Sand Creek

On November 29, 1864, Colonel John Chivington led about 675 U.S. volunteer soldiers of the 1st and 3rd Colorado Cavalry in an attack on a village of roughly 700 Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people along Sand Creek, under Chiefs Black Kettle, White Antelope and Left Hand, who believed themselves under the protection of the U.S. Army. Over about seven hours, soldiers killed more than 230 people, most of them women, children and the elderly, and mutilated many of the dead. Three separate federal investigations afterward condemned the attack as an unprovoked massacre. Congress authorized Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in 2000, and it was established in 2007; a Repatriation Area is set aside for the return of remains and belongings. Local accounts describe figures along the creek bed on the anniversary of the massacre each November — Cheyenne and Arapaho women, children and occasional warriors, seen briefly along the banks before they fade.