Colorado, that's part of
our traditional homeland.
They wanted the American dream.
They wanted to live
where they wanted to live,
wanted to worship how
they wanted to worship,
and looked forward to
living another day.
MAN: I would say the seeds of
conflict were planted during
those, what you might call
formative years, as the cultures
came closer and closer,
in more numerous contact.
They had to get rid of
the vermin, and the vermin,
you know, were my ancestors.
Back in those days, our people
had been displayed as trophies.
We say...
(Native American language)
That's what they call
Sand Creek.
Sand Creek was probably
the most horrific massacre
that ever happened to
the Native Americans.
It changed their lives forever.
WOMAN: It's really a sad
history for America.
It's like a black eye.
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♪
♪
MAN: Colorado was the homeland
of the Cheyenne/Arapaho
and other tribal people
that traversed Colorado
in the early 1800s, and we had
a place that we felt comfort,
practiced the ceremonies,
raised our people, children,
took care of our elders.
WOMAN:
It was a good existence.
They were free people that could
go where they wanted and camp
where they wanted to camp
and do what they wanted to do
without no one telling them
that they can't do this or that.
GAIL: When the discovery of
gold, that was a turning point,
and the turning point,
again, I reiterate,
was when people moved westward.
In 1851, the tribes
gathered at Ft. Laramie
to make a treaty with
the United States Government,
along with all the plains
tribes, and the result of
that treaty was that
the Cheyenne and Arapaho
were recognized as the occupiers
of most of eastern Colorado,
parts of Wyoming --
what is now Wyoming --
and into what is now Kansas,
a huge, huge tract of land.
It wasn't a reservation.
It was simply a recognition
that that was the land
claimed by the Cheyennes
and Arapahos.
In exchange, they would allow
white people access to
the trails passing through their
land and not to molest any forts
that might pop up along the way,
and this treaty was to last
as long as the grass shall grow
and the waters will flow --
forever -- and forever
turned out to be ten years.
Because in 1859, came a great
rush of people to the Rockies,
the Pikes Peak Gold Rush.
MAN: Colorado was beginning
to develop and you had gold
discovered in the Pikes Peak
area in the Rocky Mountains.
You had migrant
or immigrant routes.
You had the Santa Fe Trail to
the south, so you had more and
more contact between cultures
that were dramatically
or drastically different
than one another.
DAVID: 100,000 people traveled
west disrupting everything.
You could imagine the trains
that were coming out here,
the wagon trains...endless.
You weren't out of sight
of a wagon.
They just rolled on and on
and on, disrupting the herds,
the animals eating up the grass,
it was like a super highway,
but miles wide.
You know, all of these events
that are kind of iconic
for white people,
like the Westward Movement,
Manifest Destiny,
settling the west...
When you look at it from the
other side -- from the Cheyenne
side and from the other
Native Americans' side,
all of those just meant
a lot of dying for us.
It meant a lot of unsettling.
It meant a lot of displacement.
It meant a lot of losing
our places, losing our land.
It's either starve or go past
the people and hunt and so when
we were getting in their way...
or maybe they were in our way.
You know, we can't just sit back
at this camp and all starve
so when we go out and hunt,
I believe we were in the right,
and when they tried to stop us,
then I believe
it was their fault.
They should have let us go and
get our food and come back home.
DAVID:
Something had to be done.
The land that these miners were
occupying was already spoken for
so a new treaty
was arranged in 1861
called the Treaty of Fort Wise.
That treaty was signed by
a fraction of the chiefs,
one of whom was Black Kettle,
and it reduced that great
tract of land to a small
triangular piece of barren land
anchored on the Arkansas River
in southeastern Colorado.
Which was a big sand field with
no food, no buffalo, no fishing,
no nothing, so a lot of
our conflicts started
when we was out of our
boundaries hunting.
