Sand Creek - a battle or massacre?

In 1864, somehow the following happened.



According to Cheyenne sources:

They went to the bathroom in the morning, and said, what's with this buffalo herd over there.

That is US cavalry, but we just made peace, surely they won't attack.

Sister that's not a buffalo herd - run!

And the story of survivors.

And a warrior put his wife on a horse and said run!

Then he saw a woman who had just been scalped, and she was holding up her face.

A song for White Antelope.

White Antelope was one of the many peace chiefs in the village.

He went to make peace with the soldiers with a white flag.

But, when he saw they were attacking anyway, apparently he sang: "nothing lives long, only the rocks".

That great peace chief White Antelope.

Apparently the US soldiers made a tobacco pouch from his testicles.

Memories of Sand Creek ...

No society is perfect, and at the time there were also Cheyenne war chiefs.

But Sand Creek was a peaceful village.

And these chiefs went from Denver to Washington to make peace.

There they were lectured like school boys and sent back to Fort Lyon.

Just heard in the doccies, Sand Creek was actually the most investigated incident in the entire civil war.

The blow-out was that 200 innocent whites were killed, 8 000 troops were taken to the border, and Denver was essentially cut-off and starving.

The subject of this movie.
OK, just a movie, but my favorite Western:

Trailer for Cheyenne Autumn

Sadly, we will never really know what happened 150 years ago. History has been re-written many times since then and passed through the lens of too many agendas. The good news is whatever happened was long ago and doesn’t matter now that the people involved on both sides have been dead for more than a century.

a reply to: halfoldman
That shouldn't even be a question. It was a massacre. They not only killed those people, men women, and children; but skinned them (a disgusting practice which is where the term redskin came from-I wonder why Indian people don't like it) and cut off trophies and paraded their grisly prizes at the next town. This happened under the American flag, mind you. They were flying the flag because they were told that they would be safe if they did.

a reply to: halfoldman

A black stain on any people's history this was one of the worst atrocity's committed by the US cavalry even when compared to some of Custer's action's.

While there was hatred on both sides the European invaders whom stole the land from the native people's were definitely the more barbaric and cruel of the two sides.

I once saw a video many years ago that showed and explained a collection of grisly artifacts, an Indian bone knife as it was called, a cavalryman's Hat with no noticeable difference other than the Tassels which were in fact the dried ovaries of a native american girl, an Indian Skin Wallet and purse as well as some boot's.

These were artifacts that were so similar to some of the Nazi actions against people in the concentration camp's and showed the very darkest and most evil depth to which the human spirit can descend.

Still for all the evil that mankind can do there are still the good among us (or at least I hope so).