Sand Creek

Sand Creek, Colorado, site of a massacre (1864) of Cheyenne by Col. John M. Chivington and his Colorado Volunteers. The Cheyennes, led by Black Kettle, had offered to make peace and, at the suggestion of military personnel, had encamped at Sand Creek near Fort Lyon while awaiting word from the territory's governor. They were attacked in a dawn raid on Nov. 29, 1864. Chivington and his men, ignoring a white flag, slaughtered and mutilated hundreds of men, women, and children. The Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site (est. 2007) commemorates the event (see National Parks and Monuments, tablenational parks and monuments, table).

See S. J. Ortiz, from Sand Creek (1981); J. A. Greene and D. D. Scott, Finding Sand Creek: History, Archeology, and the 1864 Massacre Site (2004); A. Kelman, A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling over the Memory of Sand Creek (2013); C. Enss and H. Kazanjian, Mochi's War: The Tragedy of Sand Creek (2015); L. Kraft, Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway (2020).

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