Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site
Park History
Sourced
Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site lies on the grassland plains of southeastern Colorado, about 170 miles southeast of Denver. In winter, Big Sandy Creek offered firewood, shelter and water; people of many tribes paused here on the Smoky Hill Lodgepole Trail. At dawn on November 29, 1864, approximately 675 soldiers of the 1st and 3rd Regiments, Colorado Volunteer Cavalry, under Col. John M. Chivington attacked a village of Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people who believed they were safe on their 1861 treaty lands; a U.S. flag and a white flag flew at Peace Chief Black Kettle’s lodge. Over seven hours the soldiers killed more than 230 people. Women, children and elders fled up the dry creek channel with soldiers following, shooting, and dug pits and trenches along the streambed. Afterward the troops mutilated the dead and took body parts as trophies. [2] [1]
Capt. Silas Soule and Lt. Joseph Cramer ordered their companies to stand down, and their written accounts shocked national and military leaders. An Army judge condemned the “cowardly cold-blooded slaughter,” yet Chivington was never formally charged. In the 1865 Little Arkansas Treaty the United States took responsibility for the massacre and promised reparations to survivors; the NPS brochure says they have never been fulfilled. The 2017 foundation document finds that by eliminating most Cheyenne advocates for peace, the massacre hardened resistance and escalated warfare on the plains. [1] [2]
Site-location research sought to reconcile Cheyenne and Arapaho history and cultural authority, historic documentation and archeology, and gathered oral histories from massacre descendants. Congress authorized the site on November 7, 2000; it was established effective April 27, 2007. Of its 3,025 acres, 1,465 are held in trust for the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. Its stated purpose includes helping to minimize the chances of similar incidents in the future. [3] [2]
Indigenous peoples
For the Cheyenne and Arapaho, the NPS brochure says, even speaking of the massacre is sacred, and the site is forever hallowed because the spirits and blood of the victims are intermingled with the earth. The site’s 2024 administrative history explains that the tribes do not consider the interment of returned ancestors here a reburial but the first burial, since the dead were not buried after the massacre. Interments in the site’s repatriation area began on June 8, 2008, with ancestors returned by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, History Colorado and the University of Nebraska; tribal members keep an all-night vigil before each burial. [1] [3]
In November 1999 Laforce “Lee” Lone Bear, a Northern Cheyenne descendant of survivors, organized a 173-mile run from the massacre site to the Colorado State Capitol. The Northern Cheyenne still coordinate the Spiritual Healing Run with the Northern Arapaho and the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho. [3]
Climate & environment
The cottonwoods along Big Sandy Creek are part of the massacre landscape, and individual trees, living and dead, carry cultural and spiritual significance for their association with the encampments and the massacre. A 2006 tree-ring study of some 110 trees dated none definitively to 1864, though the evidence suggests several were alive then as seedlings or saplings; most of the main gallery forest took root in 1949–1960, and very few trees have established since 1965. [4]
A 2013 Park Service climate brief found mean annual temperature at nearby Eads rising 0.18 °F per decade from 1895 to 2011, fastest in winter and spring, and projected a further 4–5 °F by mid-century; summer precipitation may decrease 10 to 15 percent. [5]
Sources
- NPSHistory.com: Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site archive page — overview (NPS brochure, 2017) and establishment block
- Foundation Document, Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, Colorado (NPS, 2017)
- Laura A. Miller, ed., Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site Administrative History, Volume II (2007–2017) (NPS, June 2024)
- Jeff Lukas and Connie Woodhouse, Riparian Forest Age Structure and Past Hydroclimatic Variability, Sand Creek Massacre NHS, Final Report (INSTAAR for NPS, October 2006)
- Nicholas Fisichelli, Climate Change Trends for Planning at Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site (NPS Climate Change Response Program, April 18, 2013)
FLAGGED FOR REVIEW: Interpretive materials
At dawn on November 29, 1864, about 675 soldiers of the 1st and 3rd Colorado Volunteer Cavalry under Col. John Chivington attacked a camp of Cheyenne and Arapaho people at Sand Creek and killed more than 230 of them, mostly women, children and elders. Sand Creek Massacre NHS exists to remember them, and its waysides were developed through the tribal consultation its enabling law requires. [NPS] [NPS 2] [NPS review record]
Among the content targeted: “Night March to Sand Creek” — language that the administration has flagged for review under its directive to review historically accurate interpretive materials.
Why this matters: The “Night March to Sand Creek” panel was submitted because Chivington’s photograph on it is a frequent target of vandalism, and the park plans to move the picture somewhere less exposed. Whatever changes are made should go back through consultation with the Cheyenne and Arapaho, as every wayside here already has. At a place created to remember a massacre, the account of what happened must not be softened along the way. [NPS review record]
This wayside exhibit panel, entitled “Night March to Sand Creek” prominently features a photograph of Colonel John Chivington. This panel is located at an orientation pullout along a county road and has unmonitored visitor access 24 hours a day. Because of the open access of this location, the picture of John Chivington is often a target for vandalism, leading to the regular replacement of this panel due to damage.
This and all other wayside exhibits at SAND have gone through an extensive tribal consultation process, as required by the park's enabling legislation, Public Law 106-465. A wayside exhibit replacement project is currently formulated for FY26, and relocating the picture of John Chivington to a location elsewhere in the park less likely to be vandalized is a high priority.
Photographs attached to this park's records in the leaked NPS review database.
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