of the obelisk, on which the text is legible, found in File 287, “Sand Creek Massacre,” in Colorado Historical Society, Denver, CO. “The actual …” from Kiowa County Press, August 11, 1950. “A caravan …” from Lamar Daily News, August 7, 1950. “Battle area” from Lamar Daily News, July 22, 1950.

  16. Quotes from Lamar Daily News, August 2, 1950. See also Modupe Lobode interview, June 3, 2005.

  17. Barry Schwartz, Abraham Lincoln and the Forge of National Memory (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 224–255; David Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2001), 381; John Bodnar, The Good War in American Memory (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 113; Barry Schwartz, Abraham Lincoln in the Post-Heroic Era: History and Memory in Late Twentieth-Century America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009), 59–90; David Blight, American Oracle: The Civil War in the Civil Rights Era (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011), 3–6; Merrill D. Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 198.

  18. William Dawson interview, June 18, 2003, and Alexa Roberts, interview by author, August 26, 2004, telephone, notes in author’s possession.

  19. Quote from William Dawson interview, June 18, 2003.

  20. William Dawson interview, June 18, 2003; Elizabeth Mitchell, “Sand Creek Massacre Site: An Environmental History,” 2007, 47–73, http://www.nps.gov/sand/naturescience/upload/Sand%20Creek%20–%20An%20Environmental%20History-1.pdf.

  21. The sign’s text can be found in File 166, “Markers, Sand Creek Massacre,” Colorado Historical Society, Denver, CO. “Whole damn …” and “Native American …” from William Dawson to James Hartmann, vice president, Colorado Historical Society, July 21, 1986, in File 166. “Continue …” from James Hartmann, vice president, Colorado Historical Society, to William Dawson, July 28, 1986, in File 166. See also Alexa Roberts interview, April 29, 2003; “News Release: Sand Creek Massacre Marker to Be Dedicated,” August 28, 1986, in File 166; William Dawson interview, June 18, 2003.

  22. Quotes from William Dawson interview, June 18, 2003. See also Alexa Roberts interview, April 29, 2003.

  23. “Walked …” from James Amos, “Woman Testified …” Pueblo Chieftain, April 24, 1997, in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC. “Trespassers” from William Dawson interview, June 18, 2003. See also Alexa Roberts interview, April 29, 2003; Fawn Germer, “Municipal Judge Faces Charges,” Rocky Mountain News, March 25, 1997, A-8.

  24. “Spread like …” and “if you …” from Germer, “Municipal Judge Faces Charges.” “Waste” and “$200 per month …” from William Dawson interview, June 18, 2003. See also “Woman Testified That Judge Terrorized Her and Brother,” Pueblo Chieftain, April 24, 1997, in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC; Janet Frederick, director, Kiowa County Economic Development Corporation, interview by author, June 17, 2003, Eads, CO, tape recording, in author’s possession; Dick Foster, “Eads Judge Arrested Again,” Rocky Mountain News, March 26, 1997, A-8; Dick Foster, “A Judge’s Trials,” Rocky Mountain News, April 14, 1997, A-8; Dick Foster, “Judge Steps Down in Plea Agreement,” Rocky Mountain News, December 2, 1997, A-8.

  25. Quotes from William Dawson interview, June 18, 2003. See also Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, “Scandal,” Wicazo Sa Review 22 (Spring 2007): 85–89; Michael Yellow Bird, “On the Justice of Charging Buffalo: ‘Who Stole American Indians Studies?,’ ” Wicazo Sa Review 22 (Spring 2007): 91–99; Alexa Roberts interview, April 29, 2003.

  26. “I’m the son …” and “Not just the …” from James Doyle, Colorado communications director for Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, interview by author, June 10, 2003, Fort Collins, CO, tape recording, in author’s possession. “Hearing …” from Ben Nighthorse Campbell, U.S. senator, interview by author, September 10, 2003, telephone, tape recording, in author’s possession. See also William Dawson interview, June 18, 2003; Alexa Roberts interview, April 29, 2003; Michael Romano, “Senator Eyes Massacre Site,” Rocky Mountain News, March 3, 1998, A-8.

