Chapter 1: | Introduction to Sand Creek |
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21. I use nations in the plural form because the Cheyenne and Arapaho often refer to themselves as nations: they represent individual ethnic groups with distinct languages, religions, cultures, and a significant degree of governmental sovereignty and autonomy within the boundaries of what is considered the United States. The concept of a unitary nation in reference to the continental United States is problematic when viewed from the perspective of the Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples, whose treaties with the United States federal government proffer them distinct identities as communities but whose citizenship in the United States of America is determined by federal governance and political determinations, often subject to changes beyond their control.
22. D. Frazier, “The Echoes of Sand Creek: Indian Massacre of 1864 Burns Deep in Psyche of Cheyenne, Arapaho Tribes,” Rocky Mountain News (Denver), December 3, 1995, 32.
23. By traditional physical form, I mean a material structure on or near the site where a visitor’s center or museum will probably be constructed, a structure or marker on or near the site eight miles east of Eads, Colorado paying tribute to the event and to the people who died there. A physical representation of the events at Sand Creek would enable public access, reflection, and interpretation of Sand Creek’s history as a site of violence against the Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples who lived on or near the site prior to their removal or demise on November 29, 1864.
24. In my original survey of newspapers from 1864 to 1867, most of the stories that I found regarding the events and their aftermath were from 1865, leading up to the government’s investigations, reports, and decisions regarding the events at Sand Creek. I found no stories either regionally or nationally on Sand Creek in 1866 or 1877. Though some newspaper and magazine articles (see specifically” after “see;” Delete Colorado History and Heritage Magazines. Insert “Roberts, G. L & Haas, D. F., “Written in Blood: The Soule-Cramer Sand Creek Massacre Letters” Colorado Heritage, Winter 2001) present the event in the context of historical human interest between the years 1867 and 1995, they do not have to do with the initial construction of the Sand Creek narrative in the process of reporting the event and interpreting its immediate political and economic outcomes for Colorado citizens and their quest for statehood, the disciplinary and investigative procedures involving those who led the attack at Sand Creek, or other related incidents that took place in the year following the event (such as the death of Silas Soule,