So when Governor Evans arrived
in Colorado, he arrived in,
I guess you could say a hot bed,
decisions had to be made,
somebody had to take the reins
and lead the territory
towards statehood.
♪
I imagine one might say Governor
Evans' agenda was visionary.
It was expansionism.
Colorado become a state.
DAVID: John Evans, when he came
as territorial governor
in May of 1862,
he had a fine reputation.
He was an entrepreneur,
a builder,
and a very prominent Methodist.
He was a strong abolitionist,
very much against slavery.
Now remember that this
is all occurring
in the middle of a civil war.
Slaves, he understood
but when it came to Indians,
Evans believed that they
didn't possess souls,
that they were heathen savages,
and they were infernal,
all words that he used
to describe Indian people.
CRAIG: They were an impediment
to civilization and I think
a lot of John Evans' motivations
and a lot of John Evans' vision,
it couldn't be fulfilled without
the removal, for economic sake,
for civilization's sake, of the
tribes on the eastern plains.
DAVID:
A war was going on.
Colorado troops
consistently, repeatedly,
attacked peaceful villages,
and in May, they attacked
the village of Black Kettle and
another chief named Lean Bear.
When the troops appeared,
Lean Bear, who had just been
to Washington and had received a
peace medal from Abraham Lincoln
rode out to meet the troops
and to say, "Hey, we're okay,
we don't want to fight."
But when he got within shooting
distance, he was shot down.
Another chief that was with him
named Star was shot down and
then the troops rode over their
bodies and shot them again.
Meanwhile, Black Kettle
was telling the warriors
not to fight.
WOMAN: Black Kettle was a peace
chief that didn't want war.
He wanted his band to live
peacefully on the allotted land
the government placed them on.
Some of the other chiefs
didn't like it because
they wanted to continue the war
and him to live in peace.
It was maybe like a clash.
The Dark Soldier Clan is
the warriors of our people,
of the Cheyennes.
MILDRED: They weren't
going to put up with
being attacked in the
middle of the night.
They were gonna be ready
or they were gonna be
aggressive in defending.
DAVID: The warriors started
striking wagontrains, ranches.
A full-blown war was now raging.
♪
On June 11th, 1864,
there was a family killed...
and not just killed
but I would guess murdered
would be more of the word,
southeast of Denver and
their name was Hungate.
Well, the brutality of their
murders and the nature
of what happened, the press,
of course, got a hold of it,
their bodies were taken
at some point into Denver
and displayed for
the public to see.
It kind of ignited the flame
of the Colorado population
to seek revenge.
Governor Evans had
issued a circular to
the "Friendly Indians
of the Plains"
warning them that there
was an imminent war,
an attack against them
was imminent,
and that if they didn't want to
take part, they should report
to places of safety which
he named as their agencies.
You issue a proclamation written
in English, how is that going to
be circulated to 2500 or 3,000
Chey/Arapaho people
that are scattered from
the panhandle of Oklahoma,
northeastern New Mexico, clear
up onto the northern plains
of Montana and the Dakotas
and everywhere in between.
Who's going to take that
information to them
and how are they going to
decipher it and understand it?
So as we look back,
it's no wonder that
the situation was so out of hand
and that the stage was being set
for the Sand Creek Massacre.
♪
DAVID: And by August,
Denver was cut off.
All mail stopped, wagontrains
with the food, the supplies
couldn't get through, so Denver
was facing real famine.
At this point, John Evans
called for authorization
for the War Department to create
the Third Colorado Regiment.
He had heard rumors that
the Cheyenne and the Arapaho
were going to unite with the
other Plains Indians to wipe out
the Colorado settlements and he
began a campaign to get troops
to Colorado to defend the
settlements from annihilation.
Efforts began immediately
to raise this Third Regiment,
but only for 100 days.
They were known as 100-dayers.
CRAIG: John Chivington was an
ordained Methodist minister
so his job was to preach
and that's what he did.
They call him now the "Fighting
Parson," John Chivington.
