Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site

On November 29, 1864, Colorado Territory militia under Colonel John Chivington attacked bands of Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people encamped along Sand Creek under Peace Chief Black Kettle, whose village flew flags and, by accounts, a white flag. Roughly 150 to 230 people, mostly women, children and elders, were killed. The massacre radicalized the Plains Indian Wars and led to the 1867 Medicine Lodge treaties. Congress authorized the site in 1992, established it as a National Historic Site on April 23, 2007, and the National Park Service manages it in consultation with the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, the Northern Cheyenne Tribe and the Northern Arapaho Tribe.

The tribes frame this ground as a place of mourning and remembrance, not an attraction, and this entry follows that frame: the road to the site is named Chief White Antelope Way, after one of the peace chiefs killed there, and the commemoration lives in the names as much as the markers.

Visiting

The National Park Service site page carries hours (Thursday to Saturday and Sunday to Monday 9am to 4pm, closed Tuesdays and Wednesdays; off-season Saturdays and Sundays only), directions, and the solemn protocols for visiting; ranger presence is weather and staffing dependent (719-438-5916).

Photo: The entrance gate, [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sand_Creek_National_Historic_Site_entrance_gate.jpg), CC BY-SA 4.0, Chris Light.