  27. “Extremely worthy” from Jerry Rogers to Cathy Spude, e-mail, April 29, 1998, in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC. “If Sen. Ben …” and “My granddad …” from Romano, “Senator Eyes Massacre Site,” A-8. Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell’s questionnaire, produced in advance of hearings on S. 1695, and the NPS’s responses can be found in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC. See also Adriel Bettelheim, “Sand Creek Acquisition Urged,” Denver Post, March 3, 1998, B-5.

  28. “Conveyed the …” from David Halaas interview, September 26, 2003. All other quotes from Adriel Bettelheim, “Historic-Site Ruling Up in the Error,” Denver Post, March, 6, 1998, A-1. See also Ben Nighthorse Campbell interview, September 10, 2003; James Doyle interview, June 10, 2003.

  29. Quotes from C. E. Van Loan, “Veterans of 1864 Revisit Scene of Indian Battle on the Banks of Sand Creek, Colo.,” Denver Post, July 26, 1908.

  30. Ibid.

  31. “Where was …” and “the place …” from Doris Rosalind Wilder, “Indian Battles in Colorado: Sand Creek Battle and Discussion That Followed in Wake of Wiping Out of Indians under Black Kettle and Other Chiefs,” Rocky Mountain News, July 8, 1923. “Inquire directions …” from Works Progress Administration, Colorado: A Guide to the Highest State (New York: Hastings House, 1941), 293.

  32. “Fill the …” from Jerry Rogers to Cathy Spude et al., e-mail, October 16, 1998, in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC. All other quotes from Cathy Spude, National Park Service, interview by author, June 21, 2003, Denver CO, tape recording, in author’s possession.

  33. Quote from “Charles Pinckney,” National Park Service, http://www.nps.gov/chpi/. See also “Charles Pinckney Plantation: Using Archeology to Solve the Mystery,” National Park Service, http://www.nps.gov/history/seac/chpi/index.htm.

  34. “No more …” from Jerry Rogers to Bob Spude, e-mail, March 5, 1998, in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC. All other quotes from Cathy Spude interview, June 21, 2003. See also Steve Brady interview, September 12, 2003; Ben Nighthorse Campbell interview, September 10, 2003; James Doyle interview, June 10, 2003; Barbara Sutteer, interview by author, August 5, 2003, telephone, tape recording, in author’s possession; “Charles Pinckney,” National Park Service; Committee on Energy and Natural Resources: Subcommittee on National Parks, Historic Preservation, and Recreation, Hearings on S. 1695, to establish the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in the State of Colorado, March 24, 1998, http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/congbibs/senate/105dgst2.html.

  35. Richard Ellis interview, May 25, 2005; Douglas Scott interview, October 3, 2003; Douglas D. Scott, Richard A. Fox, Melissa A. Connor, and Dick Harmon, Archaeological Pe
rspectives on the Battle of Little Bighorn (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000); Douglas D. Scott, Peter Bleed, Andrew E. Masich, and Jason Pitsch, “An Inscribed Native American Battle Image from the Little Bighorn Battlefield,” Plains Anthropologist 42 (August 1997): 287–302; Richard Fox, Douglas D. Scott, John du Mont, John D. McDermott, Robert L. Schuyler, Melburn D. Thurman, and Robert Utley, “ ‘On Digging Up Custer Battlefield’ Some Comments,” Montana: The Magazine of Western History 36 (Autumn 1986): 83–87.

  36. “I don’t know …” from Douglas Scott interview, October 3, 2003. “Inconclusive …” from Douglas D. Scott, Anne Wainstein Bond, Richard Ellis, and William B. Lees, “Archeological Reconnaissance of Two Possible Sites of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864,” (April 1998), 13, in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC. See also Steve Brady interview, September 12, 2003; Gail Ridgely interview, July 29, 2003.

  37. “Conducted a …,” “without any …,” “it was our …,” “it was just …,” and “white people …” from Steve Brady interview, September 12, 2003. “Reclaimed the …” and “Cheyenne earth” from Laird Cometsevah interview, May 12, 2003. See also Joe Big Medicine, Sand Creek representative, Southern Cheyenne Tribe, interview by author, July 8, 2003, Lame Deer, MT, tape recording, in author’s possession.

