Sand Creek

I think I first read about Sand Creek back in the 1970s. I suspect I was already pretty sensitive to Native American views about the influx of illegal immigrants carrying guns and small pox, but there was something about the Sand Creek story was particularly graphic and tragic.

Long story short, in November 1864, U.S. troops arrived to rout out an Indian encampment and despite previous commitments and truce flags, they brutally massacred men, women, and children, then returned to destroy and plunder the village and mutilate the dead.  The massacre at Sand Creek rallied many indians to their final, ultimately unsuccessful, effort at resistance to expansion, but was also sufficiently egregious enough to be acknowledged and condemned by U.S. authorities.

Sand Creek was only recognized as a National Historic Site in 2007. Last year, the site marked the 150th Anniversary of the event.

I was lucky to pull in just before 4 in the afternoon and the rangers let me look around before they closed the gate for the day.

I lived in Denver and Fort Morgan in the early 1980s and wondered about visiting the site, but never got there. I do vaguely recall a well-logging job somewhere near here in early 1983.