By Mike Bowen, co-author, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site
Finding the real location of Black Kettle’s village and Sand Creek battle areas felt like an overwhelming project for Chuck Bowen.
Chuck was contacted by an independent archaeologist in ‘93 who believed the Sand Creek Battle Ground monument was marking the wrong location—the archaeologist thought it was a different bend. The belief was the Cheyenne and Arapaho were camped on the bend furthest to the south.
One big red flag for Chuck and his wife Sheri was the fact that no period artifacts had been found at the alleged massacre location at what is now the National Park Service Sand Creek site—it seemed odd a monument was placed in 1950 without verifying the location. That location had just been accepted.
The Bowens decided in ‘95 the monument site was incorrect and the real location may be further up the creek on the Bowen ranch. They decided to conduct their own search. Chuck purchased a metal detector and their plan included getting any clues they could about land descriptions. It was imperative to get clues from eyewitnesses and not from secondhand sources. They scoured eyewitness accounts and took copious notes about any land detail.
Chuck grew up on that part of Sand Creek, so he knew every hill, trail, and bend like the back of his hand. Any time they would find a land description, he knew the area and documented it. This would provide a starting point for where to search for artifacts with his metal detector on the family cattle ranch.
The Bowen family ranch has seven miles of Sand Creek going through it, with creek banks as much as 200 yards wide. It’s a large area, and searching that much land with a metal detector coil the size of a dinner plate—it was a colossal undertaking.
It was long believed the Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians were camped on a bend on the creek. This is due to a quote from Colonel Chivington about the location and a map some claim was made by George Bent that depicts the Indians camped on a bend that matches the one at the National Park Service Sand Creek site.
“Colonel Chivington described the area as, ‘a place known as Big Bend of the Sandy’ and said the fight took place on the ‘south branch’ of the Big Sandy,” (We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site, page 23). (Report of The Secretary of War, 39th Congress. 2nd Session Special Orders No. 23, page 195; Dunn, I Stand By Sand Creek, page 92).
Historian George Hyde wrote letters to George Bent about 40 years after Sand Creek, while Bent was working as an Indian agent in Colony, OK, asking about Bent’s time at Sand Creek and Cheyenne life. Hyde often asked Bent to complete maps for him, including Sand Creek. Bent would get information from the older Indians at the agency to fill in the missing details. It was actually Hyde’s map with Bent filling in missing information.
Hyde had copied the bend from the 1894 U.S.G.S. topo map, believing it was the bend furthest to the south, as he believed that’s what Chivington meant. Bent told Hyde the Cheyenne villages were 2-3 miles long (Bent to Hyde, 5-3-1906), and the bend Hyde copied is only about ¼ mile long. There’s no legend on the map, so when Bent filled in missing information, he had no idea the area on the map wasn’t big enough to fit the village.
The bend at the NPS Sand Creek site matches the bend on the Hyde/Bent map as it’s the bend furthest to the south. The ¼ mile bend at the NPS site is much too small for the village that was actually 2-3 miles long. Tipis would have been placed near small pools of water and there would also be room for a favorite horse to be tethered which would require additional space.
Bowen learned in the mid 90s that Colonel Chivington meant something very different when he described the location of the village. What was the meaning? Read about this in chapter five of our book, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site. What he learned was invaluable to the discovery of the Lost Sand Creek Site.
Bowen had been finding hundreds of Sand Creek artifacts on his family’s cattle ranch, items used in battle and items used by the Indians. These artifacts are undeniable and could only be from the 1864 battle and Black Kettle’s village. The number of artifacts soon grew from the hundreds to over 4,000.
Finding Sand Creek artifacts was a lifetime of work—Bowen has spent over 70 years on that part of Sand Creek. Anyone else reading the same eyewitness land descriptions without having the knowledge of the lay of the land would not be able to formulate a plan of where to begin searching for artifacts. The land descriptions were crystal clear the first time Chuck read them.
Reading eyewitness accounts also provided the Bowens the understanding of different events and locations at Sand Creek such as the rifle pit area, village area and running battle locations. He knew if he found one area, another area would be either up or down the creek.
To get an understanding of the types of artifacts he should find in Black Kettle’s village site, Bowen used the request for goods list of items given to the Indians at Sand Creek. See that list in chapter seven of our book.
