Massacre Site Open to the Public
Cheyenne senator finally wins his Sand Creek battle.
By: Jana Bommersbach 11/01/2007
Dozens of honorific titles have dignified the name of Ben Nighthorse Campbell—senator, congressman, judo champion and award-winning jewelry designer. But, on the night of April 27, the only one that counted was Cheyenne.
That night, he, like many others in his tribe, camped in southeastern Colorado near Sand Creek—a place that would be dedicated as a national historic site the next day. Campbell’s efforts as a senator from Colorado led to this designation, but his bloodline brought him to camp there on the eve of the dedication ceremony.
“It was so placid and beautiful,” Campbell says. “Kids were playing, and you could see their outline in the fire. And I kept thinking to myself, ‘I bet it was like that the night before the massacre.’ Because they had no idea what was coming.”
The enormity of what happened at Sand Creek on November 29, 1864, is still hard to fathom, all these decades later. Called “one of the nation’s most profound historic events,” the massacre remains one of the few American military campaigns against Indians repudiated and condemned by Congress. For Indians, it is still an “open wound.”
At dawn on that cold November morning, Col. John Chivington led some 700 Colorado Volunteers to a slaughter of 150 Cheyennes and Arapahos at Sand Creek. The Indians believed they were camping in safety, under the “protection” of a peace agreement, a six-foot-by-12-foot, garrison-sized American flag and a white flag of peace.
Post A Comment