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Sand Creek Battlelines Before it becomes possible to make a reasonable guess (the state of the evidence will never give us anything approaching certainty) as to what happened at Sand Creek on Nov. 29, 1864, we must assess the available evidence. It is the careless use of evidence that vitiates the version of these events which became canonical within a few months and is now almost universally accepted as the unvarnished truth. The main points go something like this:
The available evidence makes some of these conclusions possible, but none of them is probable, and some of them are extremely unlikely. My task in this essay is to show that the two mostly diametrically opposed and mutually exclusive versions of these events had their germination while the events were unfolding, and that the two sides had begun to harden their positions long before the incident at Sand Creek. Furthermore, the side that won and gave us the canonical version is not more likely to be true. It will be helpful to distinguish three distinct points of view during three different periods of time. From the beginning of 1864 through Nov. 5 is the "Wynkoop Period", the period before and during Major Edward Wynkoop's tenure as commanding officer at Fort Lyon. On Nov. 5, when Major Scott Anthony arrived with orders to remove Wynkoop and take his place in command of Fort Lyon the "Anthony Period" begins. On the morning of Nov. 29, with the attack at Sand Creek, begins the "Post Sand Creek Period". During the "Wynkoop Period" there were basically two points of view: the U.S. point of view and the Indian point of view. Military reports filed by U.S. troops and complaints raised by U.S. citizens and corroborated by military investigations were accepted as truthful from the U.S. point of view, but doubted and rejected from the Indian point of view. Versions of events passed around among Indian groups and then through sympathetic whites like traders and agents of the Bureau of Indian Affairs represented the Indian point of view and were generally not credited by whites when there were conflicts with the information they had from the U.S. point of view. With the beginning of the "Anthony Period" a third point of view emerged, which I will call the Wynkoop point of view. This is the turning point of the development of the story as it now stands. The Removal of Wynkoop The civil authority in Colorado was Governor John Evans, and the military authority was General S. R. Curtis, who spent most of this period elsewhere chasing Rebels but would sporadically correspond with, and communicate his standing orders to, his subordinates in Colorado. During the summer of 1864, as mounting stories of brutal attacks by Indian bands on communities and travelers throughout the region came to him, Curtis issued several directives indicating that no peace was to be settled with any Indian band without his explicit orders. Evans had issued a proclamation providing that an Indian band that went to one of two Army posts, surrendered themselves, handed over arms and any stolen stock, as well as any members of the band that had committed any crimes, would be considered friendly and would not be attacked. All other Indians were to be considered hostile and attacked on sight. In about mid-October, Left Hand's and Little Raven's bands of Arapahos came to Fort Lyon and encamped nearby. Wynkoop sent them provisions and allowed them to enter and leave the post freely. Apparently some among his command saw his lax attitude as a violation of General Curtis' standing orders, because word got to Curtis, who sent the order summoning Major Anthony to relieve Wynkoop of his command. With Wynkoop's removal the attitudes of the soldiers at Fort Lyon split in two. Wynkoop's removal was apparently viewed by some as an injustice. These loyal officers, including notably Captain Silas Soule and Lieutenant Joseph Cramer, felt that Wynkoop's had been the best policy, and their later testimony indicates that they began advocating Wynkoop's point of view with Major Anthony, and, when he arrived in November, with Colonel John Chivington. During the third period, "Post Sand Creek," the testimony of the Indians and their white allies (traders and BIA agents) defended the Indian point of view, the testimony of Wynkoop and his allies (like Soule and Cramer) attacked the U.S. point of view in order to defend their own, and Chivington, Anthony, Evans, and others took the U.S. point of view and defended it. The prevailing point of view, in the end, was the Indian. How the Indian Point of View Won the Day There was a public perception that Chivington and Evans, who were involved during the same period in the failed effort to achieve statehood for Colorado, were political opportunists. Then, as now, it was possible for political opponents to exploit this perception to discredit their motives. Enemies in Washington D.C., who were loathe to see Republicans gain seats in the Senate and House if Colorado won statehood, certainly exploited that angle effectively in the executive and legislative inquiries into events at Sand Creek. In short, it was easy to disbelieve Chivington's own