Cold Open

It’s November 29th, 1864.

High on the windswept plains of eastern Colorado, a Native American chief – White Antelope of the Southern Cheyenne – sits slumped behind a boulder, bleeding.

In the distance, he can hear the terrified screams of his people as they are gunned down by the United States Army’s howitzers. He can hear the murder of fleeing women and children. He loads his weapon, and prepares to defend against the coming onslaught.

Earlier that morning, as dawn broke over the prairie, some seven hundred US Army soldiers rode into White Antelope’s village on the banks of Sand Creek, in southeast Colorado, and started shooting. They claimed it was in retaliation for recent attacks on white settlers in the area. But that was a mere excuse.

White Antelope knows the men were thirsty for Native blood.

The slaughter was frenzied and indiscriminate. Sand Creek is home mainly to women and children. And the soldiers dragged these innocents from their teepees and butchered them like animals. The survivors attempted to flee up the dry creek bed – led by White Antelope and several other tribal leaders. The few warriors that remained stayed behind to fight. But, ill-equipped and unprepared, these warriors were quickly overpowered by the soldiers, who mutilated their dead bodies.

Then they turned to those fleeing up the creek.

As the hoofbeats of the soldiers’ forces grew louder and louder, White Antelope told the others to go on without him. He stayed, sheltered behind a boulder and began shooting into the cavalry’s irrepressible charge. But then a bullet struck him, and White Antelope’s last stand came to an abrupt end.

Now the Chief struggles to reload his weapon, but the pain is too great. He drops his rifle and slumps over in the dust, his blood soaking into the soil.

Soon, a figure looms over him, blotting out the sun; a soldier in a blue uniform who raises his rifle... 

An estimated 150 Native Americans from the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes are massacred at Sand Creek – a third of them women and children. When word of the attack reaches the East, an outraged President Abraham Lincoln will publicly condemn the attackers and strip them of their military rank.

For the survivors, though, this is not punishment enough. They will spread news of the atrocity among the tribes, whose warriors will shake with fury believing that the United States is asking for war. After decades of doing what the white man has told them, the Native Americans of the Great Plains decide that enough is enough, and blood will be spilt and revenge taken for the lives lost on the Sand Creek, on November 29th, 1864.

Introduction

From Noiser and Airship, I’m Lindsay Graham and this is History Daily.

History is made every day. On this podcast—every day—we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world. 

Today is November 29th, 1864: The Sand Creek Massacre.

Act One: An Imperfect Peace

It’s February 1861, almost four years before the Sand Creek Massacre. 

A delegation of six Cheyenne and Arapaho chiefs, led by tribal leaders Black Kettle and White Antelope, ride up to the US Army outpost in Fort Wise, Colorado. 

Stone-faced sentries armed with carbine rifles watch from the battlements as the Natives approach. At his side, Black Kettle can sense his fellow delegates stiffen at the sight of soldiers’ guns. He understands their apprehension; this could easily be an ambush.

After all, the white man has betrayed his people for decades. When President Thomas Jefferson purchased the Louisiana Territory back in 1803, the government sent expeditions north, into Kansas and Nebraska Territories, where they first encountered the indigenous peoples who had inhabited these prairies for centuries. In those early days, the US government agreed to cooperate with the Natives. And for years, relations between white settlers and the tribes of the Western Plains were mostly good, and trade flourished.

But as westward expansion continued, trading routes brought more and more settlers into contact with the Native American tribes. Tensions grew as more settlers came. In 1845, journalist John O’Sullivan wrote in the Democratic Review: “It is our manifest destiny to overspread the continent…”

With divine encouragement ringing in their ears, representatives of the US government came to the Cheyenne and Arapaho with a proposition. At the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1851, the representatives offered the tribes their own reservations, free from US encroachment, totaling 75,000 square miles of Kansas and Colorado. All they asked in exchange was safe passage for merchants along the trade routes.

The Natives accepted the Treaty, and several years of peace followed. But in 1859, fur trappers in Colorado discovered something that would shatter the fragile peace on the Western Plains. Discovery of gold and a subsequent Colorado Gold Rush brought tens of thousands of prospectors to Cheyenne and Arapaho land. Instead of protecting the tribal reservations, the US government revoked its promise. And now, in 1861, the government has decided it needs even more of the Natives’ land for gold mining interests.

