Chief Black Kettle, I want you to give all these chiefs of the soldiers here to understand that we are for peace, and that we have made peace, that we may not be mistaken by them for enemies. ”Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” by Dee Brown. p. 92. “Chivington and his soldiers destroyed the lives or the power of every Cheyenne and Arapaho chief who had held out for peace with the white men.” x YouTube Video
Chief Black Kettle, I want you to give all these chiefs of the soldiers here to understand that we are for peace, and that we have made peace, that we may not be mistaken by them for enemies.
A Cheyenne cemetery is in the same direction as where my mother told me she watched gypsies camp through her west window as a girl, about ½ mile from her house. I have reverently walked though that Cheyenne cemetery as early as ten, looking at the headstones and wondering who they were and where they came from. I did not know then, that in that cemetery were descendants from the Sand Creek Massacre.
The Approaching Genocide Towards Sand Creek
Simultaneously, Roman Nose led the Dog Soldiers in battle,
while Black Kettle strove for peace. Why did Roman Nose and the Hotamitanio (Dog Soldier Society) need to defend their sovereignty and way of life? The answers to that one question rest in: the Great Horse Creek Treaty (1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie), volunteer soldiers, John Chivington, white encroachment with the Pike's Peak gold rush of 1858, the "renegotiation" of the "Great Horse Creek Treaty" at Fort Wise, the Civil War soldiers who encroached on promised land, and the murder of Lean Bear. The first core point is that hunting rights and land claims were not surrendered in the Great Horse Creek Treaty (1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie). www.firstpeople.us/...
The territory of the Cheyennes and Arrapahoes, commencing at the Red Butte, or the place where the road leaves the north fork of the source; thence along the main range of the Rocky Mountains to the head-waters of the Arkansas River; thence down the Arkansas River to the crossing of the Santa Fe road, thence in a northwesterly direction to the forks of the Platte River, and thence up the Platte River to the place of beginning.
Second of all, the Pike's Peak gold rush of 1858 brought white encroachment by ways of pony express riders, telegraph wires, stagecoaches, and more and more military forts whose soldiers (at least in the Sand Creek Massacre) included volunteer soldiers under the command of Col. John Chivington (1). To illustrate, here is a poster from 1864 that portrays the recruitment of volunteer soldiers.
Clearly, Roman Nose had sufficient reason to defend his people. Matters became worse for the Cheyenne and Arapaho as the white encroachment increased dramatically with the Pike's Peak gold rush of 1858, despite the land being promised them in the Great Horse Creek Treaty (1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie). The Territory of Colorado was then "declared" a decade after that treaty, and politicians wanted to "renegotiate" the Great Horse Creek Treaty at Fort Wise. It was far from a compromise, it was theft.
books.google.com/... ARTICLE 1. "The said chiefs and delegates of said Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes of Indians do hereby cede and relinquish to the United States all lands now owned, possessed, or claimed by them, wherever situated, except a tract to be reserved for the use of said tribes located within the following described boundaries, to wit:..."
Some "negotiation," 38 of the 44 Cheyenne chiefs did not sign it.
Dee Brown. "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee." p. 69: "...When the Cheyennes pointed out that only six of their forty-four chiefs were present, the United States officials replied that the others could sign it later..."(1)
Adding still more misery, were facts that hunting was scarce on this land tract, nor was it suited to farming. Also, white encroachment from the Pike's Peak gold rush escalated, while Civil War soldiers roamed onto their grounds. Then, Chivington, the butcher of Sand Creek, began his campaign of extermination and genocide.
Source In the spring of 1864, while the Civil War raged in the east, Chivington launched a campaign of violence against the Cheyenne and their allies, his troops attacking any and all Indians and razing their villages. The Cheyennes, joined by neighboring Arapahos, Sioux, Comanches, and Kiowas in both Colorado and Kansas, went on the defensive warpath.
Chief Black Kettle was promised complete safety by Colonel Greenwood as long as he rose the U.S flag above him (1). Black Kettle persisted in his calls for peace in spite of continuing exterminations and the shooting of Lean Bear.
(All bold mine)
Source Lean Bear, a leading peacemaker who had previously met with President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C., was shot from his horse without warning by U.S. troops during a Kansas buffalo hunt. The troops were acting under orders from Colonel John M. Chivington who commanded the military district of Colorado: "Find Indians wherever you can and kill them" (The War of the Rebellion, 1880-1881, pp. 403-404).
