Sand Creek Massacre (Colorado Territory, November 29, 1864)

U.S. volunteer soldiers attacked a Cheyenne and Arapaho camp that believed it was under army protection, killing well over a hundred people, mostly women, children, and elders; three federal inquiries condemned it, yet no one was punished, and the treaty reparations promised in 1865 were never fulfilled.

The record

Background: who had a voice in Colorado Territory

• February 28, 1861: Congress's Colorado Organic Act set voting at the first territorial election for every "free white male citizen of the United States above the age of twenty-one years" who lived there, and left later voter qualifications to the territorial legislature. (Colorado Organic Act, 12 Stat. 172, govinfo)
• Under federal law, tribal Indians were not citizens. The Supreme Court later confirmed that they "were never deemed citizens of the United States except under explicit provisions of treaty or statute," and that an Indian born in tribal relations had no Fifteenth Amendment claim when refused voter registration. (Elk v. Wilkins, 112 U.S. 94 (1884), Justia) The University of Denver report notes Indigenous people "were not granted citizenship until The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924." (DU John Evans Study Report, 2014)
• Territorial Governor John Evans was also the territory's ex-officio Superintendent of Indian Affairs, the federal official responsible for the tribes' welfare. (NPS, Overview of the Sand Creek Massacre)

The orders of 1864

• June 27, 1864: Evans issued a proclamation to the "Friendly Indians of the Plains" to report to assigned military posts. (Prologue, National Archives, 2001) It said: "I direct that all friendly Indians keep away from those who are at war, and go to places of safety," and that "Friendly Arapahoes and Cheyennes belonging on the Arkansas River will go to Major Colley." (Sand Creek Massacre Foundation, Leadup)
• August 11, 1864: Evans issued a second proclamation "authorizing citizens of the Colorado Territory to pursue and kill hostile Native Americans." (DU Digital Commons, Second Proclamation) Its text authorized citizens "to kill and destroy, as enemies of the country, wherever they may be found, all such hostile Indians." (Sand Creek Massacre Foundation) A transcription citing the Official Records (Series I, Vol. XLI, Part I, pp. 963-964) shows it also let citizens keep property taken from hostile Indians, offered arms to militia members, and told them to avoid bands that had gone to the named forts. (kclonewolf.com transcription) The DU report says neither proclamation set criteria for telling "hostile" from "friendly" Indians, calls them "effective declarations of war (an authority he did not have)," and says the second "explicitly endorsed and proposed to finance vigilante citizen violence against Native peoples without regard to gender or age." (DU report)
• August 1864: The War Department authorized the Third Colorado Cavalry, "hundred-day U.S. Army volunteers ... under the command of Colonel Chivington." (Prologue) Denver residents mocked them as "the Bloodless Third" for seeing no battle. (NPS Overview; Sand Creek Massacre Foundation)

Camp Weld and the move to Sand Creek

• September 28, 1864: At Camp Weld outside Denver, Black Kettle told Evans and Chivington: "All we ask is that we have peace with the whites." Evans said, "So far as making a treaty now is concerned, we are in no condition to do it," and that the power to make peace "has passed from me to the Great War Chief." Chivington said his rule was to fight "until they lay down their arms" and "submit to military authority." (Simeon Whiteley transcription, Camp Weld Council, Bedford/Macmillan document reader) The DU report says Evans reportedly asked, "What will I do with the 3rd Regiment if I make peace? The 3rd Regiment was raised to kill Indians, and kill Indians it must." (DU report) The chiefs left believing they would be safe under Maj. Edward Wynkoop's protection at Fort Lyon. (Sand Creek Massacre Foundation)
• After Camp Weld, Evans wrote to Washington that "the winter ... is the most favorable time for their chastisement." (Prologue)
• November 1864: Wynkoop left Fort Lyon on November 26, transferring command to Maj. Scott Anthony. (NPS, Edward Wynkoop) "After changes in orders and in commanders at Fort Lyon, the tribes were barred from camping near the fort," and nearly all the Cheyenne and a small Arapaho camp moved to Big Sandy Creek. (NPS, The Sand Creek Massacre)

November 29, 1864

• "675 Colorado volunteer soldiers attacked an encampment of approximately 750 people." (NPS) About 425 were from the Third Regiment and about 250 from the First Colorado. (NPS Overview)
• Black Kettle raised "an American flag given to him by the U.S. Indian agent to the Cheyennes" with a small white flag on a lodge pole. (NPS Overview) The Joint Committee reported he ran up "an American flag. . .with a small white flag under it." (quoted in DU report)
• Before the attack, Chivington said it was "right and honorable to use any means to kill Indians that would kill women and children," and threatened Capt. Silas Soule with arrest for criticizing the plan. (NPS Overview)
• Soule and Lt. Joseph Cramer held their companies back. Soule: "I refused to fire and swore that none but a coward would." (NPS, Life of Silas Soule) Cramer: "I swore I would not burn powder, and I did not," and "I told the Col. that I thought it murder to jump them friendly Indians." (NPS, Joseph Cramer)
• Afterward, soldiers received a heroes' welcome in Denver that included "a display of scalps and body parts." (Prologue) Congress later found "the soldiers committed atrocities on the dead." (Public Law 106-465)

Disputed numbers: deaths

Soldier deaths are also reported differently: "at least 16" (NPS Overview) and "ten" (Prologue). The safest statement: roughly 150 to 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people were killed, most of them women, children, and elders.

