workingclasshistory:

On this day, 29 November 1864, the Sand Creek massacre took place, when US troops attacked a peaceful gathering of Cheyenne and Arapaho people, camped under a US flag (content note, this post contains graphic descriptions of violence). The United States had recognised that the Cheyenne and Arapaho possessed large swathes of land covering parts of present-day Colorado, Nebraska, Wyoming and Kansas. But after the discovery of gold in the area, settlers invaded the land to mine it, and eventually the government forced the Indigenous people to sign a new treaty and give up over 90% of their land. Some chiefs believed the new treaty to be a betrayal, and ignored it, but Black Kettle and his band of Cheyenne and Arapaho wanted peace above all and so signed up to. They first moved to Fort Lyon when directed by the US, then relocated to Big Sandy Creek again at the direction of government. Despite doing everything they were told, even flying an American flag and a white surrender flag above their designated US camp, up to 900 troops attacked them while the warriors were out hunting. The soldiers butchered up to 170 unarmed people, mostly women and children, torturing them then scalping and mutilating the victims and cutting out womens’ genitals and attaching them to their hats. Only between 9 and 24 of the attackers were killed. Robert Bent reported in the New York Tribune that he “saw one squaw lying on the bank, whose leg had been broken. A soldier came up to her with a drawn sabre. She raised her arm to protect herself; he struck, breaking her arm. She rolled over, and raised her other arm; he struck, breaking that, and then left her with out killing her. I saw one squaw cut open, with an unborn child lying by her side.” Meanwhile a local newspaper praised the “brilliant feat of arms” and stated the soldiers had “covered themselves with glory”. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1278377659014048/?type=3