"November 29, 1864, Sand Creek, massacre or battle?" Topic

Hello everyone,

November 29, 1864, Sand Creek, massacre or battle?

If not massacre, at least atrocity. The US Army attempted to prosecute the colonel of volunteers responsible, but he'd reverted to civilian status and couldn't be touched.

Yes labeled as a massacre, but according to historian Gregory F. Michmo, Chief Black Kettle was not peaceful and the injuns were subsequently calmed down and that the number of cavalrymen casualties shows that Sand Creek was a tough fight for the soldiers.

It is a very sad and sobering location to visit.

Never take a event without looking at the before and after. Read about everything that was happening in Eastern CO during the Summer & fall of 1864. Does anyone remember the Hungate massacre in June 1984? Also what happen during the Winter and Summer of 1865. Thier were Villians on both sides.

Yes but after historian Gregory F. Michmo, after Sand Creek the injuns were subsequently calmed down…

Same with Wounded Knee: the cavalry suffered significant casualties.

So it's not really a massacre?

WK was a battle followed by a massacre.

I don't think Native Americans appreciate being called: Injuns.

Paskal, I am confident you intend no offense by use of the term "Injuns." However, I live in a state with a sizable Native American population and public use of that term would be considered "fighting words." I suggest use of the term "Indians" or "Native Americans."

Unquestionably a massacre. A surprise attack on a camp sited at a location to which the occupants had been instructed to move in a peace council. The fact that some ndians fought back doesn't change that.

Ditto at Wounded Knee where there was a possiblity that the US troops inflicted some of their casualties on each other.

Troops opening fire on Indians gathered to surrender however recluctantly, covered by the guns of a cavalry regiment supported by Hotchkiss quick firing cannon hardly looks like the prelude to a battle.

Read SLA Marshall's CRIMSONED PRAIRIE. Detailed analysis of WK. There were a lot of rifles concealed in the blankets of warriors who believed the Ghost Dance promise. They opened fire at point blank range.

The Hodgekiss fire may well have killed friendlies as well as enemy.

Worth noting, too, that it was very cold, everybody bundled up, and the Sioux all had long hair, men and women. Impossible to tell combatants from non.

I agree it was still a massacre at the end.

Michno is known for his anti-Native American views. I studied a small incident where some drunk cavalry soldiers rode up to a group of Native American women and children and when the women won't have sex with them, they opened fire. Michno wrote that the Indians started it even though the soldiers who did it were court-martialed. As for Sand Creek, the soldiers threw small toddlers out into a field and then shot them. Enough said.

Absolutely a massacre and an atrocity. Any sober study of the contemporary and later historical sources will make this plain. I don't know why American Indians bother to parade with a US national flag at pow-wows and such -- their ancestors were murdered and dispossessed by soldiers flying those flags. If anyone should resent this symbol of oppression, they would be the ones.

Yes I'm going to be careful because I don't want to be scalped and worse, but be careful the terms Native Americans, American Indians and Indians are still used to designate them, but are controversial in Canada.

The word Sioux is also an insult, they were named thus by reduction by the French of the translation of the expression in Chippewas, "nadowe-is-iw-ug" (Nadouessioux) which meant "enemies (nadowe) small (is ) they are (iw ug)" (paltry enemy), because for the Chippewas, the Iroquois seemed much more dangerous enemies.

In fact when the "Indians" are attacked in one of their camps and they have more losses than the whites, it is a massacre and when they have fewer losses it is a battle.

For example the white people don't call the Little Big Horn battle "the massacre of Little Big Horn" but "the battle of Little Big Horn "or "Custer's Last Stand".

But According to Gregory F. Michno, the "Indians" had fewer civilian losses than their adversaries, but more combatant losses. (Encyclopedia of Indian Wars – Western Battles and Skirmishes, 1850 – 1890).

Would the "Indians" have behaved less well with white civilians than the whites with "Indian civilians"?

Again, take what Michno writes with a grain of salt. He puts the blame on Indians for everything.

Please check out the book CHEYENNE WAR: INDIAN RAIDS ON THE ROADS TO DENVER 1864-1869 by Jeff Broome

And what will I find in the book CHEYENNE WAR: INDIAN RAIDS ON THE ROADS TO DENVER 1864-1869 by Jeff Broome?

And Gregory F. Michno is nice to Indians compared to David Cornut, a Member of the Little Big Horn Associates, David Cornut is a historian by training. His study "Little Big Horn, autopsy of a legendary battle" (520 pp., notes, glossary) was republished five times between 2006 and 2018.