By Mike Bowen, co-author, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site
The 1868 Lt. Bonsall map is our Rosetta Stone.
Bonsall’s map verifies the real location of Black Kettle’s village. He had the presence of mind to document a physical landmark and measured from that location to where he camped on Sand Creek.
Sometime before 1950, the bluff at what is now the National Park Service Sand Creek site became accepted as the location of Black Kettle’s village. A stone monument was placed in 1950. Read more about how that location became accepted in chapter two of our book, We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site.
The location at the National Park Service Sand Creek site where they allege Black Kettle’s village was located is not correct, per eyewitness accounts and physical evidence that proves the village was further up the creek.
Lt. Bonsall traveled from Fort Lyon to Sand Creek four years after the event and measured the distance of the village—he documented it on a strip map.
Bonsall measured down the creek six miles, from a place known as Three Forks, to his camp no. 2. Just up the creek from his camp, he measured the village site, at approximately over two miles long.
He had the presence of mind to document a physical landmark, so all someone had to do was measure six miles down the creek from Three Forks and they would know where Bonsall camped—just up the creek from his campsite, he measured the village location. Three Forks is visible on satellite imagery, such as Google Earth. It’s also visible on the 1936 aerial agricultural maps Bowen viewed in the 90s when researching Sand Creek. Read more in our book.
However, shortly after his visit to Sand Creek, the map went missing. It was found in the National Archives in the 1990s, about the time the NPS was getting involved with Sand Creek.
It doesn’t seem like a coincidence the Bonsall map was found about the same time the NPS got involved. They tried to use the map to their advantage, claiming that Bonsall meant about six miles and not six miles exactly. Measuring down the creek from Three Forks to the NPS bluff is eight miles, and it’s highly unlikely Bonsall was off by two miles.
It’s important to note that no village or battle artifacts have ever been found at the alleged NPS site. The artifacts didn’t disappear, and they weren’t picked up by scavengers.
The NPS site is simply the wrong location.
Over 4,000 battle and village artifacts were discovered by Bowen on the family ranch, at the Lost Sand Creek Site, starting nearly two miles up the creek from the NPS bluff. Bonsall’s strip map places the village site on the Bowen family ranch—it lines up with where Bowen discovered village artifacts.
This discovery is irrefutable—it is truly a preponderance of evidence.
The alleged location at the NPS site has never been verified by an eyewitness, and descriptions of the village site from eyewitnesses don’t match the NPS site. Eyewitness descriptions do however match another area on Sand Creek.
As far as an eyewitness verifying the Lost Sand Creek Site on the Bowen ranch as the correct location, soldier Irving Howbert did just that. He said that soldiers reached the top of a ridge (the NPS bluff) and saw a large Indian village about 2-3 miles up the creek from there, which would be the Bowen family ranch. You can see his quote with the citation in chapter five of our book.
Descriptions of the village location from soldier Captain Silas Soule also match the Bowen ranch. Read that blog here: VillageLocation.
Placing Black Kettle’s village somewhere else doesn’t simply change the location, it changes the story. The massacre claim alleges the Indians camped below the bluff couldn’t see or hear an approaching enemy and the soldiers rode around the village very early on the morning of November 29, 1864 and killed the Indians as they awoke and came out of their tipis. If that was true, that area near and below the bluff would have been littered with bullets, cannonball shell fragments, village items and much more. No period artifacts have ever been found there.
The Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians were actually camped where they saw the soldiers coming from miles away.
However, the Sand Creek story doesn’t just change to a location where the Indians saw the soldiers coming—the entire story changes knowing the warriors were not off hunting (WarriorsBlog), the Indians were armed (ArmedBlog), there were over 70 soldier casualties (CasualtiesBlog), white scalps were found in the tipis (WhiteScalps), just to name a few.
The discovery of the Lost Sand Creek Site leaves no doubt Sand Creek was a running battle between warriors and soldiers.
We are out to tell the truth. Most people that believe the massacre claim do so because that’s all they’ve heard, but a lie told a thousand times is still a lie. If we have to tell the truth a thousand times, or more, that is what we will do.
If you knew someone that was part of a battle or military operation you knew to be a justified attack but the story was later changed to make them look like villains, would you want their name cleared, regardless of how long it took? Keep an open mind about Sand Creek and weigh all of the evidence. And we don’t even need a personal connection to an event to care about truth.
You can learn more about the discovery of the real location of Black Kettle’s village and running battle areas in We Found the Lost Sand Creek Site.
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