  38. “Solid physical …” from Steve Brady interview, September 12, 2003. “To commemorate …” from Statement by Katherine H. Stevenson, associate director, Cultural Resource Stewardship and Partnerships, National Park Service, United States Department of the Interior, Before the Subcommittee on National Parks, Historic Preservation and Recreation, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Concerning S. 1695, the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site Preservation Act of 1998, in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC. “Traditional tribal …” from Laird Cometsevah interview, May 12, 2003. See also Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell statement in support of S. 1695, unpublished manuscript, in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC; Ben Nighthorse Campbell interview, September 10, 2003; David Halaas interview, September 26, 2003; Public Law 105-243, “An Act to Authorize the Secretary of the Interior to Study the Suitability and Feasibility of Designating the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in the State of Colorado as a Unit of the National Park System, and for Other Purposes”; Deborah Frazier, “Massacre Mystery,” Denver Post, September 21, 1998, B-6; Michael Romano, “Massacre Remembered,” Rocky Mountain News, October 7, 1998, A-7; Michael Romano, “Save Site of Massacre, Indians Say,” Rocky Mountain News, March 25, 1998, A-8; Karen Vigil, “Massacre Site to Be Located, Purchased,” Pueblo Chieftain, March 25, 1998, in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC; Elliot Zaret, “House OKs Bill for Massacre Site,” Denver Post, September 19, 1998, B-6.

  39. Quote from Steve Brady interview, September 12, 2003.

  40. Quotes from Condition of the Indian Tribes. Report of the Special Joint Committee, Appointed under Joint Resolution of March 3, 1865. With an Appendix (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1867), 55.

  41. George Bent to George Hyde, September 26, 1905, Coe Collection, Beinecke Library, Yale University, New Haven, CT; Colonel John Chivington to Major General Samuel Curtis, August 8, 1864, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1900) (hereafter Official Records of the War of the Rebellion), Series I, XLI, Pt. 2, 614; Governor John Evans to Major General Samuel Curtis, July 18, 1864, Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, XLI, Pt. 1, 73; Condition of the Indian Tribes, 55; “Massacre of Cheyenne Indians,” in Report of the Joint Committee on Conduct on War, at the Second Session, Thirty-Eighth Congress (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1865), 31; Leroy W. Hagerty, “Indian Raids along the Platte and Little Blue Rivers, 1865–1865,” Nebraska History 28 (October–December 1947): 176–186; George Bent, “Forty Years with the Cheyennes,” ed. George Hyde, Frontier: A Magazine of the West IV (October 1905): 3; George E. Hyde, Life of George Bent: Written from His Letters, ed. Savoie Lottinville (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), 134–138; Howard Roberts Lamar, The Far Southwest, 1846–1912: A Territorial History (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000), 199–217.

  42. “Pursue, kill, and destroy …” from Rocky Mountain News, August 13, 1864. All other quotes from “Proclamation of Governor Evans of Colorado Territory,” in “Massacre of Cheyenne Indians,” 47. See also Governor John Evans to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, August 23, 1864, in “Massacre of Cheyenne Indians,” 65; Governor John Evans to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, August 10, 1864, Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, XLI, Pt. 2, 644; Governor John Evans to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, September 7, 1864, in “Massacre of Cheyenne Indians,” 66.

  43. Charles Wilkinson, Blood Struggle: The Rise of Modern Indian Nations (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005), 304–328, 352–282; Rex Wirth and Stefanie Wickstrom, “Competing Views: Indian Nations and Sovereignty in the Intergovernmental System of the United States,” American Indian Quarterly 26 (Autumn 2002): 509–525; Gerald Vizenor, “Editorial Comment: Gambling on Sovereignty,” American Indian Quarterly 16 (Summer 1992): 411–413; Vine Deloria Jr., “Intellectual Self-Determination and Sovereignty: Looking at the Windmills in Our Minds,” Wicazo Sa Review 13 (Spring 1998): 25–31; Jack D. Forbes, “Intellectual Self-Determination and Sovereignty: Implications for Native Studies and for Native Intellectuals,” Wicazo Sa Review 13 (Spring 1998): 11–23; Lawrence W. Gross, “Cultural Sovereignty and Native American Hermeneutics in the Interpretation of the Sacred Stories of the Anishinaabe,” Wicazo Sa Review 18 (Autumn 2003): 127–134; William T. Hagan, “Tribalism Rejuvenated: The Native American since the Era of Termination,” Western Historical Quarterly 12 (January 1981): 4–16; Austen L. Parrish, “Changing Territoriality, Fading Sovereignty, and the Development of Indigenous Rights,” American Indian Law Review 31 (2006/2007): 291–313; Duane Champagne, “From Sovereignty to Minority: As American as Apple Pie,” Wicazo Sa Review 20 (Autumn 2005): 21–36; Wilma P. Mankiller, “ ‘Tribal Sovereignty Is a Sacred Trust’: An Open Letter to the Conference,” American Indian Law Review 23 (1998/1999): 479–480; Robert Allen Warrior, “Intellectual Sovereignty and the Struggle for an American Indian Future. Chapter 3 of Tribal Secrets: Vine Deloria, John Joseph Mathews, and the Recovery of American Indian Intellectual Traditions,” Wicazo Sa Review 8 (Spring 1992): 1–20; Amanda J. Cobb, “Understanding Tribal Sovereignty: Definitions, Conceptualizations, and Interpretations,” American Studies 46 (Fall/Winter 2005): 115–132; Henry R. Wagner, “Creation of Rights of Sovereignty through Symbolic Acts,” Pacific Historical Review 7 (December 1938): 297–326; David Rich Lewis, “Still Native: The Significance of Native Americans in the History of the Twentieth-Century American West,” Western Historical Quarterly 24 (May 1993): 203–227.

