Free Oh What a Slaughter by Larry McMurtry Page B

the power of such an event as Sand Creek resonates through time as few other experiences do. Southeastern Colorado, like much of the Great Plains, is very thinly populated now. There are not many people there, but most of the farmers and ranchers who operate near the site had been in that place for a long time. Sand Creek,whether they like it or not, has always been in their lives. Some might still argue for Chivington’s position, but few doubt that the tragedy marked their families and their region. Few, I imagine, see it as a simple case of white wrong. Though it
was
wrong, it had a context that few not of that region can appreciate now.
    I would agree with the locals that Sand Creek wasn’t simple. Perhaps the plainest thing about it was the character of John Chivington, who, though a longtime Free-Soiler, was also a racist Indian-hater. But Chivington was not the only man shooting Indians that day and Sand Creek was not an entirely spontaneous eruption of violence, in which some hotheads in Denver decided to attack a camp of one hundred percent peaceful Indians.
    When I visited Sand Creek, the best I could do without bothering Mr. Dawson was to drive around it in a kind of box route, on dirt roads. From several rises I could see where the massacre took place. On much of my box route I was trailed by an SUV from Michigan—its occupants no doubt hoped I would lead them to this historic place. I couldn’t, and they finally drove off down the road toward Kansas, which is not far away.
    The country around the site is rolling prairie—very, very empty. From several modest elevations I could see the line of trees where the fighting took place. The plain is immense here; on a chill gray day the word “bleak” comes naturally to mind. “Pitiless” is another word that would apply. On a fine sunny day the plains country of eastern Colorado looks beautiful, but Sand Creek and Wounded Knee were winter massacres; the cold no doubt increased the sense of pitilessness. If you were at Sand Creek, being massacred and desiring to run, only the creek itself offered any hope. Otherwise, north, south, east, or west was only open country: totally open.
    *   *   *
    The first factor that might be noted in a discussion of Sand Creek is the date: 1864. The Civil War was in progress, a fact of some importance, as we will see.
    More important, though, was that at this date the Plains Indians, from Kiowa and Comanche in the south, north through the lands of Arapaho, Pawnee, southern Cheyenne, and the seven branches of the Sioux, were unbroken and undefeated peoples. All were still able, and very determined, to wage a vigorous defense of their hunting grounds and their way of life. Up to this point what they mainly had to worry about in regard to the whites was their diseases, smallpox particularly. Though there had been, by this point, many skirmishes between red man and white, there had been only one or two serious battles.
    The first major conflict occurred about a decade before Sand Creek, at Fort Laramie. The U.S. government called an enormous powwow, in which the various Indian tribes were to be granted annuities if they would agree not to molest the growing numbers of immigrants pouring west along the Platte—what we call the Oregon Trail. The natives called it the Holy Road.
    The expectations the government nursed about this hopeful arrangement were wholly unrealistic—it involved a major misunderstanding of Native American leadership structures. No Indian leader had authority over even his own band such as a white executive might possess. No Indian leader was a boss in the sense that General Grant was a boss. And, all Indian leaders had trouble with their young warriors, who
would
run off and raid.
    But few whites recognized these realities at the big gathering in 1854.
    Shortly after this great powwow a foolish and arrogant young officer named Grattan took the part of a Mormon