Descendants of Sand Creek Massacre survivors speak about healing 159 years later
DENVER — As dawn broke on Nov. 29, 1864, in what is now Colorado’s eastern plains, a Cheyenne woman saw what she thought was a herd of buffalo approaching the camp of more than 700 Arapaho and Cheyenne people. But it wasn’t the hooves of buffalo she heard. It was a cavalry of United States army volunteers sent to kill the Native Americans.
Despite treaty agreements symbolized by a white flag and an American flag raised in the camp, the 1st Colorado Infantry Regiment of Volunteers and 3rd Regiment of Colorado Cavalry Volunteers, led by Colonel John Chivington, attacked. In the months before the massacre, Colorado Territorial Gov. John Evans issued a proclamation calling on citizens “to kill and destroy, as enemies of the country… all hostile Indians.” The call went out for “Indian fighters” to join a volunteer cavalry.
[Related: Governor Polis officially rescinds John Evans’ proclamation that led to Sand Creek Massacre]
The soldiers brutally murdered more than 230 peaceful people — mostly women, children and elders. Many cavalrymen chased down those who tried to run away and mutilated and killed them. Days after the massacre, troops rode in triumph through the streets of Denver displaying scalps and other body parts.
The Sand Creek Massacre marked the bloodiest day in Colorado history and the impacts of the event and many others like it are still felt today. This is why Kaden Walksnice and Cinnamon Kills First, descendants of survivors, want people to understand this history and its present-day impacts. Kills First has written her own essay on the subject that you can read here.
Both Walksnice and Kills First have participated in a spiritual healing run that begins at the massacre site in southeast Colorado, near the town of what is now Eads. The run continues through county roads that roughly trace the route that the Cavalry took back to Denver, where they paraded their “war trophies”. In total, the run is 180 miles long and, with accompanying ceremonies, takes participants five days to finish. As Walksnice puts it, “We run to heal our past, present and in hopes for our futures.”
Rocky Mountain PBS spoke with Walksnice and Kills First about the ongoing healing from the Sand Creek Massacre. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
An aerial view of the Sand Creek Massacre site taken in 2022.
Photo: Jeremy Moore, Rocky Mountain PBS
Rocky Mountain PBS: Please introduce yourself to the readers.
Kaden Walksnice: I'm Sotaeo'o & Tsetsehestahese, Cheyenne. My Cheyenne name is Nesoeoeve-TwentyStands, and my English name is Kaden Walksnice. I come from the Northern Cheyenne Nation located in Southeastern Montana. I'm a wildland firefighter, runner, Land Defender, Cheyenne Military Society Warrior.
Cinnamon Kills First: My Cheyenne name is Mo'kee'e (Little Woman), my Lakota name is Wicahpi Luta Win (Red Star Woman), and my otherwise English or colonized name is Cinnamon Kills First. I am an author, documentary filmmaker, public speaker and traditional beadworker.
Kayden Walksnice (left) with Cinnamon Kills First (center) at the last Spiritual Healing Run they attended. Photo: Cinnamon Kills First.
RMPBS: When did you become involved in the Spiritual Healing Run?
KW: I became involved with the Healing Run around 2008, the year I lost the grandmother, who was like my mother who raised me since the age of 2. Otto Braided Hair informed me about the Healing Run when I walked into his office at the Fire Protection Department looking to sign up as a volunteer firefighter for our community. After losing my grandpa in 2005, then my grandma in 2008, I was seeking and praying for a way forward after losing the woman who raised me, almost looking for purpose again. Otto was one of our traditional leaders and he brought me to my first Healing Run in fall 2008. Since that initial visit I've been reclaiming my Cheyenne identity and heritage through the ceremonial aspect of the entire event from the time we travel from the reservation to the massacre site and back to the Homelands that we will keep forever, our current reservation.
After my first run in 2008 I slowly stepped into a run coordinator role, during my high school year[s], my senior project was to bring a group of youth from the Missoula, Montana area which was a two-week journey funded by Missoula Area Tribal Health promotion programs to support the overall health and spiritual wellness of the project.
After that project I started coordinating groups of youth from the reservation to attend and be part of the Spiritual Healing Run. I enrolled into Tribal College then applied for a National Park Service fellowship to support the 150th Commemoration events at the National Historic Site in 2014, being the first Northern Cheyenne to hold an internship for National Parks Service at the National Historic Site. Living and residing back in our Colorado homelands for nearly five months, reclaiming and healing our land and people, healing myself.
CKF: I grew up in Lame Deer, Montana as part of my tribal community — the community who survived this atrocity — and the first time I participated was in 2004 as a senior in high school. I will never forget standing on the same ground where my ancestors’ blood was shed, hearing the stories of their resilience. I spent time on the east coast for college and work but have returned to participate as often as possible.
RMPBS: What's the importance of the Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual Healing Run and healing from generational traumas?