DAVID: Chivington had become
a hero in Colorado
for the role he played at the --
it's called the Gettysburg of
the West, Glorieta Pass --
and therefore, Chivington
was given command
of the Colorado
Military District.
Governor Evans issued a second
proclamation saying that
all good citizens,
patriotic citizens,
were authorized to go out
and kill Indians on sight and
as pay, they could take whatever
property they could seize --
horses, camp equipment,
whatever.
Then came something
that was unbelievable...
Black Kettle learned about
the first proclamation
for the "friendlies" --
and I use that in quotations --
to report to Fort Lyon, and so,
Black Kettle and the chiefs
dictated a letter and then
the letter was sent to Wynkoop,
the commander at Fort Lyon,
and it said, "We want peace."
And, "Can we talk about it?
We're willing to do that."
In the letter, besides wanting
peace, Black Kettle said,
we have prisoners,
white prisoners,
that we will give to you,
return.
These had come to the Cheyennes
through other tribes.
CRAIG: This letter,
or the content of the letters,
which mentioned white captives
that were being held
by the tribes, spurred Wynkoop
into action and he ended up
taking a force of
slightly over 100 men north
toward the Smokey Hill River,
where in early September of 1864
he was surrounded
by what he called
"warriors snarling like wolves,"
and he feared for his entire
command, and almost like out of
a novel appeared Black Kettle.
♪
He kind of saved the day.
He talked down the situation.
When Wynkoop went to meet with
Black Kettle, he had two
Cheyenne men go pick him up and
ride back with him and people
were afraid that they would
kill Wynkoop because he alone
was to go there, and they,
the Cheyenne men, told him,
"Well, we keep our word,
we gave you our word,
and if they hurt you,
then we kill ourselves."
CRAIG: It prompted Major Wynkoop
to later note that he felt
himself in the essence of beings
that he had heretofore thought
as something less than him.
At that point he said, I now
get a sense that Black Kettle
was a superior being,
that he believed,
and some of his command also
believed, some of his officers,
that at that moment
they owed their lives
to the influence
of Black Kettle.
DAVID: The chiefs agreed to
accompany Wynkoop to Denver
to meet with John Evans
and other officials.
CRAIG: Upon his arrival
with the chiefs in Denver,
upon learning about that,
Governor Evans was not pleased.
Apparently he said, "What am
I to do with the Third Regiment,
which was a regiment of cavalry
that Colorado
had recently raised.
Well, what will Washington think
of me after all I've been
writing and I've just
gotten the authorization
for the creation of the Third?
They're going to think,
you know, I've gone off my head.
Evans was more concerned with
what people would think about
him than he was about
the possibility of peace.
And finally, and reluctantly,
he agreed to meet with them at
Camp Weld and on September 28th,
1864, for a day they met.
The Cheyenne and Arapaho people
came and met up here in Denver
with Wynkoop and other
designated military people.
In some way they were given
assurances that they'd be okay
down in Sand Creek.
DAVID: Black Kettle opened up
the conference by saying that
he had come through fire to be
in Denver and that he wanted
peace and that he was willing
to bring his people
and surrender to Fort Lyon.
The other chief said
the same thing.
White Antelope, a great
peace chief, had first
gone to Washington in 1851
to meet with the President.
He was frightened to be away
from his people because
they might be attacked
while he was there in Denver.
And instead of talking peace,
Evans was like a schoolmaster
demanding answers, and he said,
"You know, you've come
to me too late.
You are at war and now you're
in the hands of the military.
I can't make peace with you.
You'll have to make
peace with them."
Well, things went on like that
and finally, Chivington,
who was there, spoke up and they
asked him, "What can we do?"
And he said, "Well, my rule of
fighting is that when the enemy
gives up its arms and submits
to military authority,
then we can talk about peace."
"Well, that's what we want
to do, we'll do that,"
said the chiefs.
