Indigenous Land

Sand Creek runs through our community.  Approximately 170 miles away, peace negotiations were in progress, and encampments of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians on Sand Creek had been assured by the US Government that they would not be attacked.  Instead, on November 29, 1864, 675 cavalrymen struck the camps of Chiefs Black Kettle, White Antelope, and Left Hand. The events of that day are known as the Sand Creek Massacre, a dawn attack that massacred an estimated one-quarter of the Indian encampments, mostly old men, women, and children. Body parts were taken as souvenirs and this event was the basis of the slaughter of an Indian village in the movies Soldier Blue and Little Big Man.