“I began to find a significant number of artifacts. Precisely where the square nails were, I found items on the request for goods list, including…” Chuck Bowen said (We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site, page 80). Check out chapter seven to see which artifacts on the list he was finding.
It was like putting together one giant small-piece puzzle or eating an elephant, taking one bite at a time. Each dig uncovered another piece of history.
Chuck would go to the ranch, feed his cattle and search for artifacts—he would come home with buckets of artifacts everyday. It was like Christmas morning each day, as he continually found the historical treasures.
Bowen is the Sand Creek expert.
Chuck has discovered over 4,000 battle and village artifacts, each documented with the GPS coordinates and a photo. Each artifact was also its own dig. Some were found close together, but he’s made over 4,000 digs. He has spent over 50 years studying Sand Creek and over 30 years searching for and finding village and battle artifacts.
One of the false beliefs is that the artifacts were picked up over the years by scavengers, and that’s why no period artifacts have been found below the NPS bluff, where they allege the Cheyenne and Arapaho were camped and attacked by soldiers. It’s also been falsely claimed what Bowen found was a secondary skirmish area. Both of those claims are easily debunked. He didn’t find an extended fight area—he found the village site and running battle locations, based on the 4,000+ artifacts he found and accounts from eyewitnesses including Irving Howbert and Morse Coffin.
From our book, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site:
Irving Howbert
‘The engagement later extended up this creek for three or four miles from the Indian encampment’ (Howbert, Irving, Memories of a Lifetime In the Pike’s Peak Region, page 124). ‘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, Irving, Memories of a Lifetime In the Pike’s Peak Region, page 125) ‘By this time most of them had burrowed into the soft sand of the banks, which formed a comparatively safe place of defense, and from which they could shoot at the white’s with a minimum of exposure…Our men were posted in a little depression just back from the north bank’ (ibid).
Scavengers didn’t pick up the artifacts over the years—the NPS Sand Creek site is simply the wrong location.
As far as Bowen finding a secondary skirmish area: The idea that any Indians on foot outran soldiers on horseback for over two miles up the creek from the bluff or anywhere else is easily debunked.
Bowen’s artifacts were found with a metal detector—most of them were buried about 2-3 inches deep. They are also items that couldn’t be found with the naked eye, even if they were on the surface—they would blend into the ground. Some artifacts, such as the percussion caps, are so small, they had to be found with a metal detector. See our blog about that here: ArtifactDemonstration.
For another example, the three ring mini balls would be hard to find on the surface, and like other artifacts, they were about 2-3 inches deep. The metal arrowheads wouldn’t glisten in the sun like a stone point—they also had to be found with a metal detector.
The same is true with the small area the NPS found artifacts in May of ‘99. About a mile up the creek from the alleged massacre site, they found some artifacts including 174 unfired musket balls in a single hole, four cannonball fragments in a line near a trail road and some other items. Those items were found with metal detectors.
The scavenger theory is a myth.
Some have believed the arrowheads used at Sand Creek were stone due to them being a common find in the region, even within several miles of the Sand Creek location. The stone arrowheads are much older, dating back hundreds of years. By the 1860s, the Cheyenne were using metal hoops from water barrels to make their arrowheads. They would also trade for them. Bowen found a number of metal arrowheads near the creek, though any that landed in the creek bottom would have eroded.
Hundreds of fired and unfired bullets were discovered at the Lost Sand Creek Site. The general belief would be that those were all from soldiers. George Bent said that the Cheyenne Indians had guns.
“All the guns we ever captured were Spencer carbines. These were best guns at that time and were handy to carry on horses. Most all the cavalry out West carried these guns them days. These carried 7 cartridges,” George Bent stated (Bent to Hyde, 5-4-1906). The way Bent words this letter, it appears they took guns when they attacked soldiers. Some of the Cheyenne Indians’ guns could have also been taken during wagon train raids.
Since soldiers and Indians had some of the same guns, it is not known which bullets came from soldiers and which came from Indians.
Bent was candid about the wagon train raids and attacking soldiers in letters to historians.
