From Sand Creek to Medicine Lodge

The Native Americans of the Great Plains and the white US Government were often not on good terms. They have a lot of little disagreements which that sometimes lead to conflict. One of those incidents was the Sand Creek Massacre. The Sand Creek Massacre took place in Colorado on November 29, 1864.

On the morning before on November 28, the cheyenne in colorado were told that the white men would not attack on them and said they understood they didn’t want to fight. The next day they would see that the white men lied. On November 29, a group called “Colorado volunteers” surrounded Sand Creek, as they did that the natives raised an American flag as a sign of friendliness, white commander Colonel John Chivington ignored it and went into battle. 700 white men and 200 natives, including women and children were present at sand creek. White men only had 24 killed, 52 wounded, but the natives had 163 killed out of a total of 200. Little Bear, a Cheyenne Native said, “As I ran by Black Kettle’s lodge there was flag tied to lodge pole and was holding it…bullets were hitting all around me and bullets were hitting the lodges like hard storm…Indians were running north of the camp. Soldiers came due south of village…On way up, the feathers of my war bonnet were shot away and my shield was shot several times, but I didn’t get hit. As I was running by I seen lots of women and children that had been killed…”

According to Britannica.com, afterwards the surviving natives spread the word about what happened at Sand Creek. People realized the white men can’t be trusted so they stopped making deals or trading with them. The natives avoided making land deals as much as possible because they didn’t want another Sand Creek. Then the white men started worrying that the natives would just take land so they tried creating a treaty and where they could live.

The U.S. Government intended to bring peace to the area by relocating the Native Americans to reservations in Indian Territory, and away from European-American settlement, by creating the Medicine Lodge Treaty. The Kiowa, the Comanche, the Kiowa-Apache, the Arapaho, and the Cheyenne all signed the treaty but not all of the tribes. People kept splitting away from their tribes not wanting to give into the the white government. Some tribes didn’t sign the treaty at all so they were tracked down and were forcefully moved or were killed. The natives thought that the white men just wanted to kill them by getting them all together so people ran.

In all, the treaty did not work. The natives didn’t want to make deals, but some did. Some wanted to live in peace and to not be hunted down so they did the treaty with the white men, instead of being forced to. Even though they did sign the treaty, what happened at Sand Creek always remained fresh in their memories.