By Mike Bowen, co-author, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site
What did soldiers, including Silas Soule, say about the location of Black Kettle’s village at Sand Creek?
According to their accounts and testimonies, the alleged village location at the National Park Service Sand Creek site is not correct—their descriptions don’t fit the landscape there.
“What is the general course of Sand Creek at the point Black Kettle was encamped?” the commission said.
“I think it was about northeast and southwest; the creek takes a bend there where the battle-ground was,” Silas Soule testified (Report on the Conduct of the War, 38 Congress, 2nd session, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1865). He further said the village was on the north bank, and the banks at that part of the creek are about two to five feet high.
On our map, you can see the creek at the NPS site runs north and south, it does not run in a northeasterly direction.
On the same map, you can see where the creek angles and makes a turn in a northeast and southwest direction—Soule’s account lines up with the creek making that bend. His account is also verified by Chuck Bowen’s discovery of artifacts in that area on the Bowen ranch.
“On which bank of the creek was the Indian village?” the commission said.
“On the north bank,” Second Lt. Joseph Cramer testified (Report on the Conduct of the War, 38 Congress, 2nd session, Washington, Government Printing Office, 1865).
There is not a north bank at the NPS Sand Creek site.
There is not physical evidence at the NPS Sand Creek site.
There is a north bank at the Lost Sand Creek Site.
There is a lot of physical evidence at the Lost Sand Creek Site.
According to Second Lt. Cramer, the village was located on the north bank of Sand Creek. As stated above, there isn’t a north bank at the NPS site, and there aren’t any period artifacts there. However, on the Bowen family ranch, which starts nearly two miles up the creek from the NPS’ alleged site, Chuck Bowen found thousands of village artifacts—this discovery site is known as the Lost Sand Creek Site. Bowen discovered multiple tipi sites, covering a distance of over three miles.
The area below the NPS bluff is also too low to match the descriptions of the banks.
There aren’t any testimonies claiming the Indians camped below or near a bluff, but there are testimonies saying the Indians were camped on the north bank and that the creek was heading northeast and southwest—the creek runs directly north and south at the NPS site.
Other soldiers provided details on the village location:
“We only saw a few of the lodges at first, and I remember that some of the boys cussed at coming so far for just a few Indians. Then we rounded the point, and there they were—stretched out on the flat ground on the other side of the creek—136 lodges in all. Then we knew we were up against a fight. One hundred and thirty-six lodges can hold a lot of Indians” Lant Williams said (Van Loan, C.E. “Veterans of 1864 Revisit Scene of Indian Battle on the Banks of Sand Creek, Colo.” Denver Post. July 26, 1908). Lant was one of the four veteran soldiers that attempted to mark the battleground in 1908. Read about their conclusions in our book, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site.
Marking the village location on the map are twelve dots—the bottom three dots represent part of the small seven lodge Arapaho camp. At that third dot is where the creek bends. This would have been the point the soldiers rounded and then saw the larger part of Black Kettle’s village.
“At daylight in the morning the command was forty miles away from the fort. Just as the sun came up the command reached the top of a ridge overlooking the valley of the Big Sandy, from which point a large Indian village could be seen scattered along the north bank of the stream about three miles away,” Irving Howbert said (Howbert, Irving, El Paso County Pioneers, The El Paso County Democrat, December 1908).
According to Howbert’s account, there’s only one ridge that fits, which is the bluff at the NPS site. The bluff is still important—it’s just not the location of the village, it’s the location the soldiers first viewed the village nearly two miles up the creek.
There isn’t any verifiable evidence that any Indians were camped below or near the bluff. The village artifacts Bowen discovered leave no doubt that Black Kettle’s village was located further up the creek, starting nearly two miles to the north, and extending for about three miles.
It’s not a coincidence that soldier testimony from 1865 and Bowen’s artifact discovery in the late ‘90s corroborate each other. The soldiers clearly described an area that matches where Bowen found village artifacts.
One things is certain—artifacts do not lie. They are the one piece of evidence that tells us what happened and where it happened. Bowen also found thousands of battle artifacts at the Lost Sand Creek Site.
Read more about this discovery and the truth about Sand Creek in our book, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site. The book features over 100 photos of village and battle artifacts as well as maps describing where Bowen discovered period artifacts at the Lost Sand Creek Site.
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