By Mike Bowen, co-author, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site
Some have claimed the Sand Creek oral history account is what’s accurate concerning the event. What many may not know is there isn’t a singular oral history account—there are many oral history claims.
Information needs to be documented—it’s nearly impossible to keep information the same when it’s passed from one person to another and from one generation to the next.
The oral history accounts for Black Kettle had major discrepancies. The claims on where the village was located are even more divided.
We documented some of those oral history accounts in our book, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site. It’s not information we heard and wrote down ourselves—the information comes directly from the National Park Service Sand Creek site location study, published in 2000. An NPS employee interviewed people who claimed they were descendants of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians at Sand Creek to document their oral history accounts.
From our book, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site:
‘The National Park Service opened its Sand Creek site in 2007. They used three methods for establishing it—oral histories, tribal methods, and the George Bent map.
I’m not a fan of oral histories, because they are constantly changing. Take the game Telephone—one person tells a story, and that person tells it to the next in line, and then to the next until it gets to the last person. The story can become unrecognizable after ten minutes. It’s easy to understand how much an oral history can change after 150 years. When information changes hands, information changes.
Some of the oral histories said Indians were hiding in rock caves along Sand Creek. Small problem, there aren’t any rock caves along Sand Creek. There are no rocks at all, it’s all sand. Others said babies were hidden in the big cottonwood trees. The eyewitnesses said there weren’t any big cottonwood trees, maybe some small ones. George Bent didn’t mention trees at all. Some said the Indian village was near Estes Park, in Rocky Mountain National Park, while others placed it north of Kit Carson. These two locations are over 200 miles apart. At least Kit Carson was close…only about twenty miles from the real site. Oral histories lack in detail and sometimes contradict’…
See the full account in chapter eleven of our book, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site, including claims there were multiple Black Kettles.
Don’t ever just trust—verify first.
Unfortunately, many have believed without verifying. The one thing that cannot lie is the artifacts, and Chuck Bowen, with the assistance of his wife Sheri, has discovered over 4,000 village and battle artifacts at the Lost Sand Creek Site on the Bowen family ranch. This isn’t a secondary or extended battle area—what Bowen discovered is the village site and running battle areas that started on the opposite side of the creek from the village. This massive discovery starts nearly two miles up the creek from the alleged location at the NPS site. NPS Sand Creek leadership including a historian and archaeologists have visited the Bowens’ home and identified hundreds of Chuck’s artifacts. Those visits were documented with a VHS camcorder, and the video tapes have been digitized. Bowen’s artifacts were also documented with a photo and the GPS coordinates.
Bowen’s discovery is truly a preponderance of evidence.
No period artifacts have ever been found at the alleged massacre location at the NPS Sand Creek site—they found a small area with some artifacts over a mile up the creek from their alleged site in May of ‘99. Read about their search in chapter seven of our book.
One of the claims with the Sand Creek event is the Indians’ arms weren’t returned when they left Fort Lyon. “They were given back only their bows and arrows,” Laird Cometsevah said, who is referenced by the NPS as a Cheyenne Chief and a grandson of Cheyenne Indians at Sand Creek (National Park Service Sand Creek Site Location Project, page 223, 2000). He said none of their other weapons were returned.
Captain Silas Soule said otherwise.
Many who believe the massacre claim say that Captain Soule, a soldier at Sand Creek, is a hero for refusing to fight and even testifying that he refused to fight. However, Soule never testified that he refused to fight—he testified about his concern for crossfire (Report on the Conduct of the War, 38 Congress, 2nd session, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1865). He also testified that he went back to Sand Creek with a group the next month, December 1864 and saw 69 dead Indians (Report on the Conduct of the War, 38 Congress, 2nd session, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1865). None of us were there—he was there, and the claim that he testified he refused to fight is a myth.
He said he pulled his men back because it was a dangerous position for them to be in due to the possibility of crossfire from fellow soldiers. Under oath, Soule was asked if the Indians’ armed were returned after they left Fort Lyon.
