You know what’s comforting in Kansas? When a collection of storm chasers are staying at your hotel…and there’s a tornado watch. Thanks, Kansas!

Ready to leave tornado alley and return to the sanctuary of our mountainous land, we headed back into Colorado. But before returning home, we made one more stop, in the middle of nowhere at Sandcreek, in Kiowa County.

The Sand Creek Massacre, a precursor to the attack at Washita in Oklahoma, was another unprovoked massacre of Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. These tribes were peacefully encamped on their newly assigned lands in eastern Colorado when a militia comprised of of some 700 white men, attacked on a snowy morning in November 1864. The tribal residents, at the time, numbering around 100, were mostly women and children. Their lives were not just abruptly ended, but their bodies were mutilated and maimed, all in the name of Manifest Destiny. Reading the accounts of the massacre were stomach turning.

The National Park Service, in collaboration with the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, have made an effort to preserve the area and ensure the sacred ground is honored and respected. In fact, the area is so revered that visitors can only look down upon the massacre site from a bluff.

 

If you want to read more about the genocide of the American indians, I recommend Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. You’ll never think of American history the same again.