What Was the Sand Creek Massacre?

Liam Heffernan: 00:00:18

This week we are looking back on the 160th anniversary of one of America's greatest tragedies, when hundreds of U.S. army volunteers stormed a Native American village, attacking and killing Cheyenne and Arapaho people.

But was this a horrible anomaly or an example of the reality for Indigenous people at that time? In this episode, I want to know what was the Sand Creek Massacre? Welcome to America, a history podcast.

I'm Liam Heffernan, and every week we answer a different question to understand the people, the places and the events that make the USA what it is today.

To discuss this, I am joined by Jacqueline Fear Siegel, professor of American and Indigenous Histories at the University of East Anglia with an interest in the American west, immigration and Americanization. Jackie, great to have you back on the podcast.

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:01:30

Good to be here. Very good to be here.

Liam Heffernan: 00:01:32

Yeah. Really looking forward to chatting about this with you.

Although maybe looking forward is not quite the right word, but I think it's an important conversation to be having, especially on, on the anniversary of this. So, you know, let's kick off and I wonder if you could just explain in broad terms what the Sand Creek Massacre is.

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:01:52

The Sand Creek Massacre was a surprise attack.

It was a surprise attack on a peaceful, mostly unarmed Cheyenne Arapaho village by the US army, who were mostly volunteers from Colorado working under the command of Colonel John Chivington. And the estimates vary, but it seems that from recent figures that the number of the Cheyenne Arapaho killed was probably between 150 and 200.

And almost all of these were women and children and the elderly. And one of the gruesome aspects of this massacre was that many of the bodies were deliberately nutrition mutilated.

So after the bodies were mutilated and the soldiers under Chivingham returned to Denver triumphantly, some of the body parts were displayed as basically trophies of war. So this was a heinous atrocity in props, one of the worst in American military history, of which there of course, have been many.

And one of the aspects of this that makes it a little bit different.

Although at the time it was treated as a huge triumph for Chivington, there were then later reports by members of the group who he had been commanding disputing what he said and essentially talking about the cruelty and barbarism of the soldiers. And hundreds of those soldiers were not ready to obey his command.

So it's a terrible massacre, but it's a massacre for which we have different evidence from often what was usually the case.

Liam Heffernan: 00:03:29

Just to clarify, because my understanding of this is that it wasn't the US Government. It was a band of army volunteers, Is that right?

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:03:40

Yes.

Essentially, Colorado was still a territory at the time, and the government had organized a group of volunteers to basically defend and work in the Civil War on the side of the Union. And they were very organized.

But Chimington had been a very successful commander in the Civil War, and he was the leader of this group of mostly volunteers. You're right.

Liam Heffernan: 00:04:04

How does that maybe change our understanding of what happened?

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:04:10

You mean because it wasn't all the official army, although the man that basically, the man who reported back to Washington and basically instigated the investigation, he was a member of the U.S. army.

Liam Heffernan: 00:04:22

Right.

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:04:23

And so were a lot of the people who. The men who refused the commands of Chivington.

en't had. It's not till April: 1865

Lee surrendering and therefore the end of the Civil War. So an awful lot of the fighting forces of the Union were basically occupied fighting the Confederates and basically trying to defend the Union.

So there were an awful lot of volunteer armies out in the territories that were used to attack, fight Indians and so called defend the lands for the settlers.

Liam Heffernan: 00:05:14

Okay, so considering as well that the Civil War was still going on, why did this need to happen? You know, what was the justification for doing this?

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:05:25

Well, it's very complicated, but one, it has to be seen both in the context of the Civil War, but also in the context of the social and political and geographic changes that were happening very, very fast out west.

Because even though fighting was going on for the Civil War, in the Civil War, there was also settlement continuing out west, and the settlers were very determined to take the land from the Native nations.

ia had come into the Union in: 1850

So we've got a sort of bookended nation, but with the central part not yet part of the United States, still territories. So I think we need to see this as part of much broader issue around settler colonialism.

This was the settlers, the governor of Colorado, and obviously the US army, with Chivington essentially trying to exert the power of the United States over the lands that had not yet been won over, and a whole series of Treaties were written with the different tribes and signed, and these were breaking down. And what would precipitate the very fast breaking down of those treaties in Colorado was the discovery of gold.

So we all know that California, There were the 49ers. They moved in on California and essentially precipitated that area becoming a state. Well, a similar thing happened a decade later in Colorado.

