DENVER — On Nov. 29, 1864, around 675 volunteer soldiers attacked a village of 750 Cheyenne and Arapahoe people along Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado territory.
Although the Cheyenne and Arapaho believed they were under the protection of the U.S. Army on their assigned ratified treaty lands, the troops killed roughly 230 people — most of them women, children and the elderly.
“We had a white flag that signaled that we were a peaceful tribe. But in all that, that was never honored,” Conrad Fisher, a Northern Cheyenne descendant from the original inhabitants of Colorado said.
As we finish Native American Indian Heritage Month this November, the Denver Public Library hosted a candlelight vigil on the west steps of the state capitol Wednesday night in honor of the Sand Creek Massacre victims. The location was chosen because that's where the military leaders went after the massacre.
"This is really a way of acknowledging the harm that was done, saying it happened, it's not going to happen again. But we will uphold an honor the folks you know, the victims that were lost," Naghem Swade, the EDI training and development manager at the Denver Public Library said.
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"We really want to create space, to honor the victims, celebrate their legacy, celebrate the land that you know, we all live on. Like I said, it carries that history, it carries that narrative... So just because some folks don't know about it, some folks forgot about it, doesn't mean that the event didn't happen," Swade said.
More than 5,500 Native Americans from nearly 400 different tribal nations live in the Denver metro area. Across Colorado, almost 75,000 people identify as American Indian or Alaska Native.
If you want to learn more, History Colorado has an ongoing exhibit about the Sand Creek Massacre.
