Sand Creek was a Civil War engagement fought in Colorado, 1864. It was a Union victory.
Scattered Indian raids had caused much ill-will between the white settlers and the Native Americans. In the autumn, Territorial (Colorado) officers had offered a vague amnesty if Indians reported to army forts. Black Kettle with many Cheyennes and a few Arapahos, believing themselves to be protected, established a winter camp about 40 miles from Fort Lyon. On November 29, Col. John Chivington, who advocated Indian extermination, arrived near the camp, having marched there from Fort Lyon. In spite of the American flag and a white flag flying over the camp, the troops attacked, killing and mutilating about 200 of the Indians, two-thirds of whom were women and children.
Repatriation efforts brought together several Native families and museum professionals, who worked to return and rebury victims of the Sand Creek Massacre in their tribal homelands. A 1967 agreement between anthropologists and the Nez Perce Tribe established that the University of Idaho would analyze any disturbed burial sites and then rebury the remains found there. Many of the remains involved in these broader efforts had originally been seized by soldiers as trophies of war or gathered afterward by various institutions. Eventually eighteen victims found a resting place at Concho, Oklahoma, arranged in a circle meant to evoke the shape of a tipi. Chip Coldwell noted that the hopeful spirit behind this work was largely overshadowed by anthropologists who, in the majority, denounced repatriation itself as "scientifically indefensible." Descendants had hoped the burial ground would serve as a lasting place for reflection and return visits, yet insufficient upkeep has caused it to fall into disrepair over the years. Tribal representatives point to this decline as evidence of the broader obstacles Native communities face in safe
The death toll at Sand Creek fell heaviest on women and children among the Cheyenne and Arapaho. No group suffered more than the Wutapiu, the band led by Black Kettle. The Hevhaitaniu lost roughly half their people, and among the dead were their chiefs Yellow Wolf and Big Man. War Bonnet's Oivimana band also saw about half its members killed. White Antelope's Hisiometanio, known as the Ridge Men, took severe casualties as well, and accounts hold that White Antelope himself was scalped during the fighting. Chief One Eye died too, along with a large portion of his followers. By contrast, the Suhtai clan and Sand Hill's Heviqxnipahis clan escaped with comparatively light losses, and neither the Dog Soldiers nor the Masikota, who had joined forces by this point, were even at Sand Creek that day. Among the roughly fifty or sixty Arapaho in about ten lodges under Chief Left Hand, only a small number came away alive.
Those who survived spent the daylight hours concealed in pits dug into the bank above the creek, many of them wounded. When darkness came they moved farther upstream and passed the night exposed on the open prairie. Some ventured back to where the camp had stood, but almost no other survivors turned up there. After enduring that frigid night with no shelter, the group headed for the Cheyenne encampment near the headwaters of the Smoky Hill River. Along the way they crossed paths with others who had fled with part of the horse herd, including some making their way back from the Smoky Hill camp they had escaped to during the assault. Together they reached the camp and found aid there.
The killings tore apart the established Cheyenne leadership, since eight men from the Council of Forty-Four perished at Sand Creek. White Antelope, One Eye, Yellow Wolf, Big Man, Bear Man, War Bonnet, Spotted Crow, and Bear Robe all
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