“In summer, Northern and Southern Cheyennes Siouxs and Northern Arapahoes held one of the biggest war council I ever was at. In the council, they all agreed to go to Laramie Bridge and cleaned out every thing there. Small war-parties went there. I was with one party that ran off lots of government mules 3 miles below the old Laramie Bridge…It was reported by some war-parties that they seen good many soldiers there, that company of soldiers chased them 10 miles and had running fight. This party killed 2 soldiers in the running fight. They captured 2 government horses that soldiers were riding that they killed,” Bent said (Bent to Hyde, May 3, 1905).
In that letter, Bent wrote about running off government mules and a running fight with soldiers. Bowen’s Sand Creek discovery also shows a running fight at Sand Creek.
Not only was setting out to discover the real Sand Creek location a colossal undertaking, the discovery is also monumental.
At a young age, Chuck wanted to make an archaeological discovery, and unbeknownst to him at the time, the same ground he rode over with his horse as a teenager and drove over with his pickup to feed his cattle was covering artifacts from the most controversial event in Colorado history. He also didn’t know at the time his discovery would provide the information to correct the narrative of Sand Creek being branded as a massacre. Bowen’s Lost Sand Creek Site discovery overwhelmingly supports Sand Creek soldier Irving Howbert’s claim that the event was a running battle.
Artifacts do not lie, but people do.
Many may not know that the hearings following Sand Creek were led by Colonel Chivington’s known enemy, Lt. Col. Sam Tappan, who was a career military man. It’s well documented Tappan became jealous after Chivington was promoted to Colonel from Major, skipping Lt. Colonel. Lt. Col. Tappan was next in line to become Colonel and was leap-frogged by Chivington, who was not a career military man and went into the Battle of Glorieta Pass as Major, without any military experience or rank. Not only did Tappan lead the hearings, he was also connected to people who owned newspapers back east and had the massacre narrative plastered all over the papers. It even made it into a newspaper in London. See more about Tappan in our blog here: TappanChivington.
Many also believe the findings of the commission, who worked with Tappan, were objective. What’s been buried since 1865, when the hearings took place, is that Colonel Chivington was denied witnesses at the Denver hearings. If the goal was to truly investigate Sand Creek objectively, the last thing the commission would do is deny the defendant witnesses. There was also never a trial. If everything claimed about Sand Creek by Tappan and his commission were true, a trial would have been a slam dunk. It was nothing more than the court of public opinion so Tappan could get the narrative out to the general public that Chivington ordered soldiers to slaughter innocent and defenseless Indians. In reality, there were over 70 soldier casualties at Sand Creek—that would require a fight between soldiers and warriors. According to George Bent, the Indians at Sand Creek were anything but weak and defenseless. George also called the event a fight and a battle. Read more about this in our book.
Chivington received the promotion in rank that Tappan believed was his—Tappan made it his mission to seek revenge. There’s a lot of misinformation about Sand Creek, including an alleged quote from Chivington telling the soldiers that nits make lice. None of us were there, and that alleged quote is not attributed to an eyewitness, just a general claim that several heard him say it. If you believe Chivington said that, please name the person who heard him say it and cite it. Oral history can’t be verified and can be whatever someone wants it to be, and thus, it isn’t valid for citing and attributing a quote. If someone actually heard Chivington say that, it would have been documented.
The Sand Creek massacre narrative has been shaped and molded for 160 years, and without any physical evidence or documented eyewitness accounts to back up the claims. Many that testified weren’t at Sand Creek, and the vast majority of eyewitnesses who did testify or wrote their own account of Sand Creek, defended it as a battle. High school and college students are taught to cite their sources for English and history class papers, and to never use sites like Wikipedia. However, with Sand Creek, it is a complete free-for-all and sites like that are acceptable, so long as it pushes the massacre narrative. It’s evidently not important the information comes from an eyewitness, or it pushes alleged quotes such as the one above about Chivington or the alleged quotes from Silas Soule about refusing to fight. In reality, Soule never testified that he refused to fight—that testimony doesn’t exist. He testified about his concern for crossfire. See pages 246-247 in our book, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site.
It’s also a massive undertaking to get the information out to the public about the truth the artifacts tell—we need your assistance liking and sharing our posts on Facebook. The truth should never get buried. Give us a follow on Facebook at BowenHistory and help us get the truth out there.
It doesn’t matter if it was a year ago, 160 years ago, or even longer. People have a right to know the truth.
Truth always matters—truth is always important. There isn’t a statute of limitations—there’s no time limit on truth.
Truth matters. Truth wins.
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