NOVEMBER 29, 1864:
The Sand Creek Massacre:
In one of the defining
atrocities of the frontier war against Native Americans, Colonel John
Chivington of the U.S. Army, an ordained Methodist minister, ardent
abolitionist, and Freemason, took a 700-man force against a village of Cheyenne
and Arapahoe Indians encamped along Big Sandy Creek in southeastern Colorado.
Chivington’s
ostensible motive was to punish the Dog Soldiers of the Cheyenne for
depredations against miners and settlers in the Colorado Territory. However,
just two months before, the Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle had signed a peace
treaty with the United States government in which the Dog Soldiers had agreed
to lay down their arms. Chivington was well aware of the treaty and well aware
that there had been no violence in the region since the September 28th
signing ceremony. Thus, the attack was completely unprovoked.
Chivington
was also very well aware (having been advised by scouts) that there were no
combatant braves in the village on Big Sandy Creek, the Indian men having gone
on a late season buffalo hunt to stock up on meat and materiel for the coming
winter. There were definitely, despite his subsequent report, no Dog Soldiers
in camp. Only a few younger and older men, and a number of chiefs, were
standing watch over the camp, which was filled with women, children and senior
citizens.
When
the Indians saw Chivington’s charging column, they raised both a white flag and
an American flag. Both flags were ignored as the troops thundered down into the
encampment, hacking, slashing and firing point-blank at running, screaming
women and children and hobbling old women.
The
brutality of the attack made strong men sick. When a trooper asked Chivington
what should be done with the toddlers and infants, Chivington responded, “Nits breed lice,” and ordered the
babies killed. Of 200 Indians in camp, at least 170 were killed outright, the
remainder wounded. Many of the women and female children were brutally raped,
some, reportedly, post-mortem.
When
it became clear that there were no resisting warriors in camp, Captain Silas
Soule refused to order his men to fire. This enraged Chivington, and led to a
hot dispute between the two men. (Soule subsequently swore out a complaint
against his Commanding Officer, but was murdered in cold blood by “persons
unknown” on a Denver street not long after he testified against Chivington).
Major
Edward Wynkoop, who had negotiated the treaty with Chief Black Kettle also
testified against Chivington.
The general testimony against the Colonel was damning:
I saw the bodies of
those lying there cut all to pieces, worse mutilated than any I ever saw
before; the women cut all to pieces . . . With knives; scalped; their brains
knocked out; children two or three months old; all ages lying there, from suckling
infants up to warriors . . . By whom were they mutilated? By the United States
troops . . . ---
John S. Smith
Fingers and ears were
cut off the bodies for the jewelry they carried. The body of White Antelope,
lying solitarily in the creek bed, was a prime target. Besides scalping him the
soldiers cut off his nose, ears, and testicles-the last for a tobacco pouch . .
. --- Stan Hoig
Just to think of that
dog Chivington and his dirty hounds, up there at Sand Creek. His men shot down
squaws, and blew the brains out of little innocent children. You call such
soldiers Christians, do you? And Indians savages? What do you suppose our
Heavenly Father, who made both them and us, thinks of these things? I tell you
what, I don't like a hostile redskin any more than you do. And when they are
hostile, I've fought them, hard as any man. But I never yet drew a bead on a
squaw or papoose, and I despise the man who would --- Kit Carson
The
Joint Committee on The Conduct of The War held:
As to Colonel
Chivington, your committee can hardly find fitting terms to describe his
conduct. Wearing the uniform of the United States, which should be the emblem
of justice and humanity; holding the important position of commander of a
military district, and therefore having the honor of the government to that
extent in his keeping, he deliberately planned and executed a foul and
dastardly massacre which would have disgraced the verist savage among those who
were the victims of his cruelty. Having full knowledge of their friendly
character, having himself been instrumental to some extent in placing them in
their position of fancied security, he took advantage of their in-apprehension
and defenceless condition to gratify the worst passions that ever cursed the
heart of man.
Chivington’s
force later decorated their horse bridles with the mutilated fingers, toes,
penises, and unborn fetuses of the
Indians as trophies. Despite these reported grotesqueries, Chivington was not
even censured, though he was passed over for future promotions.
The
Massacre was devastating to the Cheyenne, who lost many tribal elders, and thus
much of their social organization. The Sand Creek Massacre led to the
rejuvenation of the Dog Soldiers and continuing violence in the Colorado
Territory.
