By Mike Bowen, co-author, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site
George Bent is the only known person on the Cheyenne side that wrote about Sand Creek—the Indians use oral history and information passed down over 160 years can and has changed. See our blog about oral history here: OralHistory.
Nearly 40 years after Sand Creek, while working as an Indian agent in Colony, Oklahoma, Bent wrote letters to historians, answering their questions about his time in Black Kettle’s village and his Cheyenne life as a Dog Soldier (warrior). He fought as a Confederate in four Civil War battles and after his capture at the Battle of Corinth, he was released, sent back to Colorado Territory and he then joined the Cheyenne. He was half Cheyenne.
His handwritten letters were transcribed at Yale University and we’ve compared some of the handwritten ones to the typed versions. They were accurately transcribed, and a few things can be learned from his letters: he had terrific penmanship but a limited vocabulary.
Geo Bent
Colony Okla
March 15, 1905”
When Chuck and Sheri Bowen set out to discover the real location of Black Kettle’s village and Sand Creek battle areas, they didn’t have access to Bent’s letters at the time, so they read the book, The Life of George Bent. It has since been learned that book is a loose paraphrase of Bent’s letters and not written by him.
Chuck has over 400 pages of Bent’s letters in his archives. We have taken direct quotes from the book and searched them in the digital versions of his letters and haven’t found a single match. The book lacks citations to his letters, and only one citation is attributed to his letters, which is about Bent’s Fort. There isn’t a single citation to his letters in the chapter on Sand Creek.
It’s imperative to get information directly from the source.
A source for the book’s manuscript was historian George Hyde. During correspondence, Bent told him, “What ever I write of course you can fix it in the book to suit yourself as you know how to do it better” (Bent to Hyde, 2-20-1905). It’s likely Hyde took liberties with what Bent told him about Sand Creek and his time as a Cheyenne Dog Soldier.
The book has issues with the manuscript, with one copy found in an attic in rough condition and another being found in the Denver Public Library. According to the description inside the book, the manuscript at the Denver Public Library was the one used, which was reportedly offered to the library by Hyde through a book and manuscript dealer after he was unable to initially get it published. The book was also published about 50 years after Bent died, so he had no involvement in the publication or verification of the manuscript. He gave Hyde permission to say what he wanted, not knowing how it would affect history.
It’s a misconception people have that Bent wrote that book, but he didn’t write it or any other book—he wrote letters to historians.
On page 159, it states: “This Sand Creek Massacre was the worst blow ever struck at any tribe in the whole plains region, and this blow fell upon friendly Indians.” No citation is given, and it was likely written by Hyde but is presented in first person, like it was written by Bent—this is similar to what is called the George Bent map but was actually made by Hyde. Read about this in our book.
If you believe Bent actually said what we’ve quoted above, please provide the date and copy of the letter of him making that claim.
Changes to the book could have also been made by the editor, Savoie Lottinville, so it’s unclear how much of what Hyde wrote was kept in tact.
The works cited at the end of the alleged Bent book does include the “George Bent letters, William Robertson Coe Collection, Yale University Library.” However, the only reference found cited to that collection was about Bent’s Fort on page 61. The Sand Creek chapter contains no citations to Bent’s letters. The reference to Bent’s Fort did not include a date for the letter.
“The hostiles were camped on the Smoky Hill and Republican (rivers),” as further stated on page 159, The Life of George Bent.
As stated above, Chuck Bowen has over 400 pages of Bent’s letters in his archives, and Bent doesn’t make a single claim that it was friendly Indians at Sand Creek and the hostile ones were on the Smoky Hill, Republican or anywhere else. He makes multiple references to camping with Cheyenne on the Smoky Hill and Republican at various times when he and other warriors were raiding wagon trains and attacking settlers. He was with the hostile Indians when they camped at those rivers.
The implication with claiming the Indians at Sand Creek were friendly is that there weren’t any warriors there.
Bent actually wrote about other warriors at Sand Creek, including Little Bear, and he said that while they dug into the rifle pits, “men (warriors) fought off the soldiers” (Bent to Hyde, 4-30-1913). In the handwritten letter sample, Bent says there were more Cheyenne camped by the Smoky Hill River and some Dog Soldiers at the Solomon but never says hostile Indians were not at Sand Creek.
Fifty years is a lot of time for information to change, especially since Bent was no longer living when the book was published. For our Sand Creek research, we only take information from eyewitnesses and period documents such as 1860s newspapers.
When information is taken from sources removed from the eyewitness, such as George Bent, the information cannot be verified, especially since the book doesn’t cite his letters.
History can become muddy and convoluted—and false information ends up getting passed down over time.
With Sand Creek, for example, we can compare accounts from eyewitnesses and what they said about the event to the locations we found artifacts. Someone claiming there was much action or fighting in the village doesn’t line up with artifacts that clearly show very little fighting in the village. Most eyewitnesses describe a running battle that extended near and along the creek for over three miles, which lines up with Bowen’s discovery of the real location of Black Kettle’s village and running battle areas.
The artifacts are the one piece of tangible evidence that either debunks or corroborates claims about the 1864 battle.
It was best for us to tell the story of the artifacts and the Lost Sand Creek Site discovery in a book, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site.
Learn about the discovery and the truth it tells about Sand Creek. It seems the physical evidence is what gets ignored and the massacre claim is generally accepted without any physical evidence to substantiate it. No physical evidence has ever been found below the bluff at the alleged massacre location at the NPS Sand Creek site.
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