They were known as the 50 90ers, and that meant large numbers of white settlers moving into the territory and wanting land.

And so the Treaty of Fort Laramie, which had been signed by the Cheyenne Arapaho, suddenly became tricky to implement on the part of the government because there were so many white settlers moving on to their land. So a second treaty was signed, and the Cheyenne and Arapaho were reduced to a much, much smaller area of land.

And one of the boundaries of that new reservation was Sand Creek, or Sandy Creek, as it was called.

So this is part of a much broader story of secular encroachment on Native lands, the signing of treaties which then get broken, and further signing of treaties forcing more relinquishment of lands by the Native nations. So it's got a large context of settler colonialism and a more local context of this, the gold rush that happened in Colorado.

Liam Heffernan: 00:08:12

So there seems to be a clear pattern, whenever we've spoken on the podcast about Native American history, that American settlers sort of come into the territory with these grand ideas of peace and wanting to coexist, and they put these treaties in place until it just no longer becomes convenient for them to abide by it, and then they give them a new treaty. It feels like the settlers are always just changing the goalposts to make it beneficial to them. Right?

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:08:44

Well, that's true, but we have to.

I mean, the government was signing the treaties and wanted to enforce them to keep peace, but we have to remember there was a policy on the part of the government to settle all these lands. So the local communities were almost invariably hostile to the indigenous communities whose land they were taking.

And the government was trying to keep the peace, but the government, at the basic fundamental level, wanted to settle from sea to shining sea. So the notion of manifest destiny, which, you know, we know has kind of long and tricky past, was driving these settlements.

And it's the local population that are taking on Native nations, but the government is also supporting it with policies to encourage them to emigrate and also supporting it with the presence of a whole line of forts which were manned by the US Army.

Liam Heffernan: 00:09:42

So my issue with all of this, besides the, you know, the Massacre itself, which is, you know, entirely inhumane.

But when you look back on things like the Trail of Tears and all of the history of Native Americans versus the American settlers, it feels like there's no situation in which Native American communities can win here because if they stay, they're attacked, if they're moved on, they die, or they're eventually attacked and moved again. It's like whatever they do is still in some way encroaching on the American settlers.

And there's just something that feels inherently unfair about the system there.

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:10:26

Well, I think once we have the creation of the United states in the 18th century, that was a moment of doom for all the Native nations. And once we have the capacity to move fast onto the plains, then there is a speeding up of the process of settlement.

So, yes, demographically speaking, the white settlers are progressively more and more powerful. And technologically speaking, they're also in command because they have access to metal and guns.

And although Native nations were able to acquire these, they still were dependent on whites for the ammunition. So there was a lot of trading going on. But I think you're right in what you say. At the very basic level, it was going to.

It was only a question of time before all the Native nations were suppressed, and it was a question of how best to do it. And on the part of the Native nations, their issue was how best to confront this powerful nation. And obviously, there were different ways.

The Cherokee, the groups out in the east who were eventually removed into Oklahoma, they thought perhaps the best way to deal with it was to adapt, was to acculturate, was to adopt the ways of the whites.

So they learned that the Cherokee wrote a constitution which mirrored that of the United States in the hope that they could remain a separate nation within the United States. That clearly was not going to be allowed.

So we see different groups trying different ways, some of them part assimilated or part acculturated, to allow themselves to pass and be accepted. And some, most particularly the warrior nations of the Plains, fought. They fought hard and they fought desperately.

And I think one of the aspects of this is that the Plains was occupied within the space of 30 years. So the whole onslaught for this group who had warrior cultures was so rapid that in some sense the fighting was their best and only option.

But I think what you said at the beginning, there was no way of resisting this incredible juggernaut of state building on the part of the United States.

Liam Heffernan: 00:12:51

In terms of understanding Sandy Creek within the broader timeline as well, in terms of that resistance, are there any other Examples of either the Shaina, Arapaho people or other Native American tribes that did stand up with any degree of success against settlers?

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:13:12

Well, I suppose earlier on a little bit, you know, the Dakota fought very hard, but as we know, they lost. And they had the largest mass hanging during the Civil War. Lakota men and warriors.

