A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling over the Memory of Sand Creek

by Ari Kelman

  82. Quotes from Douglas Scott interview, October 3, 2003. See also Rick Frost interview, June 11, 2003; Joe Big Medicine interview, July 8, 2003.

  83. “Absolutely unequivocal” from Steve Brady interview, September 12, 2003. “Ballistics research …” and “Not everything …” from Steve Brady interview, August 29, 2004. “Numbers …” and “seemed like he …” from Laird Cometsevah interview, May 12, 2003. “But the Park Service …” from Barbara Sutteer interview, August 5, 2003.

  84. Quote from Douglas Scott interview, October 3, 2003.

  85. Quotes from Alexa Roberts interview, April 29, 2003.

  4. ACCURATE BUT NOT PRECISE

  1. “Caucused” from Otto Braided Hair, director, Northern Cheyenne Sand Creek Office, interview by author, May 11, 2007, telephone, notes in author’s possession. “Everyone had reached …” from Christine Whitacre, historian, Intermountain Region, National Park Service, interview by author, May 27, 2003, Denver, CO, tape recording, in author’s possession. “A map of …,” “DRAFT,” and “an explosion …” from Rick Frost, Associate Regional Director for Communications and External Relations, Intermountain Region, National Park Service, interview by author, June 11, 2003, Denver, CO, tape recording, in author’s possession. “Betrayed” from Laird Cometsevah, chief, Southern Cheyenne Tribe, interview by author, May 12, 2003, Denver, CO, tape recording, in author’s possession. See also National Park Service, Intermountain Region, Sand Creek Massacre Project, vol. 2: Special Resource Study (Denver: National Park Service, Intermountain Region, 2000), 16–19 (hereafter Special Resource Study).

  2. “Not surprised …,” “bureaucratic imperialism,” and “cultural genocide” from Laird Cometsevah interview, May 12, 2003. “Had made a huge …” from Rick Frost interview, June 11, 2003. “Corrected the diagram” from Larry Borowsky, “Where the Truth Lies,” 5280 9 (August–September 2001): 104.

  3. “Floored …” and “there was such …” from Douglas Scott, chief archeologist, National Parks Service Midwest Archeological Center, interview by author, October 3, 2003, telephone, tape recording, in author’s possession. “Found the site” and “maybe this isn’t …” from Christine Whitacre interview, May 27, 2003. “Not so fast …” and “meddling” from Laird Cometsevah interview, May 12, 2003.

  4. “Sand Creek assemblage” and “an 1864-era Cheyenne …” from National Park Service, Intermountain Region, Sand Creek Massacre Project, vol. 1: Site Location Study (Denver: National Park Service, Intermountain Region, 2000), 130 (hereafter Site Location Study). See also Jerome A. Greene and Douglas D. Scott, Finding Sand Creek: History, Archeology, and the 1864 Massacre Site (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2004), 87–98, appendixes A–D; Jerome Greene, research historian, National Park Service, interview by author, May 27, 2003, Denver, CO, tape recording, in author’s possession; National Park Service, Site Location Study, 126–135, appendixes 1–3; Douglas Scott interview, October 3, 2003; Lysa Wegman-French, historian, Intermountain Region, National Park Service, interview by author, June 9, 2003, Denver, CO, tape recording, in author’s possession.

  5. “Mute testimony” and “nearly unequivocal” from National Park Service, Site Location Study, 132 and 130 respectively. See also Greene and Scott, Finding Sand Creek, 87–98, appendixes A–D; Jerome Greene interview, May 27, 2003; Douglas Scott interview, October 3, 2003; Mark Neely, The Civil War and the Limits of Destruction (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 140–169.

  6. “Might have been …” from National Park Service, Site Location Study, 134. “The absence of definitive …” from Greene and Scott, Finding Sand Creek, 96. See also Jerome Greene interview, May 27, 2003; Douglas Scott interview, October 3, 2003.

  7. For details on the Cheyennes’ and Arapahos’ Sand Creek stories, see “The Sand Creek Massacre Site Location Study Oral History Project,” in National Park Service, Site Location Study, 137–285. See also Jerome Greene interview, May 27, 2003; Douglas Scott interview, October 3, 2003.

  8. “Accurate but …,” “Bent’s account …,” and “so when …” from Jerome Greene interview, May 27, 2003. “I don’t …” and “taken aback …” from Douglas Scott interview, October 3, 2003.

  9. “There’s this …” and “it was …” from Rick Frost interview, June 11, 2003. “Archeological evidence …,” “heard voices …,” and “I don’t …” from Christine Whitacre interview, May 27, 2003.