"And if you do that, go to Fort
Lyon because you're closer to
Fort Lyon than you are to Denver
and report to Major Wynkoop."
So the chiefs came away
from that meeting
absolutely relieved.
They felt that by going to
Fort Lyon, there would be peace.
♪
You know, this Manifest Destiny,
somebody made it up and they
agreed with it because they
wanted our land, you know,
and it was all good because
they didn't have anything,
but over here on this side,
we speak with truth.
We don't lie.
When somebody tells you
something, that's it,
that's the way it is.
They told them, hey,
go camp over there,
we'll give you this flag.
They're peaceful,
they're a peaceful camp.
CRAIG: Fort Lyon in 1864 was
the site of the Indian Agency
for the Cheyenne/Arapaho.
That's where they were
issued their annuities.
One of the results of the
council of Camp Weld was that
they were told to report to
Major Wynkoop at Fort Lyon.
Colonel Chivington said that.
When you're ready to
lay down your arms
and submit to authority,
you go to him at Fort Lyon.
So it's no wonder that heading
into the fall of 1864,
there were hundreds and
hundreds and hundreds
of Cheyennes and Arapahos
camped near Fort Lyon.
There in the month of October
and early in November,
Wynkoop provided them with food.
They were allowed to camp
just outside the Fort.
There was interaction going on.
Black Kettle actually went
to a place called Sand Creek,
about 40 miles from the Fort,
but he was often at the Fort
talking with Wynkoop.
Word got back to Wynkoop's
superiors at Fort Riley that
he was disobeying orders that
he was not to feed any Indians
regardless of whether
they surrendered or not,
and so, they called him
to report
and replaced him
with a new commander.
The new commander, after
he saw what was going on,
started feeding them too,
and he told Black Kettle finally
after some weeks, "Look, I'm not
going to feed you anymore.
Go back to Sand Creek and
when I receive word, orders,
what to do with you,
I'll come out and tell you,
but remain there."
Chivington, as now an officer,
he had tremendous influence,
tremendous power in Colorado.
Both Colonel John M. Chivington
and John Evans were ambitious.
They had a passion
for advancement.
Evans wanted to be
a U.S. Senator.
Colonel Chivington, who was
a former Methodist preacher,
wanted either to become
a brigadier general
or a representative,
U.S. Representative
for the state of Colorado,
and it was those two men and
their ambition that led to the
horrific Sand Creek Massacre.
Chivington knows that
the term of enlistments
for his 100-day men is running
out and it had been a joke that
the Third was bloodless,
they had done no fighting.
So in late November, Chivington
suddenly got a fire under
his feet, organized and began
to march down to Fort Lyon.
♪
It was well known, even by
Governor Evans, that the Indians
around Fort Lyon were peaceful,
but on November 28th, 1864,
Chivington arrived at the Fort
in complete surprise.
In fact, he put pickets
around the Fort
so that nobody could get out.
He went up to the officers
and said, "Where are they?"
And the officers of the First
Regiment who were at the Fort
told him, "Well, they're on
Sand Creek, but they're there
under the protection of the
flag," and Chivington said,
"Damn any man who's in
sympathy with Indians!"
CRAIG: There were two regiments
of Colorado soldiers
at Sand Creek -- there was
the First Colorado Cavalry,
and then there was
the 100-dayers,
that was the Third
Colorado Regiment.
And in nearly every instance,
the 100-dayers
were not experienced.
They were poorly outfitted,
poorly trained.
The majority had put down
their occupation as "miner."
GAIL: The soldiers marched
all night long.
A lot of them were under the
influence of alcohol because
some of them were volunteers
and some were regular cavalry.
They marched all night
and at daybreak,
shortly after daybreak,
the attack happened.
My grandfather, that morning,
they went to use the bathroom.
It was early, it was like dawn
and there was this woman there.
They thought it was a buffalo
herd, and they were saying,
"There's a buffalo herd coming."