The last group to hold out, if you want to call it like that, was in the Southwest, where the pressure of the settlers was least, because settler colonialism functioned at a different speed in relation to how desirable the land was to whites. And in the Southwest, where it was more desert, it was seen as less desirable. So the Apache held out a lot longer.

ho essentially surrendered in: 1886

I mean, Geronimo remained a prisoner for the rest of his life after surrendering, so it didn't get him any advantage. But in the end, all of the ones that resisted militarily lost out.

Liam Heffernan: 00:14:19

We've sort of touched a bit on the sort of the geography and. And of the time. But what.

What was sort of Colorado and that surrounding territory, like, in terms of Native American history or settlement, you know, was. Were there a lot of other communities there and what happened when they were eventually, you know, displaced?

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:14:40

Well, there were a lot of other communities there, and it was.

The Cheyenne had basically had most of Colorado and a lot of aspects of what are now the surrounding states as part of their territories, because these were not stationary communities. They had their lands, and obviously there were disputes.

So we have to remember that there were disputes and fights between Native nations, but they were moving following large herds of buffalo or American bison. So they're very mobile communities. Their teepees could be packed up and moved very fast.

And they had their areas of territory which were recognized, and certain groups had more than others, and they had fights with other groups. For example, the Kiowa and the Osage had an ongoing battle for land.

So these were not tribes or groups of people unnecessarily least living peaceably together. But there had been some kind of, you know, modus operandus on the plains, and the arrival of white settlers completely interrupted that.

And by this time, the beginning of the decline of the buffalo herds was meaning that the economic base of these warrior tribes of the plains was being undermined both deliberately and accidentally by various settlers, but essentially setting up farms.

Liam Heffernan: 00:16:06

Okay, so now that we've sort of established a little bit more context over the history and the relations at the time. I think we need to tackle what happened at Sandy Creek head on, because this was a. This was a horrible event.

And it's still unclear to me exactly how that was triggered and why it happened.

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:16:28

Well, it seems that the group that was attacked, which was the chief that was in command of that group was Black Kettle, had been at peace. They were a peaceable group, which is why it's seen as such a terrible tragedy.

ramie, Black Kettle signed in: 1851

So I think just that decade, you can see the speed at which things were moving because of the tide of Euro American immigration that was basically moving across the land.

So the Cheyenne, Arapaho had already surrendered most of their land, which they had previously held ownership of and had accepted this small little tract in southeastern Colorado. The run up to these events was a series of killings. And there were always young warriors over whom the chiefs didn't have control or command.

And so there were a series of murders and killings. And certain groups of men like Chivington held all Indians responsible for these killings.

So they didn't really discriminate between those who were peaceable, like Black Kettle's group, and those who were not.

I mean, when the attack began on Sand Creek, there was an American flag hauled up as well as white flags of peace to indicate that these people were not.

But I think we can understand the motive behind Chivington, if we look at some of the words that he's been known to quote, because he actually really hated Indians. And so this is one of the things he said. Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians.

I've come to kill Indians and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God's heavenly to kill Indians. Kill and scalp all big and little nits make lice.

So if you like, that's the justification for killing Indian children because they're seen as future warriors. So there is a background of skirmishes, killings, you know, people that are mining, individual incidents that are happening.

And then there is this desire on the part of the settlers who Chewington is the volunteer force is commanding to see an end to Indians.

So I think one of the terrible things about Sand Creek massacre is it exposes in the raw the motivations that were behind an awful lot of settler killings of Indian peoples.

Liam Heffernan: 00:19:25

Yeah, it feels very much like there were Some events that just provided in Shivington's mind the justification to then commit that large scale murder of, you know, up to 200 Native Americans. Which from everything you've said, just feels like a hate crime.

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:19:47

I think it has to be considered like, I mean, in a crime of genocide because we know that in California, after it become a state, that the government of California was actually condoning the killing of Indians. It was probably the worst state supported genocide of any, with any state.

But this kind of Turington at the Sand Creek massacre was another such event. So it's a hate crime, but it's also larger in the sense that it's an attempt to wipe out a whole group of peoples.

So you do it peaceably if you can, with treaties, and then militarily if you can't.

Liam Heffernan: 00:20:29

,: 1860

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:20:44

Well, some of them, a large number of the men were away at a treaty signing meeting. And so most people at the camp were women and children or the older men who weren't, who weren't warriors. And they were attacked immediately.

And as I said, the people raised white flags and an American flag, but there wasn't any mercy spared. And so they retreated. After some of the killings had taken place, they retreated up the valley and they dug themselves into ditches.