KW: The importance of the Spiritual Healing Run to me is around the ceremony and gathering of our communities from Montana, Wyoming and Oklahoma. Gathering the descendants of those who fled in each direction, the healing run allows us to return and come together as a nation again, and to remember our ancestors, and honor their legacy by sacrificing our bodies to endure a minor 180-mile run.
CKF: This event preserves the past, strengthens the present, and brings hope for the future. Every year, Cheyenne and Arapaho return to say our prayers, to make offerings, to honor our ancestors, and to heal from this horrific event. There is historical trauma on both sides. We are survivors. I challenge the descendants of the perpetrators to begin their own healing. I want to raise general awareness to non-Native people's own participation in America's ongoing colonization and invasion, to try to reach a point of reckoning. Ultimately, I want resources to come back to Indigenous communities. I want land to come back to Indigenous communities. I want policies to change in Colorado. I want Cheyennes to have a presence on our ancestral territory and to have a say over our land, which everyone there is currently occupying.
RMPBS: What's the importance of bringing youth into these sorts of events?
KW: Colonel Chivington once said, "Big and little, nits make lice." Cheyennes believe that we have a full universe when all generations are present. The infants, adolescents, adults and elders. We complete the circle of life when all are able to be present. We bring youth to these events to reclaim our Cheyenne identity and culture by healing ourselves from daily hardships, not only the massacre, but also the trauma in our bloodlines.
CFK: Our youth and elders are the most sacred, necessary for any ceremony. I just looked at my son yesterday — and he's only a month old I was staring at him like, ‘Wow, like you are a descendant of Sand Creek survivors.’ There's just something so deep about our lineages continuing knowing that it took those two ancestors like fleeing across the plains in 1864. There's something about their survival that makes us have to appreciate life in a different way. We don't take that for granted because so many of our ancestors paid that ultimate sacrifice to try to defend our land and lifeways. So, everything I do, being a descendant, is in their honor. The Cheyenne way is we believe you're only dead when your name is no longer spoken, when you're no longer thought of. And so, for me, it's important in as many ways as possible to continue to acknowledge our Indigenous ancestors who fought back.
RMPBS: What does it feel like for you to visit the site of the Sand Creek Massacre and other sites like it?
KW: This feeling comes over our shoulders and moves down your spine. It’s like a blast of energy that you feel from your toes. I’m so grateful to have grown up with the chance to go to sites like this. It helped me stay healthy, it helped to know my body, it helped me, as a youth, stay away from the colonialism that takes our people away. I just pray for healing and for it to continue on.
CFK: You feel that very visceral response in your body of this history - knowing your people were hunted and attacked. That’s an ugly feeling. But then, at the same time, what you're getting when you stand on these sacred grounds is this really deeply rooted resilience. There are two sides to it where being a part of that collective, being a living essence of that survival, helps empower you. At least for me, it really helped me feel strong about who I was and what my purpose on this earth was.
RMPBS: What do you hope for the future of this event?
KW: I hope that in 2024 for the 160th Anniversary of the event we get to bring our youth and elders back to Colorado from Montana, Wyoming and Oklahoma to complete the 180 miles and to host the Spiritual Healing Run in November not in October.
CKF: I hope this event has a long life, builds cross-cultural relationships, and helps change current Colorado policies.
RMPBS: What do you hope Coloradans understand about the history of the forming of this state?
KW: The Cheyenne and Arapaho people were removed from the land so the City of Denver and the State of Colorado could be created, along with other factors on national politics and industry. Once gold was discovered, immigrant settlers rushed to the area and begged the Union for protections against the "redskins" which influenced the government to use treaties and troops to terminate the Indian.
When you watch the Denver Nuggets, remember us Cheyenne and Arapaho who gave their lives for the capitalism that's still prevalent in Denver today. From the discovery of gold to the Denver Nuggets, there is no healing in continual genocide of a land.
It was not until 2021 Colorado Governor Polis decided to rescind 1864 Governor John Evans proclamation stating: "all hostile Indians would be pursued and destroyed”.
CKF: The history of the forming of the state is in the past, but the reality of invasion, colonization, and settler perpetration is very much still alive. Evans and Chivington, the perpetrators, are celebrated. “Mount Evans” was named after him, now recently changed. You take, to me, like the sickest men in your community who can command and carry out this slaughter of human life and then uphold them for generations. So, what we want to heal is that root, like what in white culture allows this to happen and to continue happening? How can we get to healing the perpetrator syndrome that is pervasive in white communities?
What I have learned is there's a ton of what we call “white bypassing,” like these families coming over later saying, ‘Oh, well, we didn't do that,’ bypassing their accountability towards the ongoing invasion today. Everyone here today is participating; there's no way to get out of that harm because the reality of it is the Cheyenne Nation today does not have access to our sacred spaces, to our water, to our land. And we're so much of a land-based identity people, so that harm is ongoing as long as the perpetration is ongoing. We can't fully heal until white people heal and end the perpetration.
Amanda Horvath is the managing producer at Rocky Mountain PBS. amandahorvath@rmpbs.org.