(hooves pounding)
She said, "That's cavalry."
(hooves thumping)
(horses neighing)
(horn playing)
♪
At sunrise on November 29th,
1864, Colonel John Chivington's
command begins to arrive
near the village
of Chief Black Kettle
and the other leaders,
maybe as many as 600 people.
130, 140 teepees, or lodges,
camped in a bend of Sand Creek.
By sunrise, the command
has split up, detachments --
or companies of men -- have gone
to either side of the valley.
Cheyenne people have noticed
certainly the approach and have
heard the approach of 600 plus
horses and men rattling,
clanging along, so word spreads
quickly throughout the camp.
The thing to remember
about that village is
it was a chiefs village.
There were over 20 chiefs
in that one village.
It was mostly women and
children and the elderly.
The men that were able to ride
a horse and hunt were gone.
They'd go out for days and then
they'd come back with game.
Sometimes they'd have to go
to the Rockies to find it
and they were gone that day,
so that took advantage of them.
And the villagers of
Lefthand, the Arapaho --
and Black Kettle,
the Cheyenne --
at first didn't know what to do.
They had a flag flying over
Black Kettle's lodge.
Black Kettle then strung up
or put up a white flag
that he had been told to do.
Black Kettle was a peace chief
that abided by
the army's request.
He's the one that had the flag,
United States of America flag,
in front of his camp
with the white flag of truce
to show that they were
living in peace.
But that was ignored
and they were shot first,
first people to be shot.
People just started dropping
around him, people fled from
the village, and then...
all hell broke loose.
(gunshots)
(women screaming)
(gunshots)
♪
(gunshots)
♪
(gunshots)
♪
GAIL: Now this goes on
into the morning.
Later in the day, the cannons
or the Howitzers are out of
ammunition so the people were
chased by mounted troops
crisscrossing the valley,
firing from all directions.
(gunshots)
To me, that's...
that's really....
that's really atrocious
to do that,
when universally, a white flag
meant either surrender
or that you were at peace.
And he killed a lot of old
people and babies and women
and there was not
that much opposition.
I mean, there was,
but the surprise and
how well the cavalry was armed
was too overwhelming for them.
My grandfather had just got with
his wife and she was pregnant
and so there was a horse route,
they were trying to cut off
a horse route and my grandfather
whistled for his horse
and the horse came and he threw
that buffalo robe on that horse
and he put her on there
and those horses, they took off
and she rode off with those
horses, and he took off.
And he seen a little boy,
a little boy.
They taught the kids, you know,
they don't cry, but he was shot,
so he picked up that little boy
and he ran with him
and there was this woman
walking, she was...
her scalp was gone and
she was holding her face on.
There was a lady in Watonga
that had survived Sand Creek.
Her name was Yellow Woman and
she had a bullet hole in her
thigh that the soldiers had shot
her when she was six years old
at Sand Creek, and she grew up,
she grew up very old.
And she showed everybody
that black bullet hole
that the bullet
went straight through.
We had an ancestor
at Sand Creek.
Her name was Red Dress Woman.
Her mother had her run and
dig a place in the sand,
in the sand of the banks of
the river, they dug a hole.
And there was growth, overgrowth
that kind of went over the bank,
so they went in there and they
dug and that's where she hid,
Red Dress Woman hid during
the massacre and her mother had
instructed her to stay in there
no matter what she heard,
what happened,
she told her not to come out.
The people that were fleeing
tried to hide their children,
burrow them in the dirt or
the sand, and also tried to hide
them in like any hollow trees
they came across,
but it was a futile attempt
to save their lives.
An elderly woman running and
as she was running she knew
she wasn't going to be able
to keep up and the one thing
she said was, "Don't ever
forget us," and that's all
she could holler out
before she passed on,
before they killed her.
WOMAN: White Antelope put up the
treaty flag and tried to show
a piece of paper that was given
to him and probably his medal
to show that he was
one of the peace chiefs
and did not want war.