Source
Lean Bear, a leading peacemaker who had previously met with President Abraham Lincoln in Washington, D.C., was shot from his horse without warning by U.S. troops during a Kansas buffalo hunt.
The troops were acting under orders from Colonel John M. Chivington who commanded the military district of Colorado: "Find Indians wherever you can and kill them" (The War of the Rebellion, 1880-1881, pp. 403-404).
Perplexed by the continuing genocide, Black Kettle sent for Little White Man, known as William Bent. Almost prophetic, both agreed a war was about to be born if nothing changed. Black Kettle's peaceful attempts tragically failed, even though he took his people to Sand Creek, fully expecting peace. His last effort for peace was raising the U.S. flag just prior to the massacre.
Source "...Though no treaties were signed, the Indians believed that by reporting and camping near army posts, they would be declaring peace and accepting sanctuary. However on the day of the "peace talks" Chivington received a telegram from General Samuel Curtis (his superior officer) informing him that "I want no peace till the Indians suffer more...No peace must be made without my directions."
Chivington, butcher of the Sand Creek Massacre
Source "the Cheyennes will have to be roundly whipped -- or completely wiped out -- before they will be quiet. I say that if any of them are caught in your vicinity, the only thing to do is kill them." A month later, while addressing a gathering of church deacons, he dismissed the possibility of making a treaty with the Cheyenne: "It simply is not possible for Indians to obey or even understand any treaty. I am fully satisfied, gentlemen, that to kill them is the only way we will ever have peace and quiet in Colorado."
(It is worth noting also that the Fuhrer from time to time expressed admiration for the "efficiency" of the American genocide campaign against the Indians, viewing it as a forerunner for his own plans and programs.)
Unaware of Curtis's telegram, Black Kettle and some 550 Cheyennes and Arapahos, having made their peace, traveled south to set up camp on Sand Creek under the promised protection of Fort Lyon. Those who remained opposed to the agreement headed North to join the Sioux.
The Sand Creek Massacre of November 29, 1864
"Nothing lives long," he sang, "only the earth and the mountains." Black Kettle and his people had every reason to expect complete safety from their bloodshed after agreements for peace were made and Dog Soldiers left to join the Sioux. Nonetheless, Chivington's troops advanced on the Cheyenne and Arapaho near dawn on that day. The sound of those approaching hooves must have sounded ominous, as U.S. soldiers inevitably chased the defenseless Cheyenne and Arapaho by horse and foot with knives and guns. Their victims had to be positioned before ripping off scalps, cutting off ears, smashing out brains, butchering children, tearing breastfeeding infants away from their mother's breasts, and then murdering those infants. The "Bloody Third" soldiers necessarily had to kill the infants before cutting out their mother's genitals. The one question I never read asked in the congressional hearings was, "Didn't you disgraceful soldiers realize they were family?"
Kurt Kaltreider, PH.D. "American Indian Prophecies." pp. 58-59: -The report of witnesses at Sand Creek: "I saw some Indians that had been scalped, and the ears cut off the body of White Antelope," said Captain L. Wilson of the first Colorado Cavalry. "One Indian who had been scalped had also his skull smashed in, and I heard that the privates of White Antelope had been cut off to make a tobacco bag of. I heard some of the men say that the privates of one of the squaws had been cut out and put on a stick..." John S. Smith... All manner of depredations were inflicted on their persons; they were scalped, their brains knocked out; the men used their knives, ripped open women, clubbed little children, knocked them in the heads with their guns, beat their brains out, mutilated their bodies in every sense of the word...worse mutilation that I ever saw before, the women all cut to pieces...children two or three months old; all ages lying there.
From sucking infants up to warriors, Sand Creek being a deliberate massacre is not contested, especially since the "Bloody Third" set the village in flames.
The Cheyenne Stan Hoig By 3:00 P.M. the shooting had ceased, and the troops began looting the village. Some of the one-hundred-day volunteers took scalps. John Simpson Smith escaped harm, but his half Indian son Jack was captured and murdered; his corpse was harnessed to a horse and dragged around the campsite. Black Kettle and his wife managed to escape. The bodies on the battlefield included those of One Eye and Arapaho chief Left Hand.In his report, Chivington claimed that four hundred to five hundred Indians had been killed, compared with a loss to his own forces of nine killed and thirty-eight wounded. He tried to glorify the Sand Creek Massacre by referring to it not as a slaughter but as “one of the most bloody Indian battles ever fought on these plains.”
