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Remember the Hungates The received version of the history of the Indian War in Colorado in 1864 tells us that overweening, bigoted U.S. and Colorado politicians and soldiers instigated an Indian War. Then, we are told, they isolated an innocent group of Cheyenne and Arapaho, promised them protection, and then brutally massacred them at Sand Creek in what is now southeastern Colorado. The whole picture is based on a flimsy and one-sided reading of the available evidence, and as such it deserves to be revisited until the public consciousness accepts that there is another set of valid opinions about what happened and why, and whose fault it was. The most recent treatment of the evidence of which I am aware is also the best: Blood at Sand Creek: The Massacre Revisited, by Bob Scott. But because its conclusions challenge the politically correct version accepted by liberals (and most conservatives, since, like everyone else, they don't want to be thought of as insensitive boors), it seems often to be dismissed with typical liberal hysterics: Anyone who can condone an unjustified massacre of innocent women and children.... Indeed, if a massacre is unjstified, no one would condone it. The point is, it isn't clear that there was at Sand Creek any unjustifiable massacre (i.e., it might not have been a massacre in the usual sense of the term, and the attack might have been justified). There was fierce fighting, and much blood was shed, but whether all or even most of that blood was innocent, much less whether most was blood of noncombatant women and children, is unclear, and our conclusion depends on how we read the evidence. Granted that the liberal tendency is to interpret all evidence in the way most embarrassing to conservatives (the demonized players in the drama were Republicans, after all) in particular, and the United States in general, I think it is worth offering another point of view. This essay is the first of several planned to address the various issues involved in interpretation of events in the famous (or infamous) conflict between state and Federal, and civilian forces on the one side, and the Plains Indians, on the other, leading up to and subsequent to the famous event at Sand Creek. Under the influence of the received version of events, a coalition of Federal and state officials and the leadership of the descendants of those attacked at Sand Creek have been working to recover the original site and establish a memorial to the dead Indians, as well as something of an apology from the nation and the state for the actions of our forebears. My question is this: Where is the monument making amends for those who were brutalized, tortured, and killed by Indians in that same year, prior to the massacre at Sand Creek? The Indians said the whites had started the war. In April, a troop of soldiers trying to recover stolen livestock were confronted by a line of Indian warriors who appeared to be in possession of the stolen livestock. The troops reported that after an attempt to resolve the situation peacefully the Indians approached them provocatively and, when the troops tried to disarm them, the Indians attacked. Third parties later reported the Indian version: the soldiers just attacked them without warning. For now I will defer argument on which version is true (later I will argue from the available evidence that it is somewhat less likely that the troops lied in their reports than that the story of the Indian side evolved to put the onus on the whites), and simply concede for the sake of today's argument that the white troops, whether from excessive skittishness, racism, or aggression, simply attacked the warriors. There is no accusation that any women or children were killed by white troops on this occasion or on any other in April, May, or June of 1864. But on June 10 (I am indebted to Jeffrey Broome, "Indian Massacres in Elbert County, Colorado: New Information on the 1864 Hungate and 1868 Dietemann Murders" published in the Denver Westerners Roundup January/February 2004 for this reconstruction) a small group of Cheyenne and/or Arapahoe came to the Van Wormer ranch looking for spoils. Nathan Hungate defended the land and livestock by firing on the Indians, and probably wounded or killed one of them. A larger force of Indians returned on June 11 bent on revenge for the previous evening's injuries, and put the Hungate house under siege. The firefight raged for some time (the family probably expended no less than 70 rounds of ammunition during the fight), but eventually, after Nathan's best rifle exploded, the Indians were able to set the house alight, forcing Nathan, his wife, and two small daughters to flee for their lives. His wife and daughters made it about a hundred yards from the house before they were captured, brutalized, and murdered. Nathan was killed a mile from the house. The torture and mutilation of a one-year-old baby girl and her four-year-old sister were the first atrocities of the conflict, and the first and most barbaric terrorist act by the Plains Indians' terrorist organization that went by the name of the "Dog Soldiers". The warriors could perhaps have been forgiven, if their version of events had turned out to have the ring of truth, for arranging attacks on military posts and formations. But who can justify the brutal murders of innocent babies? The Dog Soldiers were terrorists. They ran around killing and despoiling innocent people, ambushing small military units (especially of sick and wounded soldiers) when they could, and then retreating into the shadows. By modern standards, they were war criminals. So let's be consistent. If everything said about Chivington and the Massacre of Sand Creek is true (but I don't believe it is likely to be so), we owe those tribesmen an apology. But based on facts that neither side disputes, the descendants of the Dog Soldiers and anyone who gave them food, water, or shelter owe us an apology for the Hungates and dozens of other innocent men, women, and children who were killed in the intervening months by rampaging warriors too cowardly to face military units that never ceased trying to find and punish them. So where is the Cheyenne and Arapaho monument of apology going to be erected?
Modified: 10/05/2005 |
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