29 nov 1864--sand creek massacre

Sand Creek massacre

Part of the Colorado War, American Indian Wars, American Civil War

A depiction of one scene at Sand Creek by witness Howling Wolf
Date November 29, 1864
Location Colorado Territory
Present-day Kiowa County, Colorado
Belligerents
United States
Commanders and leaders
United States John M. Chivington Black Kettle
Strength
700[1]




The Sand Creek massacre (also known as the Chivington massacre, the Battle of Sand Creek or the massacre of Cheyenne Indians) was an atrocity in the American Indian Wars that occurred on November 29, 1864, when a 700-man force of Colorado Territory militia attacked and destroyed a peaceful village of Cheyenne and Arapaho in southeastern Colorado Territory,[3] killing and mutilating an estimated 70–163 Native Americans, about two-thirds of whom were women and children. The location has been designated the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site and is administered by the National Park Service.


By the terms of the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie between the United States and seven Indian nations, including the Cheyenne and Arapaho,[4] the United States recognized that the Cheyenne and Arapaho held a vast territory encompassing the lands between the North Platte River and Arkansas River and eastward from the Rocky Mountains to western Kansas. This area included present-day southeastern Wyoming, southwestern Nebraska, most of eastern Colorado, and the westernmost portions of Kansas.[5]

In November 1858, however, the discovery of gold in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado,[6] then part of the Kansas Territory,[7] brought on the Pikes Peak Gold Rush. There was a flood of European-American migrants across Cheyenne and Arapaho lands. They competed for resources and some settlers tried to stay.[6] Colorado territorial officials pressured federal authorities to redefine the extent of Indian lands in the territory,[5] and in the fall of 1860, A.B. Greenwood, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, arrived at Bent's New Fort along the Arkansas River to negotiate a new treaty.[6]
A delegation of Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Arapaho chiefs in Denver, Colorado on September 28, 1864. Black Kettle 2nd from left front row

On February 18, 1861, six chiefs of the Southern Cheyenne and four of the Arapaho signed the Treaty of Fort Wise with the United States,[8] in which they ceded most of the lands designated to them by the Fort Laramie treaty.[5] The Cheyenne chiefs included Black Kettle, White Antelope (Vó'kaa'e Ohvó'komaestse),[9] Lean Bear, Little Wolf, and Tall Bear; the Arapaho chiefs included Little Raven, Storm, Shave-Head, Big Mouth, and Niwot, or Left Hand.[8]

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Creek_massacre