But the army under Chivington went after them. And so we know it went on for some days with not only killings, but as I said, mutilations and the triumphant collection of body part trophies.

So if you like, they didn't stand a chance. And they were at peace with the United States and they thought that they would be defended by the United States.

So it was a terrible misunderstanding, standing in the sense of what their situation was.

Liam Heffernan: 00:21:47

Yeah. So it wasn't even just like a hostile takeover of the land. It was they, they went in to hunt those people and to kill them, right?

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:21:58

I think that was correct, yes.

Liam Heffernan: 00:22:01

And as terrible as this was, how normal was this kind of behavior towards Native Americans? Maybe not on this scale, but just the callous, just assault and murder of Native Americans. Is this something that happened often?

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:22:22

Well, I think, you know, there are enough examples, especially in the oral histories of the different Native nations talking about attacks by the armies. We've got enough evidence of it.

But I think what's very unusual about this one is that we have an official record because amongst the soldiers under Chivington's command, we now know that there were a hundred that refused to take the orders. And there was one, he came out of abolitionist background.

Although he was a very renowned and good fighter, Silas Sewall refused to fight, refused to go in and obey. CHIMING and then he launched a. Well, he, he lodged a complaint with Washington.

And as a result of his complaint, the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War conducted an investigation of this massacre. Now, they condemned Chivington in very harsh terms and his soldiers.

But there was no court martial against Chivington because he had by then retired from the army, so he couldn't be tried by military court. So he wasn't convicted of criminal charges. And that was partly because he played a very key role as a commander in the Civil War.

However, it did end his career. Chivington wanted to become a politician. He would like to have become a governor.

And so his political hopes were ruined and he became known as the Butcher of Sand Creek. So at the time there was this investigation and several others in Washington. So the evidence came out and a condemnation was issued.

chives in Denver, in the year: 2000

And what they reveal is the moral resistance of some of the soldiers to the barbarism that they were seeing enacted. They were seeing babies brains being beaten out and they were horrified.

And so as primary sources, these letters show not only the atrocities at Sand Creek, but they also show us that there were men who were resisting white soldiers who were resistant to the orders. So I think it's a complicated story and it's slowly unfolding since the massacre.

There was an investigation which took some time to find out the exact spot, the location where it occurred. And it's now a site of historic national interest. Under Bill Clinton, it was made that.

So this is a very contained, contentious story because at the time it was seen as glorious. Chivington was treated as a hero when he returned to Denver.

And then slowly we have got not only the first hand accounts of those who were there, who had been collected, the native people who survived, but also written manuscripts by Silas Sowell. And also we've got obviously the evidence from the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War and the main witness was all about what went on.

And so we know also that slowly, as these things have been unfolding, the Shine on Arapaho today have an annual healing run in which they honor the victims of Sand Creek massacre and they pay a Visit to the grave of Silas Saul to honor him as well. Because Silas Saul, very sadly he got married not shortly after this and he was attacked in an alleyway in Denver and assassinated.

And it's never been proved, but the rumor is that Chivington was behind it, that he'd actually paid these assassins. Though as I say, that has never been proved. But what is real is that very shortly after all this, Silas was murdered.

Liam Heffernan: 00:26:25

That's very sad indeed.

And one of the things that you touched on that I find really interesting is this idea that almost over time as first hand accounts emerged and the reality of what happened became clear, the public perception of the event and of Chivington really turned.

And it makes me wonder if it's very easy at that time for the American people to not fully understand what was actually being done to Native Americans. And therefore did that have a big impact on the support that there was publicly for displacing Native Americans and attacking them or.

You know, I guess I'm trying to understand that sort of that wider public perception of the government's treatment of Native communities.

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:27:17

I'm not sure the wider public treatment or perception of Native people's but there obviously always are people like Silas Soul. And that's what's interesting about the hundred people that refused to obey the orders.

But overall the general belief was that it was, this was a national mission to occupy the lands that Native nations were standing in the way of progress and of history. And sad as it might be, they had to give way.

And although one might romanticize the noble savage, which a lot of people did, when it came to the reality on the ground out west, it was a competition for land, it was a competition for control and it was a competition of national destiny. And I don't think apart from people of great conscience and for odd moments that the attitude to Native peoples altered, there was of course the.

There were a group of people, Quakers, Christians, who called themselves the Friends of the Indian. And they saw the best solution as not being to wipe them out physically like was done at Sand Creek, but to wipe them out culturally.