“They were returned by me…about the middle of November,” Soule said (Report on the Conduct of the War, 38 Congress, 2nd session, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1865). Soule also testified the warriors didn’t turn in any arms and didn’t even stop at Fort Lyon (Report on the Conduct of the War, 38 Congress, 2nd session, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1865). See our blog here: IndiansArmed.
According to Soule, the Indians’ arms were returned, thus, they were armed at Sand Creek.
Cometsevah said Little Bear saw the soldiers appear like a snake, coming from the south. The area the Indians are alleged to have camped is below the bluff at the NPS site. However, the bluff blocks the view to the south so the Indians could not have seen the soldiers from that vantage point.
He further said, “the women, children and elders ran toward the bluff on the west end of the encampment” (National Park Service Sand Creek Site Location Project, page 223, 2000). Interestingly, no period artifacts have ever been found there, and that area has been meticulously searched by skilled archaeologists as early as the 80s. Read about Fred Werner in chapter three of our book. The area would have been littered with bullets and they would need to be found with a metal detector. Bowen found hundreds of fired and unfired bullets on the Bowen ranch, all buried about 2-3 inches deep.
We get a lot of information from George Bent, William Bent’s son. George was half Cheyenne and was born at Bent’s Fort in 1843. While William built his new fort, he sent George to Westport, Missouri in 1853 for his schooling for four years, which later continued in St. Louis. While he was there, the Civil War started. Missouri was a border state which allowed men to choose to fight for either the Confederacy or the Union. Bent likely chose to fight for the Confederacy since the Bent family near St. Louis had been slave owners. He fought in four Civil War battles, witnessing thousands killed and over 20,000 engaged in those battles. George learned about rifle pits in the war—he was at Sand Creek for three days, likely helping the Indians dig the pits. About forty years after Sand Creek, historians wrote letters to Bent, asking about his Cheyenne life and time as a Dog Soldier, including at Sand Creek. We have over 400 pages of his letters in our archives. He wrote about the rifle pits in a letter to historian George Hyde and said one of the pits was big enough for 19 people to get into (Bent to Hyde 4-30-1913).
Bent shared Little Bear’s account in a letter to Hyde. Little Bear got up very early the morning of November 29, 1864 and crossed the creek and went on a hill to get his horse—he looked south toward the lodgepole trail and saw the soldiers way off in the distance on the horizon. Little Bear said the soldiers looked like a “long black line” (Bent to Hyde 4-14-1906). For soldiers on a horse to appear as a long black line, they would have to be several miles away. The area below the bluff simply doesn’t work as it blocks the view to the south, plus no period artifacts have been found there. There aren’t any hills across the creek at the NPS site. Little Bear’s account fits a location on the Bowen ranch. Chuck found the hill Little Bear was likely on. Read about this in our book.
Laird Cometsevah also said, “George Bent went on up further north. Just a little distance up north from the bluff where the women and children dug what they call sandpits or rifle pits” (National Park Service Sand Creek Site Location Project, page 223, 2000). This is why it’s important to write things down and document it. George Bent actually said, “Women & children ran up bed of Sand Creek about 2 ½ miles and dug pits under bank in sand. Women and children dug the pits while men fought off the soldiers until the pits were ready to get into. Sand was very soft to dig into” (Bent to Hyde 4-30-1913).
It’s important to understand that Bent said they ran 2 ½ miles up the creek. The oral history claims are trying to force a location to fit a narrative. The bend at the NPS site is only about ½ of a mile long and Bent said their villages were 2-3 miles long (Bent to Hyde 5-3-1906). Not only is the village way too big to fit the NPS site, the rifle pits don’t fit the NPS site either. The distances debunk the NPS site and there is no soft sand to dig, as George Bent described.
Bowen’s artifact discovery shows the real village site starts nearly two miles up the creek from the NPS bluff. George Bent’s account of running 2 ½ miles up the creek from the village places the rifle pits about five miles up the creek from the bluff.
Other oral history claims come from Joe Big Medicine. He said that elders told him there was a small forest near Sand Creek where young boys would hunt for rabbits (National Park Service Sand Creek Site Location Project, page 222, 2000). If you aren’t familiar with the lay of the land, you would likely believe what he said and think nothing of it. There’s little doubt Indian boys hunted rabbits. However, there is no forest nearby. The closest forest is the Black Forest near Colorado Springs, 113 miles away.
