Public Memory of the Sand Creek Massacre By Lindsay Calhoun

themes of culture, identity, colonialism, nation, civilization, subordination, and otherness in the narratives and reports.

The study also includes analysis and interpretation of the first extensive collaborative project between the National Park Service and the Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples to establish the memorial, the site study done in 1999. The impetus for this project was developed out of Public Law 105-243,²⁵ from which the first volume of the National Park Service Sand Creek Massacre Site Study Project emerged.²⁶ This volume includes oral histories collected for the purposes of gathering location-specific information. It also includes the results of an archaeological survey, a report of the archival and historical interpretations of the site, and a discussion of the combined historiographical results. This is an intercultural and interdisciplinary collaboration and a historic, precedent-setting document that combines triangulated epistemologies to establish the exact locations of the Sand Creek massacre for the purposes of building a national park. I consider the contested terrain that emerges from this intercultural and cross-ideological collaboration between varying interest groups in the controversial determination of the precise location of Sand Creek massacre.

Further, I spent a significant amount of time from 2002 to 2007 conducting participant observation and documenting memorialization activities, such as the annual spiritual healing run and the annual Sand Creek anniversary events both at the site near Eads, Colorado and in downtown Denver. I conducted on-site unstructured interviews with the Sand Creek project director, Alexa Roberts, and with members of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal leadership involved in the memorialization of Sand Creek massacre. I conducted one group interview with children of the PS1 charter school and their teacher regarding a play they performed memorializing Sand Creek; I attended a performance of the play, as well. Other unstructured interviews were not recorded but were noted in field notes. In those interviews I asked questions about informants’ hopes and fears regarding Sand Creek and their reasons for being