What witnesses reported and the three inquiries

• December 14, 1864: Soule wrote to Wynkoop from Fort Lyon: "I tell you Ned it was hard to see little children on their knees have their brains beat out." (NPS, Silas Soule) December 19, 1864: Cramer wrote that "The action taken by Capt. Soule and myself were under protest." (NPS, Joseph Cramer; DU Digital Commons, Cramer letter) The DU report says their letters helped trigger the federal investigations. (DU report)
• Early 1865, military commission: Soule was "one of the first to testify against Chivington during the Army's investigation in January 1865." (NPS, Silas Soule) Cramer testified in Denver in spring 1865. (NPS, Cramer) The evidence was printed as Senate Ex. Doc. No. 26, 39th Cong., 2nd sess. (1867). (Prologue, footnote 1)
• April 23, 1865: Soule was shot dead in a Denver alley; his killers were arrested but escaped before trial. (Denver Public Library, Silas Soule) NPS says they "were never brought to justice." (NPS)
• 1865, Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War (Senate Report No. 142, 38th Cong., 2nd sess.): Chivington testified April 26, 1865. (DU Digital Commons) The committee said it "can hardly find fitting terms to describe his conduct" and that he "deliberately planned and executed a foul and dastardly massacre." (NPS, John Chivington) It urged that "prompt and energetic measure should be at once taken to remove from office those who have thus disgraced the government." (quoted in DU report)
• January 26, 1867, Joint Special Committee (Doolittle committee), "Condition of the Indian Tribes," Senate Report No. 156, which includes "The Chivington Massacre." (Prologue, footnote 1; DocsTeach, National Archives) It found "the Indian population was rapidly decreasing" due to White aggression, loss of game, and loss of land. (DocsTeach)
• Outcome: Sand Creek "was condemned by three separate federal investigations." (Prologue) By January 1865 Chivington had left the army, so he could not be tried in a military court, and he was never convicted. (Denver Public Library) "Congressional and military investigations condemned the attack, but Chivington was never held accountable." (NPS, Wynkoop) In July 1865 President Andrew Johnson, through Secretary Seward, asked for Evans's resignation, and Evans resigned that summer. (Northwestern report) Evans "was never prosecuted." (DU report)

Reparations promised, not fulfilled

• October 14, 1865, Treaty of the Little Arkansas (14 Stat. 703), Article 6: the United States, "desirous to express its condemnation of" the "gross and wanton outrages," promised 320 acres by patent to each of four chiefs (including Black Kettle), 160 acres to each widow and each person who lost a parent, and compensation in "securities, animals, goods, provisions" for property destroyed by U.S. troops. The treaty also required the tribes to give up Colorado lands. (Avalon Project, Yale Law School; DocsTeach, National Archives original; NPS, Wynkoop) Note: the Avalon transcription prints the massacre date as "A.D. 1841," evidently a transcription error.
• 1866: Congress appropriated $39,050 for "reimbursing members of the bands of Arapaho and Cheyenne Indians who suffered at Sand Creek." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit stated that the government "never fulfilled its obligations" and that "The United States has never provided an accounting of the reparations paid." (Flute v. United States, No. 14-1405 (10th Cir. Dec. 22, 2015), FindLaw)
• December 22, 2015: The Tenth Circuit dismissed descendants' suit for an accounting because the United States had not waived sovereign immunity: "Absent such a waiver, the courts lack the power to grant Plaintiffs relief." (Flute) The Supreme Court declined review in 2016. (Military.com, 2024)
• Black Kettle kept seeking peace; his wife Medicine Woman Later had "nine bullet and shrapnel wounds." In 1868 troops of the 7th U.S. Cavalry killed both at the Washita River. (NPS, Black Kettle)