He further said, “My mother, Imogene Black Bear, talked about Sand Creek. One strong statement she made was that you white people will pay for what you did to my grandfathers” (National Park Service Sand Creek Site Location Project, page 222, 2000). Not only is this defamatory, George Bent even called it a fight and a battle (Bent to Tappan 4-16-1889, Bent to Hyde, 1-12-1906).
There are many other oral history accounts that spread inaccurate information about the lay of the land and the Sand Creek event. You can read more in chapter eleven of our book.
Chuck Bowen grew up on Sand Creek, it was his backyard. He has spent over 70 years on that part of the creek—no one else knows the lay of the land better than him. Most Sand Creek artifacts blend into the ground and would be nearly impossible to find without a metal detector. Chuck only found a few artifacts on the surface—most were buried about 2-3 inches deep. The idea that artifacts were picked up by scavengers over the years is easily debunked. See the blog and video about that here: ArtifactDemonstration.
If you were to play the telephone game and give a phrase to someone to pass on to the next person in line, by the time it gets to the final person, the information is barely recognizable. That’s only over the course of a few minutes. Imagine information being passed down since 1864 and it’s easy to see how much the information can change.
The oral history with Sand Creek has been changing for 161 years.
When information changes hands, information changes.
The documented account of Irving Howbert, who said Sand Creek was a running battle, is verified by our discovery.
“The fight soon became general all up and down Sand Creek valley, the Indians constantly firing from their places of defense along the stream and a continuous fusillade being kept up by the soldiers, shooting at every Indian that came within range of their guns” Howbert said (Howbert, Irving, Memories of a Lifetime In the Pike’s Peak Region, page 125).
Howbert’s account lines up with Bowen’s artifact discovery—it’s not a small area where he found artifacts. The battle areas extend along and near the creek for well over three miles and start on the opposite side of the creek from the village.
The village site and running battle areas are different locations.
See maps and photos in our book.
The oral history accounts are somehow allowed to claim what they think happened and where they believe events took place, even though there’s no physical evidence to support it. The physical evidence Chuck found not only verifies the real village location at the Lost Sand Creek Site, it verifies Howbert’s running battle account.
Many will accept oral history claims since they believe the claims at the hearings and consider them official investigations. There are a lot of issues with the hearings. They were led by Lt. Colonel Sam Tappan, who was known as Colonel Chivington’s enemy. Chivington was denied witnesses in the hearings at Denver. Most that testified in the three hearings weren’t at Sand Creek. There was never a trial. There are also false claims about soldier testimonies. It’s been claimed that Captain Silas Soule testified under oath that he refused to fight. He didn’t testify to anything like that—he testified about his concern for crossfire, and that’s why he pulled his men back during the battle. See the information about the hearings after chapter 14 in our book.
The similarities between the Sand Creek hearings and the January 6 commission investigation are uncanny. The only reason someone wouldn’t be allowed to call his own witnesses to testify would be to stack the deck against him. If you believe the J6 commission findings are bogus, you should see the same thing with Sand Creek.
There was never a trial.
If Sand Creek was an unjust attack as it’s claimed, a trial would have been a slam dunk. As already stated, there was never a trial. The hearings were all about the court of public opinion.
If you believe the massacre claim, show the GPS coordinates and pictures of the artifacts from the alleged location.
We are about truth.
Check out the information for yourself and read our book.
Bowens were promised credit for their discovery, including telling their discovery and the running battle account along with the Indian story at the proposed NPS visitor center. Instead they’ve have been lied about, thrown under the bus and their discovery has been minimized. Don’t allow others to tell you falsehoods. Check out all of the information and then come to a logical conclusion based on the discovery of over 4,000 battle and village artifacts and eyewitness accounts.
We must not lose the ability to use critical thinking.
Learn the truth. The best way for us to tell that story was in a book. Get a copy here: WeFoundTheLostSandCreekSite.
Truth matters. Truth wins.
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