So the government sent word to Black Kettle and his fellow chiefs and summoned them to Fort Wise. At the meeting, government representatives order the Cheyenne and Arapaho to move onto just one-tenth of the territory they were granted at Fort Laramie. If they do so, they will live safely under the protection of the US Army. 

Once again, Black Kettle knows he has no choice but to agree. To refuse would be a declaration of war; a war he can’t win. So the delegates gallop away from Fort Wise, having surrendered 90% of their territory to the white settlers. Their only solace is that now they can finally live in peace.

***

It’s nearly four years later on November 29th, 1864. 

Dawn has not yet broken over the Great Plains, but in a Native American encampment on the banks of Sand Creek, in Colorado, Chief Black Kettle is already wide awake.

He spent the night tossing and turning. And what snatches of sleep he did manage were plagued by bad dreams.

Eventually, Black Kettle stops trying to sleep and gets up – taking care not to disturb his sleeping wife and children. He steps out from his teepee and into the bitter cold.

In the adjacent teepees, the other Cheyenne chiefs – his friends White Antelope, Lean Bear and Little Wolf – sleep peacefully. As the senior tribal leader, the concerns of the community have always fallen squarely on Black Kettle’s shoulders. That's why he cannot sleep, and why his dreams are filled with grim foreboding.

He looks out across the moonlit prairie. The tall grass shimmers like the surface of a silvery lake. On peaceful nights like these, it’s hard to imagine that all is not well on the High Plain. It’s been nearly four years since the Treaty of Fort Wise, four years since he permitted the government’s brazen theft of his ancestral land.

Many members of his own tribe were furious, believing that Black Kettle’s diplomacy amounted to weakness. Belligerent factions split off, joining roving bands of Dog Soldiers – fearsome Cheyenne warriors known for their hatred of the whites. And these factions, refusing to accept the terms of Fort Wise, have mounted a resistance.

Back in June, a white farmer, his wife and two infant daughters were murdered. Many settlers blamed the murders on the raiding Natives. The brutal attack prompted territorial governor John Evans to urge citizens of Colorado to “kill and destroy all hostile Indians.”

Hearing this, Black Kettle returned to the white authorities with yet another olive branch. He sought reassurance that the peaceful community of Cheyenne and Arapaho at Sand Creek would not be attacked by US soldiers. And the government officials promised Sand Creek would be placed under the protection of Fort Lyon, a nearby military outpost, commanded by Major Edward Wynkoop.

Black Kettle respects Wynkoop, a known advocate for peace. But he is still nervous. The Chief has heard promises before. And by the time the sun has risen over the Western Plain, he will know there is no trusting the white man. 

Act Two: The Bloodless Third

It’s November 28th, 1864, the day before the Sand Creek Massacre.

In his barracks in Denver, Colonel John Chivington, of the 3rd Colorado Cavalry Regiment, looks at himself in the mirror. He puffs out his chest and squares his jaw. Beneath his thick beard, he smiles. He likes the man he sees.   

Formerly a Methodist preacher known for fiery sermons, Chivington joined the Union Army when the Civil War broke out in 1861 – not as a chaplain, but as a soldier. Then as a soldier in 1862, at the Battle of Glorietta Pass, Chivington reversed a sure-fire defeat into a Union victory. The decisive battle became known as the “Gettysburg of the West”, and as its hero, Chivington was catapulted to military fame. He was promoted to colonel, and, in 1864, put in command of a new regiment – the 3rd Colorado Cavalry – founded solely to protect Denver from a supposedly imminent emergency: a Native American uprising.

Chivington saw this new position as a chance to gain further glory. But the expected uprising never came. And thanks to the peace talks between Black Kettle and the commander of Fort Lyon, Major Edward Wynkoop, the situation was not as volatile as Colorado’s governor, John Evans, had predicted – or as Chivington had hoped.

In Denver, many people considered Chivington to be a pompous braggart and he became an object of ridicule. His regiment was mockingly nicknamed ‘the Bloodless Third’, because it never saw any action. Today, Chivington is beginning to wonder if it ever will. He knows if it doesn’t, his career may be over. 