And he sang a song before
he died, "Nothing Lives Long."
It was his death song.
He sang it as they
were killing him.
He was shot, he was killed.
His body was mutilated.
CRAIG: There was a lot of
violence at Sand Creek.
People were not just killed
and left to lay or left alone.
In many cases, bodies were
cut up for souvenirs.
Fingers were cut off bodies,
ears were cut off bodies,
scalps, sometimes many scalps
were taken from the same head.
It was a terrible,
grotesque situation.
These young soldiers acted out
their worst human ways
on the bodies of these people.
Some would say I saw so-and-so
shoot at point-blank range,
women and children as they were
on their hands and knees
begging for mercy.
Others would say,
I drew the line at killing
women and children, or,
I drew the line at mutilating.
We don't know how many of
the troops, but there were
a fair number that did engage
in dismembering the dead,
and again, taking human body
parts and other belongings.
The soldiers went
through that camp,
they took what they wanted,
pillaged all the chiefs
and all of the medicine and all
their medicine pipes, articles
were taken, piled up on heaps of
leftover buffalo robes, teepees,
belongings, piled up in
those piles and set afire.
They were burned.
(fire crackling)
About 200 were killed
at Sand Creek,
another 200 were wounded,
and it's hard to tell
how many of those died.
And so they returned to Denver
as heroes and their parade
through Denver was about
two miles long.
They had a big parade here
in front of the State Capitol.
Marching body parts --
"picture parade" they call it --
marching body parts of tribal
people, Cheyenne/Arapahos.
Back in those days, our people
had been displayed as trophies.
The companies of the First
Colorado that were involved,
two of those companies, at least
100 men refused to fire
and they kept their formations
together, but they drew off.
And those companies were
led by Captain Silas S. Soule,
and Lieutenant Cramer,
Joseph Cramer.
Cheyennes and Arapahos today
revere those two men
because had they not stood down,
the descendants probably
wouldn't be alive today.
LORRAINE: They were so honorable
and so strong, but I felt like
they were alone and sometimes
when you want to do the right
thing, the people that want to
do the right thing suffer...
even today.
♪
CRAIG: These were the officers
that had met the adversary
face to face, that had seen them
maybe as human beings
rather than just objects.
They wrote letters describing
some of the brutalities
of what they saw and experienced
at Sand Creek.
DAVID: They wrote that
pregnant women were killed
and their babies ripped out
and scalped, that people were
coming to them on their knees
asking for mercy and shot down.
Two women, as the soldiers
approached
shooting all the time,
hugged each other.
One woman committed suicide.
A little boy of six or seven
was used as target practice
and his body then
shoved on a wagon.
These crimes were detailed
by Cramer and Soule.
The letters are obscene.
CRAIG: Captain Soule,
of course, was called forth
in April of 1865
by the military commission
that was investigating
Sand Creek.
The first witness for the army
hearing was Silas Soule,
and the second witness
was Joseph Cramer.
Silas Soule's testimony was
devastating and so was Cramer's.
♪
Sand Creek became
the most investigated
event of the Civil War.
WOMAN: The warriors were
not happy with Black Kettle
because he did not want
to stand and fight.
He was more worried
about saving the people.
He was kind of...I don't
want to say disowned,
but they made sure that he was
away from most of the people.
His encampment was mostly
the old, the people that were
handicapped, mostly women
and children and orphans.
In the aftermath of Sand Creek,
Governor Evans lost his
governorship, or resigned from
his governorship of Colorado
because of the Sand Creek
Massacre and the fallout.
He remained in Colorado,
of course, as a leading citizen
and leading politician.
John Evans never said
I'm sorry for Sand Creek,
or that Sand Creek
was a mistake,
or that Sand Creek
shouldn't have happened.
He sidestepped the issue
as much as he could.