The Cheyenne Stan Hoig
By 3:00 P.M. the shooting had ceased, and the troops began looting the village. Some of the one-hundred-day volunteers took scalps. John Simpson Smith escaped harm, but his half Indian son Jack was captured and murdered; his corpse was harnessed to a horse and dragged around the campsite. Black Kettle and his wife managed to escape. The bodies on the battlefield included those of One Eye and Arapaho chief Left Hand.In his report, Chivington claimed that four hundred to five hundred Indians had been killed, compared with a loss to his own forces of nine killed and thirty-eight wounded. He tried to glorify the Sand Creek Massacre by referring to it not as a slaughter but as “one of the most bloody Indian battles ever fought on these plains.”
Source Letters written by those at Sand Creek From Lt. Silas Soule to Maj. Edward Wynkoop, Dec. 14, 1864: "The massacre lasted six or eight hours...I tell you Ned it was hard to see little children on their knees have their brains beat out by men professing to be civilized....They were all scalped, and as high as a half a dozen [scalps] taken from one head. They were all horribly mutilated...You could think it impossible for white men to butcher and mutilate human beings as they did there, but every word I have told you is the truth, which they do not deny...I expect we will have a hell of a time with Indians this winter."
Then, they took all the evidence back to Washington and hid it.
Source Before departing, the command, now the "Bloody Third", ransacked and burned the village. The surviving Indians, some 300 people, fled north towards other Cheyenne camps.
Medicine Calf Beckwourth sought Black Kettle to ask him if peace was yet possible, but Black Kettle had moved out to be with relatives. Leg-in-the-Water replaced Black Kettle as the primary chief; so, Beckwourth asked Leg-in-the-Water if there could still be peace. Principle chief Leg-in-the-Water responded with these powerful words.
Dee Brown. "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee." p. 94: "The white man has taken our country, killed all of our children. Now no peace. We want to go meet our families in the spirit land. We loved the whites until we found out they lied to us, and robbed us of what we had. We have raised the battle ax until death." (1)
Sand Creek memorial run ignites emotions; Cheyenne/Arapaho runners confront city of Denver Chivington later took to the Denver stage, where he charmed audiences with his stories of the massacre and displayed 100 Indian scalps, including the pubic hair of women.
Sand Creek memorial run ignites emotions; Cheyenne/Arapaho runners confront city of Denver
Chivington later took to the Denver stage, where he charmed audiences with his stories of the massacre and displayed 100 Indian scalps, including the pubic hair of women.
Link above no longer works. See here for evidence the above headline and story was written.
The Massacre at Sand Creek pgs. 147-156 The Wolves Of Heaven Northern Cheyenne Reservation, Montana Morning, August 17, 1911 https://books.google.com/books?id=y8WmlZ8_wLAC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=The+Massacre+at+Sand+Creek++The+Wolves+Of+Heaven+Northern+Cheyenne+Reservation,+Montana+Morning,+August+17,+1911&source=bl&ots=b9jeDnTRZA&sig=DcpfOMIWKg0Kmo48g6ck6E7kHFU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjF78GdsuzYAhVHQ6wKHZr7D-8Q6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=The%20Massacre%20at%20Sand%20Creek%20%20The%20Wolves%20Of%20Heaven%20Northern%20Cheyenne%20Reservation%2C%20Montana%20Morning%2C%20August%2017%2C%201911&f=false To want to forget something is to think of it. Proverb Troubled sleep. She thought that she’d be free of it, but no. To begin with, little dancing dreams. So small You can hear them in the cooking pot. Can see their dust rising out of a bowl of a pipe. Too small for comfort. Making her remember. The bundle. Down in its deep earth home. She can feel. They laid it there, but it’s not at rest. There’s a distant thrumming, somewhere. Echo of an iron horse, chuffing its cinders at the stars? The noise comes louder in her ears. And voices, reaching across the air from somewhere. Somewhere, but not so far away. Praising and lamenting, on and on. Prayers as free as the breath that says them. They’re singing, in a camp at the bend of a creek at the edge of timber. A camp that will stay forever, staked to the earth by memory. It’s the camp at Sandy Creek. Why, why are they singing? What is there to sing about? Once they were called the people. Tsistsistas. Now they’re out of the heat and cold forever. Darkness. Is she awake? Asleep? She can her Black Kettle’s words. They’re clear and bright as pebbles in a stream bed in the moonlight: The white men make two wars. One to kill us. And one to make sure no one will remember. It’s the war against memory that can never be redeemed. White men, at Sandy Creek. They couldn’t even say their anger. None of them spoke our language, none of us spoke theirs. What happened couldn’t be spoken. If there’s no saying, there can be no vision, no way of knowing, no where to follow. A world without saying can never have a story. No beginning, no generation coming. Just killing off the living, killing off the dying. Killing to kill, without even the heat of wanting to. Cold, cold is the war that kills off memory. It keeps the ones who come from finding the words, the first words, to start our story. Starting the story begins today! Tsistsistas! Remember, and resist! Ekomina knows that she’s been dreaming. When she wakes up, she’ll go on with her Story, the Story of the world, the world she’s in and the world that’s yet to come! She gives back her dream, and opens to her waking.
