Massacre, Mistrust, and Misery
This article is part of a series by the National Park Service concerning the 150th Anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre.
The killing of around 200 Cheyenne and Arapaho at the Sand Creek Massacre created intense mistrust and influenced most subsequent conflicts between American Indians and the U.S. Army. The Plains Indian Wars escalated even as the military investigated the incident, congressional committees questioned participants, and the Federal Government admitted its responsibility.
The Treaty of the Little Arkansas in October 1865 acknowledged U. S. blame for the massacre, but it also extinguished Cheyenne and Arapaho rights to land titles in Colorado. This treaty echoed the words of the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, "It is difficult to believe that beings in the form of men and disgracing the uniform of United States soldiers and officers, could commit or countenance… such acts of cruelty and barbarity."
By eliminating most of the Cheyenne peace chiefs, the massacre hardened resistance to white expansion and intensified warfare between the U.S. Army and many plains tribes. These wars would continue for another thirteen years after the massacre. The massacre also disrupted the social, political, economic and traditional structure of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, particularly as they moved or were forced onto reservations outside of Colorado.
Anyone interested in SAND CREEK should read MASSACRES OF THE MOUNTAINS by Dunn. Those Indians were not the sweet little natives portrayed in film.
Among the items found at the site were fresh scalps of white men and boys, a blanket fringed with the hair of white women.
In the camp, and captured, was George Bent, a Confederate agent believed to be instrumental in stirring up the tribes against the North as the Civil War was still raging.
Standard procedure for the Indians was to make war against the whites, then make peace in the fall, live on government rations, then in the spring go on the warpath again when the grass was tall enough to support a war pony. (From THE INDIAN WAR OF 1864 by Ware)