So they saw themselves as friends because they would assimilate them. This was the. What was on offer was membership of the greatest nation on earth. So that was part of a.

Once the military successes had been achieved and most of the Native nations were subjugated, then the educators moved in to take the children, put them in schools and strip them of their Native cultures to indoctrinate them in Christian religion and mainstream ideas. And this was seen as the generous approach The Christian approach, offering civilization instead of savagery.

egislation that was passed in: 1887

And the idea then was to take large swathes of native lands, offering little parcels for each individual parcels of 160 acres for the Indian individuals to farm. And therefore, after a period of time, 25 years, it was hoped they could become citizens.

So this was a, essentially education for extinction, as David Adams has called it. This was a way of offering civilization instead of extermination.

And so this is where the building of a whole school system right across the American west to take the children to indoctrinate in white ways or re. Educate them. This was seen as the merciful answer to the Indian problem.

Liam Heffernan: 00:30:25

I think it's sad how there's no, there's no scenario here in which just leaving Native Americans to live their life on their land is a, is, is an option. Every, every end game is, is them being in America even if they're not American.

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:30:44

Yeah, no, it's, it's, it's, it's, if you like, it's the logic of settler colonialism.

Because ordinary colonialism, you know, like the protrusion exerted in India, you go in and you take the primaries, the sources, you take what the land has to offer. But settler colonialism, what you want is the land.

. And so Colorado comes in in: 1876

So it's just a decade after, a little bit more than a decade after this massacre occurs. So we can see the pressure on land is the main thing that forces this issue. And you're right, there was not any discussion.

There was a brief discussion when they moved all the eastern tribes, the so called five civilized tribes, out of the eastern states to what's now Oklahoma.

There was a brief discussion about allowing it to be Indian lands, but as soon as they started organizing to have entry to the union as an Indian state, there was complete horror that this might be allowed. And that was clearly not on the books.

So the possibility of having an Indian state because they'd move not just the five civilized Tribes, but a lot of other tribes into that region. That was not something that, that a racist nation like the United States could possibly think about.

Liam Heffernan: 00:32:28

Yeah. So hypothetically, you know, to sort of, to wrap up our discussion, what if, what if Sand Creek didn't happen?

What if the US didn't act in the way that they did towards Native Americans? And what if they were able to broker some sort of long term peaceful arrangement? You know, what does that do to the United States that we know today?

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:32:58

It's quite hard to imagine that because it would have required a very different attitude to land.

I think one of the things that's interesting to think about is the people that mostly populated the United States came from Europe where land was power and they hadn't had it. The people that came had not been the big landholders.

And so with this attitude to land and its relationship to power and wealth, it's very hard to envisage how they could have allowed what they saw as savages to have any kind of dominion over the land.

And I think the removal of the so called five civilized tribes who had adopted all sorts of so called civilized ways, including, it's horrible to add, slavery. They were often slave, slaveholding Indian Indians in those nations.

It's hard to imagine what you're talking about or how it could possibly have been enacted with the mindset, the historical background and the drive basically fueled by the massive technological superiority of the white population.

So it is, if you like, you know, it's obviously one of the abiding problems for America to admit because it may be possible to apologize for slavery, but it's quite difficult to apologize for completely disposed possessing a whole group of other peoples. So it is a conundrum, very hard to discuss it with any positive outcome.

Liam Heffernan: 00:34:30

Yeah, of course.

And you know what we've been talking about today, The Sand Creek Massacre is one example of that very long and fairly terrible relationship between Native Americans and U.S. settlers. And Jackie, I really appreciate you spending the time to enlighten us all on exactly what happened.

And for anyone that does want to find out more about Sand Creek and indeed wider Native American history, we're going to put some links and some resources in the show notes for you to do just that. And you can also reach out to the show as well and I'll be glad to point you in the right direction.

But Jackie, again, thank you for joining us for this episode. It's been super, super insightful and if anyone wants to connect with you, where can they do that?

Jacqueline Fear-Segal: 00:35:18

On my email is the best thing. I don't know if you can put it out there. It's J. Fear siegel.ac.uk awesome.

Liam Heffernan: 00:35:27

You have already just put it out there. Thank you. And you can find me on X. I'm still hanging on via this is the Heft, so find me there. And also on LinkedIn, just so search for my name.

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