As the sun was rising on the morning of Nov. 29, 1884, a surprise attack by Army cavalry on a Cheyenne Plains and Arapaho village would become the deadliest single day in the Colorado Territory.
The Sand Creek Massacre still holds that grisly distinction in the state of Colorado.
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More than 230 Native people, primarily women, children and elders, lost their lives, according to the United States National Park Service and History Colorado. The reported number of fatalities has varied over the years but in recent time is based on tribal records and contemporary consensus.
The place where the raid occurred, along the Big Sandy Creek in southeast Colorado in today’s Kiowa County, is still hurting, said the Rev. Carrie West, pastor of Caring Ministries and the Foothills campus of First United Methodist Church in downtown Colorado Springs.
“Part of the Indigenous belief is that the land holds grief and tragedy,” she said.
That’s why every year over the Thanksgiving holiday, the North and South Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes — who now live in Wyoming, Montana and Oklahoma — hold a healing event. Rituals begin at the origin of the attack and continue along a similar path of fleeing survivors.
To promote this year’s Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual Healing Run and raise awareness of the event that occurred on land congressionally designated in 2000 as a National Historic Site, First United Methodist Church is bringing a traveling exhibit to Colorado Springs.
“The Sand Creek Massacre: The Betrayal that Changed Cheyenne and Arapaho People Forever” opens Nov. 1 and will be on display through Nov. 10 at the church, 420 N. Nevada Ave. It’s being set up in the enclosed courtyard just inside the front door.
Entry is free; donations are being solicited to defray costs.
Hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 7, and 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 8.
Tribal leaders were involved with creating the presentation, a project of History Colorado. The materials complement a static exhibit that opened in 2022 at the Colorado History Museum (formerly History Colorado Center) in Denver.
The mobile show portrays the perspective of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. Large panels detail historic details and some of the people involved in the attack.
Attendees also can tap into QR codes to listen to oral histories from eight tribal descendants, read letters from the time and hear narratives in native Cheyenne and Arapaho languages.
First United Methodist timed the exhibit to also serve as a promotion for this year’s Sand Creek Spiritual Healing Run, which is not a competitive race, but rather described as “a sacred, descendant-led journey of remembrance and healing,” by the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site near Eads.
That’s where the trek begins at sunrise on Thanksgiving Day. The event ends in Denver, where American troops were said to have gone to mark their victory.
The final stop is the Riverside Cemetery in Commerce City, at the grave of Capt. Silas Soule, who had been at the table during peace talks and had opposed the military action.
He refused to allow his men to fire at the tribal members during the battle and wrote letters and testified before Congress about what had transpired in 1884. He was assassinated by an unknown gunman the following year.
Today, West said, Soule is posthumously honored for his bravery and courage to stand up and say, “This is wrong.”
“It’s an educational event for young people of the tribes to remember their heritage and help bring healing to the land,” she said of the spiritual run.
The Sand Creek Massacre traveling exhibit is expensive to commission with shipping and hosting charges, West said.
But hosting the display became important to the congregations’ 500 members, after some recently visited the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, she said.
Several were not familiar with what had happened nor did they know that prominent Methodists were among those who took part in or condoned the attack.
Territorial Gov. John Evans, a member of a Methodist congregation and superintendent of Indian Affairs of the Colorado Territory, and Col. John Chivington, a Methodist pastor, were two of the most notable.
While there’s no evidence that Evans assisted with planning or carrying out the massacre, he was criticized for poorly implementing federal Indian policy, thereby fostering the situation that led to the killings, according to some accounts.
Evans was forced to resign as governor in the aftermath. His role now is considered to have been so egregious that in 2022 Colorado’s Mount Evans was renamed Mount Blue Sky.
Chivington gave the orders and led the battle. He’s said to have ignored the American flag and white surrender flags that flew simultaneously over the Indian village, as American leaders had instructed the chiefs to do.
“Their participation in this massacre is part of our history, and our entire Mountain Sky Conference of the United Methodist Church is actively and intentionally in acts of reconciliation with the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes,” West said.
“We wanted to educate our congregation and the entire community about this event.”
The ambush happened during foundering peace negotiations between top American military brass and Arapaho and Cheyenne tribal leaders.
Some 750 villagers had been told to set up camp in a river bend, as they awaited word on when they could enter Fort Lyon, about 40 miles away, to find safety and obtain supplies from American soldiers.
Miscommunication apparently played a role in what led to the “moral resistance” of soldiers and atrocities that were committed during the melee, according to firsthand accounts in letters from Soule and Lt. Joseph Cranmer.
“The Sand Creek Massacre stands as a testament to a brutality that should be learned from and never repeated, a lesson of what the rejection of conscience in the face of fear and hysteria can lead to, and the suffering that this betrayal has imparted on generations of Arapaho and Cheyenne people,” says the website of the National Park Service, which oversees the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site.
The portable exhibit was featured at the United Methodist Church’s annual regional conference held in Montana in June.
“The exhibit is meticulous, gorgeous, informative and so well done,” West said.