testimony because it could be dismissed as self-serving propaganda. It may be fair to assume that in 1864 even the most "open minded" government and military investigators were not naturally inclined to take the word of Indians over their own military. What gave the Indian point of view traction was that there was also the sympathetic testimony provided by Wynkoop and his defenders. This allowed the white legislators and bureaucrats to trot out the image of the "noble savage" and make out the Cheyenne and Arapahos, whose Dog Soldiers had, by their own admission, killed, tortured, and mutilated white babies and small children, as innocent victims. Further, they implied that it was perfectly obvious to everyone that they were innocent, and if there is one thing that can be said confidently, it is that it was not obvious to anyone at the time (much less now) that they were innocent. The only real "evidence" to bolster this whole line of argument is the testimony of Wynkoop and his supporters (Soule didn't have to testify in every case: he chaired the military tribunal that examined Chivington, and basically prevented him from mounting an effective defense). There is no physical evidence to corroborate their testimony; their credibility is the only ground on which the argument stands. You might say they had the advantage of the "appearance of credibility." There was no obvious reason why a white soldier would take up the cause of the Indians; thus it has been easy to assume that the only thing that could induce Wynkoop to break with Chivington and the local military establishment was his devotion to the truth. But in fact there was a powerful self-serving motive for Wynkoop's testimony in defense of the Indians. Wynkoop was abruptly relieved of command for an excessively lax attitude toward these very Arapahos and Cheyenne. It cannot be imagined that he took it well when he was removed, much less that he agreed with the assessment of General Curtis that his conduct had been reckless. Wynkoop's military fortunes were thus tied to the long-term perception of the military and the public of his actions: as long as it appeared the Arapaho and Cheyenne he had treated so laxly were hostile Indians, he appeared to be an irresponsible officer more than deserving of the censure delivered upon his removal; but as soon as someone concluded that those groups of Indians were innocent all along, Wynkoop would emerge as a moral hero for championing their cause when it was risky (that is, when most regarded them as a serious threat). There was, therefore, a great personal incentive for Wynkoop to make out the event at Sand Creek to have been an unjustified massacre, and a similar incentive to his supporters Soule and Cramer (and others) to bolster that perception. It is not impossible to believe that Wynkoop and his supporters convinced themselves the Indians in question were innocent, but it is almost certain that they could not demonstrate their innocence, since they appear to have made up stories in their attempt to win the argument. There is, in fact, fairly plain evidence that Wynkoop perjured himself in the attempt to win the argument and permanently smear Chivington. Wynkoop's Insubordination, and Perjured Testimony In early September Black Kettle had sent a letter to Wynkoop asking him to come and have a meeting with the chiefs of several gathered Cheyenne and Arapaho bands. He agreed with reluctance and over the objections of many of his subordinates, who thought it likely to be a trap. He marched with 120 soldiers and two artillery pieces into the teeth of a heavily armed gathering of at least five times as many warriors. The Indians' behavior was consistently aggressive and threatening, and Wynkoop's men later indicated that at many points they feared they were all going to be killed. In his testimony during the "Post Sand Creek Period", Wynkoop denied that he ever perceived a threat on that occasion, or that any of his men ever indicated they perceived a threat. He cannot have been telling the truth when he said that, and the motive to lie is obvious: he was being cross-examined about his claim that the bands of Cheyenne and Arapaho at Sand Creek were peaceful. If he admitted that those same bands gathered with some others at another point had acted toward his men in a very threatening and belligerent manner, only barely restrained from an open attack at one point, that would put the lie to the notion that these were innocent, friendly, peaceful Indians, and would further demonstrate that his own behavior toward them was irresponsible and thus that he had rightfully been relieved of his command. It is clear that Wynkoop was willing to lie to avoid making it easy for anyone to draw that conclusion. Wynkoop's credibility is thus shattered, rendering his testimony no more powerful than Chivington's. The Indians themselves suffered from a credibility gap as well: the "peace chiefs" like Black Kettle and Left Hand admitted they could not control the Dog Soldiers who lived among them, so they could neither be accountable nor demand accountability for the actions or guarantee the truthfulness of those who were undeniably committing acts of