  10. “Feel where Sand Creek …” from Laird Cometsevah interview, May 12, 2003. “The Cheyennes feel …” from Mary Jean Porter, “Many Indians Believe the Site Lies on Dawson Land,” Pueblo Chieftain, March 15, 1999, in uncataloged files of the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site (FSCMNHS), currently held by National Park Service, Western Archeological and Conservation Center (NPS-WACC), Tucson, AZ. “But according to …” from Associated Press, “Park Service Searching for Massacre Site,” Colorado Springs Gazette, February 21, 1999, n.p., in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC. “The Cheyenne have always …” from Harrison Fletcher, “Shifting Sands,” Westword, June 10, 1999, http://www.westword.com/issue/1999–06–10/columns.html. “The digging …” and “typically high-handed …” from Steve Brady, president, Northern Cheyenne Sand Creek Descendants, interview by author, September 12, 2003, Lame Deer, MT, tape recording, in author’s possession.

  11. “Dawson South Bend” and “Cheyenne earth” from National Park Service, Site Location Study, 10. “Spiritually and religiously …” from Fletcher, “Shifting Sands.” “The Arrow Keeper wasn’t wrong …” from Laird Cometsevah interview, May 12, 2003.

  12. “Stabbed …” from Mildred Red Cherries, member, Northern Cheyenne Sand Creek Massacre Descendants Committee, interview by author, August 13, 2003, Lame Deer, MT, tape recording, in author’s possession. “They’re calling …” from Borowsky, “Where the Truth Lies,” 113. “The Park …” from Laird Cometsevah interview, May 12, 2003.

  13. Steve Brady interview, September 12, 2003; Laird Cometsevah interview, May 12, 2003.

  14. “Work in …” from “Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site Study Act of 1998,” Public Law 105-243. “Will affect …” from “National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, as Amended through 2006 [with Annotations],” 16 U.S.C. 470. See also a discussion of Executive Order No. 13804, “Sand Creek Massacre Site Project Agreement for the Development of a Site Location and Special Resource Study, October 1998,” in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC; Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell’s questionnaire, produced in advance of hearings on S. 1695, and the NPS’s responses, in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC; National Park Service, Special Resource Study, appendixes 1 and 2.

  15. “Methods …” from “Sand Creek Massacre Site Project Agreement for the Development of a Site Location and Special Resource Study, October 1998,” in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC. “Cheyenne and Arapaho …,” “work to help …,” “best efforts …,” and “the project …” from “Memorandum of Understanding among National Park Service, Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, Northern Cheyenne Tribe, and Northern Arapaho Tribe for Government-to-Government Relations in the Implementation of P.L. 105-243,” in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC. See also “Cooperative Agreement between the National Park Service and the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma,” in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC; Steve Brady interview, September 12, 2003; Steve Chestnut, founding member, Ziontz, Chestnut, Varnell, Berley & Slonim, interview by author, Februrary 6, 2004, Seattle, WA, tape recording, in author’s possession; Laird Cometsevah interview, May 12, 2003; National Park Service, Special Resource Study, appendixes 1 and 2.

  16. “Had their oral traditions …” from Rick Frost interview, June 11, 2003. All other quotes from Steve Brady, interview by author, August 29, 2004, Lame Deer, MT, tape recording, in author’s possession.

  17. Steve Brady interview, August 29, 2004; David Fridtjof Halaas and Andrew E. Masich, Halfbreed: The Remarkable True Story of George Bent, Caught between the Worlds of the Indian and the White Man (New York: Da Capo Press, 2004), xiv, 124–157, 328–349; Ge
orge E. Hyde, Life of George Bent: Written from His Letters, ed. Savoie Lottinville (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), 151–163.

  18. Francis B. Heitman, comp., Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army from Its Organization, September 29, 1789, to March 2, 1903, vol. 1 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1903), 230; Greene and Scott, Finding Sand Creek, 45–51.

  19. “He claims …” from Steve Brady interview, September 12, 2003.

  20. “Rosetta Stone” and “the most compelling …” from Gary L. Roberts, “The Sand Creek Massacre Site: A Report on Washington Sources,” 11, in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC. All other quotes 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; Steve Brady interview, September 12, 2003; Conrad Fisher, director, Northern Cheyenne Cultural Center, interview by author, July 1, 2004, Lame Deer, MT, tape recording, in author’s possession.