The Massacre at Sand Creek
pgs. 147-156
The Wolves Of Heaven
Northern Cheyenne Reservation, Montana
Morning, August 17, 1911
https://books.google.com/books?id=y8WmlZ8_wLAC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=The+Massacre+at+Sand+Creek++The+Wolves+Of+Heaven+Northern+Cheyenne+Reservation,+Montana+Morning,+August+17,+1911&source=bl&ots=b9jeDnTRZA&sig=DcpfOMIWKg0Kmo48g6ck6E7kHFU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjF78GdsuzYAhVHQ6wKHZr7D-8Q6AEIJjAA#v=onepage&q=The%20Massacre%20at%20Sand%20Creek%20%20The%20Wolves%20Of%20Heaven%20Northern%20Cheyenne%20Reservation%2C%20Montana%20Morning%2C%20August%2017%2C%201911&f=false
To want to forget something is to think of it. Proverb
Troubled sleep. She thought that she’d be free of it, but no.
To begin with, little dancing dreams. So small
You can hear them in the cooking pot. Can see their dust rising out of a bowl of a pipe.
Too small for comfort.
Making her remember. The bundle. Down in its deep earth home.
She can feel. They laid it there, but it’s not at rest.
There’s a distant thrumming, somewhere. Echo of an iron horse, chuffing its cinders at the stars?
The noise comes louder in her ears. And voices, reaching across the air from somewhere.
Somewhere, but not so far away. Praising and lamenting, on and on.
Prayers as free as the breath that says them.
They’re singing, in a camp at the bend of a creek at the edge of timber.
A camp that will stay forever, staked to the earth by memory.
It’s the camp at Sandy Creek.
Why, why are they singing? What is there to sing about?
Once they were called the people. Tsistsistas.
Now they’re out of the heat and cold forever.
Darkness. Is she awake? Asleep?
She can her Black Kettle’s words. They’re clear and bright as pebbles in a stream bed in the moonlight:
The white men make two wars. One to kill us. And one to make sure no one will remember.
It’s the war against memory that can never be redeemed.
White men, at Sandy Creek. They couldn’t even say their anger. None of them spoke our language, none of us spoke theirs.
What happened couldn’t be spoken.
If there’s no saying, there can be no vision, no way of knowing, no where to follow.
A world without saying can never have a story.
No beginning, no generation coming. Just killing off the living, killing off the dying. Killing to kill, without even the heat of wanting to.
Cold, cold is the war that kills off memory.
It keeps the ones who come from finding the words, the first words, to start our story. Starting the story begins today! Tsistsistas! Remember, and resist!
Ekomina knows that she’s been dreaming. When she wakes up, she’ll go on with her Story, the Story of the world, the world she’s in and the world that’s yet to come! She gives back her dream, and opens to her waking.
Author is a member of the Metis Nation of the United States
Source “...Roman Nose made his record against the whites, in defense of territory embracing the Republican and Arickaree rivers. He was killed on the latter river in 1868, in the celebrated battle with General Forsythe. Roman Nose always rode an uncommonly fine, spirited horse, and with his war bonnet and other paraphernalia gave a wonderful exhibition. The Indians used to say that the soldiers must gaze at him rather than aim at him, as they so seldom hit him even when running the gantlet before a firing line...”