John Chivington never
apologized for Sand Creek.
In fact, in one of his
last public appearances,
part of his speech was,
"I stand by Sand Creek."
DAVID: Chivington had resigned
and so he could not be punished
by military law.
He was still a hero in Colorado,
not in the east,
but in Colorado,
Chivington was worshipped.
♪
Well, not long after Silas Soule
gave his testimony,
he was in Denver,
he was the Provost Marshal,
he had just gotten married, and
at night, he was coming out of
a theatre and he heard some
shots and he ran to investigate
and then was shot down by two
assassins, and it was instantly
recognized that he was killed
because of his testimony.
Why did they have to go kill
that Silas in a cowardly way?
I felt really proud of him.
I was really glad there was
somebody there that had a heart,
that he wouldn't allow
them to shoot us.
DAVID: Chivington had claimed
to solve the Indian problem,
but instead the war really came
in retaliation for Sand Creek
and again, Denver was shut off
from all outside supplies,
again faced famine, over 200
white people were killed.
8,000 soldiers had to be
diverted from the Civil War,
and millions of dollars,
the cost of this was.
The killing had stopped.
The killing had stopped
in the late 1800s,
the act of killing of
Native American people,
but in a way,
the genocide has continued,
genocide of our customs,
genocide of our languages.
I think we're still recovering
from that and once we do recover
from that mentally, emotionally,
and spiritually,
we're going to be very strong
people, but I think the trauma
of the experience then
is still with us today.
You know, Sand Creek,
it's not a dead history
to the Cheyenne people,
Cheyenne/Arapaho people.
In a way, as we take it
as tribal people,
the blood is still
on the ground.
MILDRED: It's very touching
to me when I go to Sand Creek
because you can just stand there
and look out on the creek bed
and just imagine in your own
mind what happened on that day.
♪
VANESSA: If you're Cheyenne and
you're Arapaho, you need to go
to this place and you need to do
some healing because I feel like
people don't realize
that we carry this,
we carry that tragedy within us.
JOE: I've been a Sand Creek
representative for 22 years
since day one when
they came to our place
at the Cheyenne Arrow Keeper's
residence and said,
the government lost Sand Creek,
would you come help us find it?
We helped convey it forever
to the National Park Service
because of the money they had
to use to spend on it,
to make it a National
Historical Site.
LORRAINE: I'm glad there's
a place that we can go
and then we can see it
and can touch the ground,
can pray, and it's protected.
JOE:
The healing will go on forever.
We'll never forget Sand Creek.
All the information, all the
films, will still tell the story
over and over and over
to the next generations
and to the next generations.
Personally, I can't be mad of
what happened there because
if I have any anger or if
I'm mad about what happened,
I can't heal from that,
I can't move on,
I can't help the tribe's
younger generations move on.
♪
The Sand Creek Massacre
Spiritual Healing Run is
an event organized and
coordinated by tribal members.
We start from the Massacre site
and run on the trail which
would've been the military trail
back to Denver,
and the trail which
our ancestors' body parts
were taken on.
VANESSA: Being there and
honoring them every year
annually with the Healing Run
has definitely brought some
great healing to my life and
I feel like it is something
that needs to happen with
all of the descendants.
2014 marks the 150th year
anniversary since that morning
of the Sand Creek Massacre and
I feel like even though it has
already been 150 years later,
I feel like it's still really
important that we continue to
honor and remember our ancestors
and continue the education.
We don't want to forget
where we came from, who we are,
and what we're about.
Maintain our spiritual beliefs,
maintain our spiritual
ceremonies, and culture,
heritage.
That's what makes us
a whole person, you know?
As bad as things, our history
has been, the way things have
turned out in our history,
we are still here today.
I am very proud of my heritage,
of my ancestors, of Red Dress
Woman that survived, and we're
here today to talk about it,
to let people know, educate
people that it was a massacre.
