Sand Creek massacre
| Sand Creek Massacre | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Colorado War, American Indian Wars, American Civil War | |||||
 A depiction of one scene at Sand Creek by witness Howling Wolf |
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| Belligerents | |||||
 United States
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Cheyenne Arapaho |
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| Commanders and leaders | |||||
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John M. Chivington
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Black Kettle | ||||
| Strength | |||||
| 700 | 70–200 | ||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||
| 24 killed, 52 wounded | 70–163 killed | ||||
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The Sand Creek massacre (also known as the Chivington massacre, the Battle of Sand Creek or the massacre of Cheyenne Indians) was a massacre in the American Indian Wars that occurred on November 29, 1864, when a 675-man force of Colorado U.S. Volunteer Cavalry attacked and destroyed a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho in southeastern Colorado Territory, killing and mutilating an estimated 70–163 Native Americans, about two-thirds of whom were women and children. The location has been designated the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site and is administered by the National Park Service.
By the terms of the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie between the United States and seven Indian nations, including the Cheyenne and Arapaho, the United States recognized that the Cheyenne and Arapaho held a vast territory encompassing the lands between the North Platte River and the Arkansas River, and eastward from the Rocky Mountains to western Kansas. This area included present-day southeastern Wyoming, southwestern Nebraska, most of eastern Colorado, and the westernmost portions of Kansas.
In November 1858, however, the discovery of gold in the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, then part of the Kansas Territory, brought on the Pikes Peak Gold Rush. European-American immigrants flooded across Cheyenne and Arapaho lands. They competed for resources, and some settlers tried to stay. Colorado territorial officials pressured federal authorities to redefine the extent of Indian lands in the territory, and in the fall of 1860, A.B. Greenwood, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, arrived at Bent's New Fort, along the Arkansas River, to negotiate a new treaty.
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