  44. Public Law 105-243.

  45. Quotes from Public Law 105-243. See also Chuck and Sheri Bowen, interview by author, August 8, 2003, Lamar, CO, tape recording, in author’s possession; Rod Brown, Kiowa County commissioner, interview by author, June 17, 2003, Eads, CO, tape recording, in author’s possession; Ben Nighthorse Campbell interview, September 10, 2003; William Dawson interview, June 18, 2003; Janet Frederick interview, June 17, 2003; Douglas Scott interview, October 3, 2003.

  46. Quote from Cathy Spude interview, June 21, 2003. See also David Lowenthal, The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 65; Peter V. Schaeffer and Cecily Ahern Millerick, “The Impact of Historic District Designation on Property Values: An Empirical Study,” Economic Development Quarterly 5 (November 1991): 301–312; N. Edward Coulson and Michael L. Lahr, “Gracing the Land of Elvis and Beale Street: Historic Designation and Property Values in Memphis,” Real Estate Economics 33 (September 2005): 487–507; Deborah Ann Ford, “The Effect of Historic Designation on Single-Family Home Prices,” Real Estate Economics 17 (September 1999): 353–362; Douglas S. Noonan, “Finding an Impact of Preservation Policies: Price Effects of Histo
ric Landmarks on Attached Homes in Chicago, 1990–1999,” Economic Development Quarterly 21 (February 2007): 17–33; William Dawson interview, June 18, 2003.

  47. “District Court, County of Kiowa, State of Colorado, Case No. 98, CV 13, William F. Dawson and Jredia A. Dawson, Plaintiffs, v. Homer Flute, Individually and as Trustee of the Sand Creek Massacre Descendants Irrevocable Trust; Robert S. Simpson; Thompson T. Flute; Dorothy Wood; Jimmy G. Antelope; Ricque Richardson; Charlotte Wetselline; John Mack; Dennis Eckart; Dr. John Moore; Dr. Janice Campbell; Larry Derryberry; Justin Whitefield; Hugh Thompson; and All Other Individuals Who Would Trespass Upon Land Owned by Plaintiffs, Defendants,” in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC. See also Laird Cometsevah interview, May 12, 2003; William Dawson interview, June 18, 2003; Homer Flute and Robert Simpson, president and vice president, Sand Creek Massacre Descendants Trust, interview by author, December 20, 2004, Anadarko, OK, tape recording, in author’s possession; John Hill, “Descendants Gather at Massacre Site,” Lamar Daily News’ Tri-State Trader 29, no. 7 (July 29, 1998): 1; Alexa Roberts interview, April 29, 2003.

  48. “Massacre” from Hill, “Descendants Gather at Massacre Site,” 1. “Battle” from John Hill, “Wood Emotional Recalling Sand Creek Battle,” Lamar Daily News’ Tri-State Trader 29, no. 7 (July 29, 1998): 1. See also Laird Cometsevah interview, May 12, 2003; William Dawson interview, June 18, 2003; Homer Flute and Robert Simpson interview, December 20, 2004; Alexa Roberts interview, April 29, 2003.

  49. Cathy Spude interview, June 21, 2003.