The good lesson, I think,
is that we can look back and
reflect on the times that our
ancestors struggled to survive
and yet, they passed on a legacy
to the younger generation
that we might also
adapt and survive.
No matter what happened back
then, we're still here and we're
going to be here and that's
the legacy I think of, you know,
we have Arapahos
here in Oklahoma,
we have Arapahos in Wyoming,
we have Cheyennes in Montana,
and we have Cheyennes
in Oklahoma,
I mean, they're spread out
all over the place,
but we're still here.
You need to know where you came
from in life to know where
you're going and to appreciate
what they have gone through,
to appreciate what you have and
not take anything for granted
because to not remember,
you're doing a dishonor
to your ancestors.
LORRAINE: Well, to me,
the importance of it is
remembering who you are.
Those people who've died,
the blood that flows
in their veins is
also flowing in ours,
and you have a connection
to those people.
KAREN: I encourage all of our
tribal members, our descendants,
to learn about Sand Creek,
to know what happened,
how they survived, and how
we're still here as descendants.
I think it's very important to
talk about it, to remember it,
to honor them, and always
be proud to be a Cheyenne.
I would say (Native American)
the ones that are already gone,
the ones that passed away
at Sand Creek...
let's never forget them
and when we go to honor them,
when we go to commemorate them,
let's do it in a respectful way.
All of these different things
that happened,
that bloodshed, unnecessary,
senseless,
it needs to be told
so that people can heal.
Get the book, read the stories,
listen to these films,
watch these films.
Get educated about
our Healing Run.
Be involved in our people.
The American people -- and
I say all American people,
Native Americans included --
should read their history
and see what the country
has really done.
That this has happened to
Native American people,
or just the fact that it's
happened to Native American
people, that we can be
glossed over.
It's a good thing we got some of
our bodies back and our bones
and stuff, but all this land out
there, Central Great Plains,
was our land and we had
ceremonies out there.
Our people were born out there
and they died out there
and their spirits are still out
there and we're stuck here
in Oklahoma or Wyoming
or Montana.
They wanted to conquer the land.
They wanted to get
at the resources.
They wanted to develop
Manifest Destiny.
Let's move these Cheyennes
out of the way, let's move all
the Native Americans out of
the way, and at the time,
had they really looked at us
as people and really looked at
our value systems and really
looked at how we were able to
continue to live off the land
in such a way that it wasn't
destructive, in such a way
that it was respectful of
our Mother Earth,
I think our world would be
a lot different today.
What kind of mitigates the hurt
for me is that maybe eventually
pictures like this are going to
help our younger generation
remember what happened,
how it happened,
and maybe they can prevent
it ever happening again.
BOBBIE: I think if you
learn to keep an open mind
and look at another person with
a good heart and a good mind,
I think that would not solve
all the problems in the world,
but it would sure help.
(speaking Native American
language)
Only speak and talk about people
and things in a good way
and only talk about
the good things.
Even in today's dominant
society, we feel we have to
work in both worlds.
We have to make everything
work in both worlds,
in the Cheyenne world and in
the dominant society's world
and we have to do our best.
We're all human beings,
we're all pretty much the same.
We've just got a little
different skin tone,
but we have one creator.
That's the way I see it,
you know, and we can learn that
we all need to just try to get
along for the benefit not only
to the Cheyenne or the Caucasian
or the Mexican race or whoever,
we all need to just
get along as humans.
I think our biggest goal as
Indian peoples today is trying
to find forgiveness in our
hearts for this individual
and these people and trying
to move past the ignorance
of who we are and our
differences, if you will.
VANESSA: I'm very, very thankful
to Silas Soule and Cramer.
I think that there's
that hope on humankind.
It gives me hope on people.
LORRAINE: And if the men back
then, Chivington and John Evans
had that belief, maybe we
wouldn't have had Sand Creek.
You know, who knows?
We can't rewrite history,
but we can sure learn from it.
♪
♪