  21. Quotes from Governor John Evans to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, December 14, 1863, in Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the Year 1864 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1865), 225–226. See also Gary Clayton Anderson, Kinsmen of Another Kind: Dakota-White Relations in the Upper Mississippi Valley 1650–1862 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), 261–280; Gerald S. Henig, “A Neglected Cause of the Sioux Uprising,” Minnesota History 45 (Fall 1976): 107–110; Priscilla Ann Russo, “The Time to Speak Is Over: The Onset of the Sioux Uprising,” Minnesota History 45 (Fall 1976): 97–106; Kenneth Carley, “As Red Men Viewed It: Three Indian Accounts of the Uprising,” Minnesota History 38 (September 1962): 126–149; Governor John Evans to Colonel John Chivington, September 21, 1863, in Indian Letter Book, Colorado State Archives, Denver, CO; Governor John Evans to Colonel John Chivington, November 7, 1863, in Letters Received, Office of Indian Affairs, Colorado Superintendency, National Archives, Record Group 75, Washington, DC.

  22. Harry Edwards Kelsey Jr., Frontier Capitalist: The Life of John Evans (Denver: State Historical Society of Colorado and Pruett Press, 1969), 142–168; Gary L. Roberts, “Sand Creek: Tragedy and Symbol” (unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 1984), 254–255; Stan Hoig, The Sand Creek Massacre (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961), 134.

  23. Roberts, “Sand Creek: Tragedy and Symbol,” 207; Major General Samuel Curtis to Colonel John Chivington, June 20, 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, XXXIV, Pt. 4, 595; Governor John Evans to Colonel John Chivington, March 16, 1864, Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, XXXIV, Pt. 2, 633–634; Major General Samuel Curtis to Colonel John Chivington, April 8, 1864, Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, XXXIV, Pt. 2, 85; Lieutenant George Eayre to Colonel John Chivington, April 18, 1864, Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, XXXIV, Pt. 1, 880–881.

  24. “Very much …” from Captain Samuel Cook to Captain George Stilwell, April 22, 1864, Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, XXXIV, Pt. 3, 262. “I believe …” from Major Jacob Downing to Colonel John Chivington, May 3, 1864, Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, XXXIV, Pt. 3, 908. “The fate …” appears in Roberts, “Sand Creek: Tragedy and Symbol,” 234. See also Major Jacob Downing to Colonel John Chivington, April 12, 1864, Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, XXXIV, Pt. 3, 146; Black Hawk Mining Journal, April 14, 1864; Rocky Mountain News, April 20, 1864; Colonel John Chivington to Governor John Evans, April 15, 1864, Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, XXXIV, Pt. 1, 883–884; Governor John Evans to Major General Samuel Curtis, April 11, 1864, Annual Reports, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1864 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1865), 370; Governor John Evans to Major General Samuel Curtis, April 25, 1864, in Indian Letter Book, Colorado State Archives, Denver, CO; Lieutenant George Eayre to Colonel John Chivington, May 19, 1864, Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, XXXVI, Pt. 1, 935; Colonel John Chivington to Major Edward Wynkoop, May 31, 1864, Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, XXXIV, Pt. 4, 151.

  25. “In a box …” from Henry Littleton Pitzer, Three Frontiers: Memories and a Portrait of Henry Littleton Pitzer as Recorded by His Son Robert Claiborne Pitzer (Muscatine, IA: Prairie Press, 1938), 162–163. See also Elmer R. Burkey, “The Site of the Murder of the Hungate Family by Indians in 1864,” Colorado Magazine, 12 (1935): 135–142; J. S. Brown and Thomas J. Darrah to Governor John Evans, June 11, 1864, Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, XXXIV, Pt. 4, 319–320; Alice Polk Hill, Tales of Colorado Pioneers (Denver: Pierson and Gardner, 1884), 79–80; Nathaniel P. Hill, “Nathaniel P. Hill Inspects Colorado, Letters Written in 1864,” Colorado Magazine, 33–34 (1956–1957): 245–246.

  26. “All the …” from Hill, “Nathaniel P. Hill Inspects Colorado,” 246. “Every bell …” and “men, women …” from Hill, Tales of Colorado Pioneers, 80. “Three thousand …” from Mollie D. Sanford, Mollie: The Journal of Mollie Dorsey Sanford in Nebraska and Colorado Territories, ed. Donald F. Daker (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1959), 187.

