American West: 1861-76

Lesson 3: Massacres, Military Leaders, Indian Retaliations, & More Gold

The Sand Creek Massacre Congressional Inquest

When Black Kettle’s Sand Creek camp was attacked, and the absence of many of his warriors was realized, many whites believed they were raiding with the Sioux. If not, it became true as the ragged remnant of Black Kettle’s band hurried northward to the Sioux with their horrible tales of murder and destruction.

The atrocities the Cheyenne related were surely similar to eyewitness reports made when Congress investigated the matter. Evan S. Connell’s account in Son of the Morning Star, pages 176-180, relates the words of many witnesses. One soldier said the bodies of some children “had been slashed with some sharp instrument.” Another child’s ears were gone. One trooper had a “squaw’s heart on a stick.” An officer scalped three women and five children who had been captured alive.

Robert Bent, a half-breed, saw a pregnant woman sliced open. The fetus lay at her side. A group of women hid by the river. They sent out a little girl with a white flag. The child took only a few steps before a soldier "cut her down.” Another child, about three years old, was used for target practice until he dropped.

The reports of the slaughter when on and on. When Bent saw the body of White Antelope the chief lay with his “privates cut off.” Bent heard a soldier brag that “he was going to make a tobacco pouch out of them.”

Lieutenant James Conner testified that every Indian corpse, no matter the age or sex, had been scalped. He also heard of several instances where men had cut off the private parts of females. They had stretched them over their saddlebows or wore them over their hats.

The other side also had its say. Surgeon Burdsal testified that while tending wounded soldiers in an Indian lodge a trooper showed him some Caucasian scalps. They were blonde and sandy brown. None of them were black. Some of them were no more than ten days from off the head of the owners. “The skin and flesh attached to the hair appeared to be yet quite moist.”

William Breakenridge

William Breakenridge, later of Tombstone fame, saw lots of scalps of white people. Even Chivington talked about a white scalp he saw. It was never produced but as the telling of it increased in Denver so did the number of scalps increase from this one example.

Helen Hunt Jackson

Helen Hunt Jackson reported that Cheyenne scalps were displayed at the Apollo Theater after the troops returned to Denver. Elizabeth Tallman, who was in Denver then, said that everyone living there was in a constant state of fear. Almost daily, the mutilated bodies of friends were brought in.

Montana Congressman James Cavanaugh spoke for many when he said:

“I have never seen in my life a good Indian . . . except when I have seen a dead Indian.”

General Sheridan echoed Cavanaugh’s statement.

Chivington, who thought he’d killed Black Kettle but was wrong, was mustered out of the army. He was acclaimed a hero by his fellow citizens.

The sources for this section are:

Connell, Evan S. Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn. North Point Press, San Francisco, California, 1984.

Utley, Robert M. The Indian Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. 1984.

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