terror. The chiefs' knowledge of events they did not witness was based on word of mouth, hardly a reliable means of transmitting information. Elements of stories friendly to the speaker's point of view tend to receive added emphasis, while those parts more embarrassing are minimized or eliminated. When caught with stolen property, Indians made up transparent excuses, claiming that they had found the "lost" livestock and were simply trying to return them when the pursuers came along. Furthermore, it was reported by whites sympathetic to the Indians that Roman Nose, leader of the Dog Soldiers, had issued demands that all Cheyenne and Arapaho join them in open war against the whites, and instructed them, if they were too weak to attack now, to pretend to be friendly until such a time as they could find the wherewithal to make a surprise attack. During a conference at Denver, Bull Bear, a leader of a group of Dog Soldiers, said "I have never harmed a white man.... I am always going to be friendly to the whites." Later in the conference Black Kettle said that he could not easily deliver up three white captives because they were being held by Bull Bear's band. These contradictory statements guarantee that either Bull Bear or Black Kettle was lying: if Bull Bear's band had white captives, he was harming them and his statements were lies; if not, the "peace chief" Black Kettle was lying, perhaps because he wanted to keep the captives for future leverage. All of this diminished the credibility of the Indians when they made overtures of peace at a time of year when Indians traditionally retired from warfare until such a time as the weather improved again enough to make it practical to resume. What we are left with, then, is the competing and mutually exclusive testimony of three groups with incentives to distort the truth in service to their own ends: Chivington's side with their political motives, Wynkoop's with their social motives, and Indians fighting an enemy they could not hope to defeat with conventional warfare. But there is a fourth group that might be more reliable than any of the above: U.S. Army soldiers, unlike the Indians, were not under any official orders to be deceitful, and much less were the soldiers out scouting for stolen stock in April under orders to attack Indians on sight. They were expected to follow the letter of their orders and make accurate reports. Unlike the "peace chiefs", who could not control their warriors, the military authorities had practical control over the actions and movements of their subordinates. It is therefore unlikely that in April and May various troops of soldiers were out killing Indians willy-nilly and then filing false reports (many of the soldiers were under Wynkoop's command at the time, and he filed reports consistent with what the soldiers were saying, so if he ever came to believe soldiers were routinely lying he came to that conclusion only long after the fact, when it served his personal interests). But this had to be the case if the Indian point of view was to be believed: the Indians said the whites, unprovoked, started all the killing. It thus appears that the Indians had inaccurate information about the events that precipitated the conflict. They certainly overreacted, since the retribution for a few skirmishes between soldiers and warriors, and the destruction of Indian villages (with no people present) where stolen property was found, justified in the Dog Soldiers' minds the rape, torture, and execution of women, and the brutal torture, killing, and mutilation of babies. They were attacking opportunistically, having waited until most Federal troops were away fighting Rebels. They were suspected of being influenced and encouraged by Rebel agents, and at least one group was seen using Confederate tactics. The groups under control of the "peace chiefs" were under orders from the militants to attack whenever they could, on pain of death, and otherwise to pretend peacefulness. They had manifestly lied in conference in Denver. All this would make it foolhardy to take their word when those who claimed to have no control over the warriors came and said they intended to make peace. White suspicions that they were simply hoping to weather the winter with aid from the BIA and then, in the spring, reevaluate their prospects for joining the ongoing war, were entirely justified. It is high time that the received version of these events be discredited, once and for all. It rests on the most doubtful testimony from the time period in question, and none of that testimony can be corroborated. The least we can expect is that it be made clear that we do not know that the Cheyenne and Arapaho at Sand Creek were innocent, that we do not know that Chivington disobeyed any orders by his conduct, that we do not know whether Chivington encouraged any atrocities in that event, and so on. In fact, as I intend to argue in a future installment of this series, it appears more likely that the opposite of each of these and other claims is actually true. It is not politically correct to point it out, I realize. But the truth is the truth. Modified: 08/21/2004 |
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