Chivington turns away from the mirror, thinking about the Native people who he blames for spoiling his once-promising career. But he can get revenge. Just days ago, Wynkoop was transferred to a different base. And with that savage-appeasing coward out of the way, thinks Chivington, the path is clear to secure his legacy.  

So later that morning, Chivington’s regiment rides from Denver to Fort Lyon, where they recruit 250 more soldiers to the cause. But some are still loyal to Wynkoop. Dismayed at the proposed attack on Sand Creek – a village containing mostly of women and children - they try to stop Chivington, but he won't be resisted. Instead, the dissenters are held back at gunpoint, while Chivington and his seven hundred cavalrymen continue north.

They set up camp a few miles south of Sand Creek, where they drink through the night, toasting the bloodbath they are about to unleash. Then just before dawn, Chivington gives the order to attack. He tells his troops. “Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians… kill and scalp all, big and little.”

With that order, the men charge on the village. As the soldiers approach, a lone figure – who Chivington recognizes as Chief Black Kettle – raises an American flag as a sign of peace. But Chivington and his men are here for blood. 

As the full horror of the massacre becomes clear, some in the Regiment refuse to shoot. They will testimony later before Congress, when John Chivington’s conduct is officially investigated. One witness will say: 

“I saw the bodies of those lying there… worse mutilated than any I ever saw. The women [were] cut all to pieces with knives; scalped; their brains knocked out; children, two or three months old; all ages lying there, from sucking infants up to warriors... By whom were they mutilated? By the United States troops.”

*** 

It’s November 29th, 1864, the evening after the massacre.

The village of Sand Creek has been reduced to smoldering ashes. Bodies are strewn across the blood-stained earth. An eerie silence hangs over the carnage.  

One young Cheyenne woman emerges from the smoke. Her body trembles as she staggers through the devastation, looking around in a daze. Gradually, others appear – survivors, searching for the bodies of their loved ones. The young woman sees her husband and her father – both dead – and lets out a silent wail. 

She crouches down and touches her father’s forehead. When she closes her eyes, she can hear the soldiers, their laughter, as they shot her father; as they raped her mother, and then killed her. Then the young woman’s grief turns to anger. She reaches for her father’s rifle, her mind set on revenge.

Her name is Mochi. She is twenty-four years old. And she and the others wait for nightfall before journeying north up the creek bed. As they go, they meet other survivors, who join them. They walk through the night in silence, their bare feet crunching over frozen ground. 

The following day, they will reach their destination: an encampment of Dog Soldiers at the headwaters of the Smoky Hill River. Mochi will tell these Dog Soldiers about the brutal slaughter at Sand Creek. And hearing of the tragedy, the fearsome warriors’ hands will tighten around their weapons, their knuckles white with rage.

A traditional war pipe will be blown, sending news of the atrocity from camp to camp. And gradually, as word spreads, formerly disparate and rival Native American tribes will unite, bonded by their shared desire for revenge. 

Another survivor of the massacre – Chief Black Kettle – will watch on, distraught, as his peace efforts are undone. He comes to terms with the realisation that his time – a time of longing for peace – is over; the time of the Dog Soldier has arrived.

Act Three: War on the Plains 

In its day, the Sand Creek Massacre was exposed was exposed and officially condemned by the government. But the horrific event precipitated decades of conflict on the Great Plains. Though Cheyene and Arapaho descendants would never forget, many White Americans did. And eventually, the massacre at Sand Creek largely faded from memory.

But in the year 2000, the US Congress sought to remedy this by designating Sand Creek a national historic site to "recognize the national significance of the massacre in American history, and its ongoing significance to the Cheyene and Arapaho people and the descendants of the massacre victims.” Though not this nor anything else can undo the tragedy of Sand Creek, the fallen innocents can be honored by remembering what took place on November 29th, 1864.

Outro

Next on History Daily. December 2nd, 1908. Two-year-old Puyi becomes the Emperor of China, a title he will abdicate on no fewer than three separate occasions.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Mollie Baack.

Music and sound design by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by Joe Viner.

Executive Producers are Steven Walters for Airship, and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.