Later reckonings

• 1924: The Indian Citizenship Act "granted citizenship to all Native Americans born in the U.S.," but "until 1957, some states barred Native Americans from voting." (Library of Congress, Today in History, June 2)
• November 7, 2000: The Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site Establishment Act (P.L. 106-465) authorized the site once enough land was acquired. (govinfo) The site was established in 2007. (NPS)
• May 29, 2014: Northwestern's committee found "No known evidence indicates that John Evans helped plan the Sand Creek Massacre or had any knowledge of it in advance," but that he helped create the conditions for it and that his later response was a "deep moral failure," "reprehensibly obtuse and self-interested." (Northwestern News)
• November 2014: DU's committee concluded Evans's "actions and influence, more than those of any other political official in Colorado Territory, created the conditions in which the massacre was highly likely," and that his culpability was "comparable in degree to that of Colonel John Chivington," though "different in character." It found no evidence he conspired with Chivington, and noted he "never condemned the massacre" and in 1889 said it was of "very great benefit" to Colorado. (DU report; DU News)
• August 17, 2021: Gov. Jared Polis signed an executive order rescinding the 1864 proclamations, stating they "were never lawful because they violated established treaty rights and federal Indian law." (Colorado Governor's Office)

What this case shows

1. The people governed had no vote and no citizenship. The Organic Act gave the vote at the first election to "free white male" citizens, and tribal Indians were not citizens. The governor who issued kill orders and the officers who carried them out answered to voters and appointing officials, never to the Cheyenne and Arapaho. (12 Stat. 172; Elk v. Wilkins)
2. The official meant to protect them was the same official who declared war on them. Evans was ex-officio Superintendent of Indian Affairs and also issued proclamations that DU calls "effective declarations of war (an authority he did not have)." With no political voice, the tribes had no way to check that conflict. (NPS Overview; DU report)
3. Following official instructions did not protect them. The bands went where officials told them, flew a U.S. flag given by a U.S. agent, and were attacked anyway. (Sand Creek Massacre Foundation; NPS Overview)
4. Truth was established but no one was held to account. Three federal inquiries condemned the attack. Chivington left the army before he could be court-martialed; Evans was asked to resign but never prosecuted; Soule, the key witness, was murdered and his killers escaped. (Prologue; Denver Public Library; DU report)
5. Legal redress was promised in a treaty and then closed off. Article 6 promised land and compensation; a federal appeals court said in 2015 the government "never fulfilled its obligations," yet held courts could not hear the claim because of sovereign immunity. (Flute v. United States)

The strongest objections, and our answers

1. Objection: The death toll is uncertain. Mitigation: Agreed. Credible figures run from about 150 (Congress 2000, Northwestern) to 230 (NPS), and Chivington's 400 to 500 is rejected by modern sources. Every serious source agrees most victims were women, children, or elders. No argument here depends on a precise count.
2. Objection: There was real frontier violence in 1864, such as the Hungate killings, and fear was genuine. Mitigation: True that fear was widespread, but the Hungate deaths were blamed on Cheyenne or Arapaho "without evidence," per the Sand Creek Massacre Foundation, and the camp attacked had sought peace at Camp Weld. Every federal inquiry called the attack a massacre. (Sand Creek Massacre Foundation)
3. Objection: Evans did not order the attack. Mitigation: Correct, and both university reports say so (Northwestern found no evidence he planned or knew of it; DU found no conspiracy). The argument rests on the conditions his proclamations and refusal of peace created, and on the lack of any political check, not on a direct order.
4. Objection: The federal government did respond; Congress condemned it and a treaty promised reparations. Mitigation: Partly true, and worth saying. Congress investigated quickly and appropriated $39,050 in 1866. But the promised land grants and full compensation were not delivered, no accounting was ever made, and no one was punished. (Flute)
5. Objection: This is about war and federal Indian policy, not voting. Mitigation: Fair. The link to voting is indirect. Nothing shows the Cheyenne and Arapaho sought the territorial vote, and tribal nations were treated as separate sovereigns, not as excluded residents. The link is structural: people with no citizenship and no vote had no political lever over the officials who governed their fate, and their only remedies depended on the goodwill of distant officials.
6. Objection: Things changed; there is now a national historic site, university reckonings, and the proclamations were rescinded. Mitigation: True, and we say so. But these came 136 to 157 years later, were symbolic or educational, and did not include payment of the 1865 reparations.

Open questions: what would change our minds

• Colorado-specific voting history for Native residents after statehood (1876) and after 1924 was not verified. The territorial elections statutes of 1861 to 1864 (University of Colorado session-law archive) should be read directly.
• The full text of the 1865 Joint Committee report (Senate Report No. 142) and the military commission record (Ex. Doc. No. 26) should be read in primary form; we quote the committee only through NPS and the DU report. We did not confirm the commission's formal conclusions or its exact dates.
• Whether the Doolittle committee reached specific findings on Sand Creek beyond printing "The Chivington Massacre" testimony was not confirmed.
• Exactly how much of the 1866 appropriation reached individual survivors is unknown; the Tenth Circuit says no accounting was ever provided.
• If evidence showed the Sand Creek camp sheltered warriors actively raiding at the time, it would complicate the framing, though not the inquiries' conclusions or the fact that women and children were most of the dead.

Sources

Found an error or a better source? We keep every correction on the record with its date and reason. Nothing here is quietly rewritten.