Musings

A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling Over the Memory of Sand Creek by Ari Kelman. Harvard University Press, 2013. xiii + 363 pp.; illustrations, maps, notes, index; hardcover, $35.00; paperbound, $24.00.

On the morning of November 29, 1864, several hundred Cheyenne and Arapahoe people camped along Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado Territory.  Their principal chiefs, Black Kettle and Left Hand, assured by nearby military commanders, believed they were safe.  Colonel John Chivington, without orders from superiors, led two volunteer regiments to surprise the peaceful camp and slaughtered over 150 Native Americans – most of them women, children, and the elderly – including many key chiefs.  The event was immediately controversial and its aftermath not only devastating to the future of both tribes, but — its memory, meaning and exact location hotly contested up through the process of creating the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site nearly 140 years later…a collision of history, science, cultural tradition, and contemporary politics (x).

Ari Kelman, Professor of the American Civil War Era at Pennsylvania State University, documents the arduous process of how a pivotal incident in the Indian Wars of the Great Plains was officially recognized as a National Historic Site in 2007. Kelman sets the stage that in 1864, while the Civil War in the East was still raging, white settlers in the Great Plains territories were periodically threatened by Native Americans and there was inadequate professional military presence to prevent conflicts.  In that framework, a glory-seeking, self-righteous former minister, Colonel John Chivington, reacted to popular fear and took the opportunity to lead a group of volunteers to exact vengeance on the savages for perceived atrocities against white settlers (149).  First-hand accounts of the massacre from a Cheyenne survivor, George Bent, and a junior officer, Silas Soule (who refused to let the men in his command join the melee) provide the primary basis for the historical reckoning and clues to the actual location of the event.  Central to the story is the conflict between traditional understanding of the location of the slaughter and the archeological findings that proved the actual location was different. Because ceremonies and spiritual experiences occurred at the traditional location — modern day representatives of the Cheyenne and Arapahoe tribes were reluctant to designating the archeological results as the official historic site.  Compounding the controversy were conflicts with local landowners and current residents’ distrust of federal oversight by the National Park Service.  The book culminates in a compromise based on geomorphologic changes to the landscape that led to the disputed locations.

The author structures the book by using the central narrative of creating the historic site as the book’s spine; then fleshes it out with flashbacks to the era of the massacre and subsequent struggles over its memory (xi).  This method is particularly effective because the extensive due diligence by the National Park Service experts, in often contentious collaborations with four separate tribal entities, revealed several primary sources that changed the course of the site’s creation.  A central part of the process was “reparation archiving” by including extensive oral history sessions with tribal members.  A sub-theme in the book details the sensitivities of the landowners that controlled ownership and access to the site(s).  Although the historic site designation eventually becomes reality, the author leaves several of the issues raised during the process unresolved – this unsatisfying outcome is a metaphor for the complexity of the incident and the attempt to commemorate it in a way that is both truthful and respectful to the victims.

Creating the National Historic site required cooperation from the highest levels – Colorado Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell and the Secretary of the Interior – through involvement from the tribes and the local communities.  Missing from the narrative were more maps to explain the landowner properties involved and one showing the ultimate impact of the event causing the two affected tribes to be split into four separate entities (Northern/Southern Cheyenne and Northern/Southern Arapahoe) relegated to reservations hundreds of miles apart from each other and the historic site.

The initial military and newspaper reports celebrated the event as a brave victory over fierce warriors.  Almost immediately, counter claims by reliable witnesses created a cloud of doubt that, along with the remoteness of the location, caused the incident to recede into relative obscurity – except for the memories within the Cheyenne and Arapahoe descendants. Kelman not only tells the story of the “battle” that became a “massacre”, but he also expands it into an accessible public history thriller by documenting the revelations of discovery during the research, and the tortuous path endured by a very broad team of stakeholders in creating the national historic site.  The resulting book is a testament to the virtue of seeking truth while not neglecting the values of tradition and culture.

     James N. Meeks, Student, University of Missouri-Kansas City