“...Roman Nose made his record against the whites, in defense of territory embracing the Republican and Arickaree rivers. He was killed on the latter river in 1868, in the celebrated battle with General Forsythe. Roman Nose always rode an uncommonly fine, spirited horse, and with his war bonnet and other paraphernalia gave a wonderful exhibition. The Indians used to say that the soldiers must gaze at him rather than aim at him, as they so seldom hit him even when running the gantlet before a firing line...”
I drove to Roman Nose State Park as a worried young man in 1990, seeking some resolve and solace.
Roman Nose State Park Once a winter campground of the Cheyenne tribe, this area now is a scenic retreat set on a canyon bluff that over-looks ancient mesas.
The park is named after Chief Henry Roman Nose, who is not to be confused with the Roman Nose shown in the beginning (Chief Henry Roman Nose is not the primary one I would discuss with a ranger, although he mentioned him first).
I had started setting up my tent when a ranger came by to take my camping fee. He was very conversational and mentioned a procession that had occurred there. Also, he told me that there was a lodge where Chief Henry Roman Nose had done the Inipi ceremony (sweat bath) as he pointed northwards. Then, the ranger mentioned Roman Nose, and for some reason that’s what caught my interest. “Who’s Roman Nose?” I asked ignorantly. “A Dog Soldier," he said. “He’s different things to different people.” That’s all I remember him saying. A feeling of mystery came over me after he left. I finished setting up camp. The Inipi that he claimed Chief Henry Roman Nose had used was on a little hill with a small stream below it running under an undersized bridge. I dipped my head in the cold stream to clear my mind and walked up the hill. The Inipi was on the south side of the hill, and its frail structure looked like it’d been there for ages. If what the ranger said was true, it had been there for more than a century. Its willow structure looked feeble, and the grass in it was about a foot tall. I sat it in much that afternoon, evening, and that next morning finding the strength to face my own challenges; yet, when I left I did not understand why Roman Nose was “different things to different people.” That answer as I now know, lies much in his connection to the Sand Creek Massacre.
Source Congressional Testimony of Mr. John S. Smith Question. How many Indians were there? Answer. There were 100 families of Cheyennes, and some six or eight lodges of Arapahoes. Question. How many persons in all, should you say? Answer. About 500 we estimate them at five to a lodge. Question. 500 men, women and children? Answer. Yes, sir. Question. Do you know the reason for that attack on the Indians?
Question. How many Indians were there?
Answer. There were 100 families of Cheyennes, and some six or eight lodges of Arapahoes.
Question. How many persons in all, should you say?
Answer. About 500 we estimate them at five to a lodge.
Question. 500 men, women and children?
Answer. Yes, sir. Question. Do you know the reason for that attack on the Indians?
Personal Conclusions
I recall how the Inipi that Chief Henry Roman Nose was said to have sweat in by the ranger in 1990 was gone in 2003, but that little stream and bridge were still right below the hill where it once was. Also, I remember what he said, “Roman Nose was different things to different people.”
To finally answer why he was “different things to different people” in my view now: he was a hero to the Cheyenne and Arapaho because of all their lives he saved; but, he was a villain to the likes of Chivington, because of all their lives he saved. Roman Nose did not bring more death to his people by defensively fighting, because the “villains” were going to attempt exterminating all of them regardless.
Sex, Race and Holy War excerpted from the book American Holocaust by David Stannard Two decades later, on the occasion of the nation's 1876 centennial celebration, the country's leading literary intellectual took time out in an essay expressing his "thrill of patriotic pride" flatly to advocate "the extermination of the red savages of the plains." Wrote William Dean Howells to the influential readers of the Atlantic Monthly: The red man, as he appears in effigy and in photograph in this collection [at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition], is a hideous demon, whose malign traits can hardly inspire any emotion softer than abhorrence. In blaming our Indian agents for malfeasance in office, perhaps we do not sufficiently account for the demoralizing influence of merely beholding those false and pitiless savage faces; moldy flour and corrupt beef must seem altogether too good for them
Sex, Race and Holy War
excerpted from the book
American Holocaust
by David Stannard
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