  27. “Whole regiment” and “murdered and …” from Governor John Evans to Major General Samuel Curtis, in Indian Letter Book, Colorado State Archives, Denver, CO. See also Senate Executive Doc. 26, 39th Cong., 2nd Sess., Report of the Secretary of War, Communicating, in Compliance with a Resolution of the Senate of February 4, 1867, a Copy of the Evidence Taken at Denver and Fort Lyon, Colorado Territory, by a Military Commission Ordered to Inquire into the Sand Creek Massacre, November, 1864 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1867), 226; Governor John Evans to Commissioner of Indian Affairs William Dole, June 15, 1864, Indian Letter Book, Colorado State Archives, Denver, CO; Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1863 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1864), 240; Governor John Evans to Secretary of War Edwin P. Stanton, Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, Series I, XXXIV, Pt. 4, 381; Brown and Darrah to Evans, June 11, 1864, 319–320.

  28. “Cheyenne scalps …” from Rocky Mountain News, December 13, 1864. “Trophies …” from Rocky Mountain News, December 28, 1864. “The Battle of Sand Creek” from Rocky Mountain News, January 4, 1864.

  29. “Ancestors could …” from Gail Ridgely, Sand Creek representative, Northern Arapaho Tribe, interview by author, July 29, 2003, Denver, CO, tape recording, in author’s possession. See also Public Law 101-601, November 16, 1990, Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, http://www.nps.gov/history/nagpra/; Devon Abbott Mihesuah, ed., The Repatriation Reader: Who Owns American Indian Remains? (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), 19–73, 95–105, 123–168, 180–189, 211–238, 294–306.

  30. “Hunt all over …” from Luke Cahill, “Recollections of a Plainsman,” unpublished manuscript ca. 1915, MSS 99, in Manuscripts Division, Colorado Historical Society, Denver, CO. See also Lenore Barbian, anatomical collections manager, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, to Gary L. Roberts, National Park Service contract historian, in Gary L. Roberts, “The Sand Creek Massacre Site: A Report on Washington Sources,” January 1999 (unpublished manuscript), in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC; United States Army Medical Museum Anatomical Section, “Records Relating to Specimens Transferred to the Smithsonian Institution,” National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, 1990, 7, in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC; Scott Brown, museum technician, National Museum of Natural History and National Museum of Health and Medicine to Tom Killion, case officer, repatriation office, October 21, 1991, in Roberts, “The Sand Creek Massacre Site: A Report on Washington Sources”; War Department, Surgeon General’s Office, A Report of Surgical Cases Treated in the Army of the United States from 1865–1871 (Washington, DC: Government Printi
ng Office, 1871), 15–16.

  31. Rick Frost interview, June 11, 2003.

  32. “Village controversy,” from Norma Gorneau, member, Northern Cheyenne Tribe Sand Creek Massacre Descendants Committee, interview by author, July 1, 2004, Lame Deer, MT, tape recording, in author’s possession. “The imperialist …” from Conrad Fisher interview, July 1, 2004. “With documents …” from Laird Cometsevah interview, May 12, 2003. See also Borowsky, “Where the Truth Lies,” 113.

  33. National Park Service, Site Location Study; National Park Service, Special Resource Study.

  34. “Cordial” from Alexa Roberts, superintendent, Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, interview by author, April 29, 2004, telephone, notes in author’s possession.

  35. Quotes from Susan Collins, state archeologist and deputy state historic preservation officer, and David Halaas, chief historian, Colorado Historical Society, to Christine Whitacre, team captain, National Park Service, December 29, 1999, in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC.

  36. Quotes from David Halaas, director of publications, library, and archives, John Heinz History Center, interview by author, September 26, 2003, Pittsburgh, PA, tape recording, in author’s possession. See also Douglas Scott interview, October 3, 2003; Colorado Senate Joint Resolution 99–017, “Draft,” October 19, 1998, in File 6–10, “Civil War Monument, 2002,” in Colorado Historical Society, Denver, CO; Robert Martinez, senator, Colorado State Senate, to David Halaas, chief historian, Colorado Historical Society, February 2, 1999, in File 6–10, “Civil War Monument, 2002”; David Halaas to Robert Martinez, May 5, 1999, in File 6–10, “Civil War Monument, 2002.”

  37. Quotes from Susan Collins and David Halaas to Christine Whitacre, March 27, 2000, in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC. See also Rick Frost to Susan Collins and David Halaas, March 8, 2000, in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC.

  38. “The Northern Arapaho Business …” from Ben S. Ridgely, cochairman, Northern Arapaho Business Council, to Rick Frost, National Park Service, Denver, Colorado, November 16, 1999, in FSCMNHS, now at NPS-WACC. “Looked at the data …” and “respected science” from Gail Ridgely interview, July 29, 2003. “You would think …” 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. See also Christine Whitacre interview, May 27, 2003; Rick Frost interview, June 11, 2003.