2001-06-22 - 19:07 MDT

THE WONDERING JEW

Wet Ears

My train of thought went off the tracks tonight, no injuries, just me sitting here contemplating and wondering if I should ponder on things various. Note - the following is a combination of history by Dr. Tom Noel, interlaced with my comments.

It occurred to me just how young this country is to us Anglo's. And younger yet is the Denver area.

We were referred to as "The Spider People," by the Indians when seeing maps showing the web of roads spreading across once open prairie and later realizing that the web of roads shown on the maps and noting the inflow of palefaces, would crowd them out.

Early on things were peaceful at the conflence of Cherry Creek and the Platte River where the Saint Louis fur trader, Auguste P. Chouteau hosted a trading camp in 1815. Forty five mountain men attended the rendezvous to trade directly with the Indians. Another Saint Louis fur trader by the name of Louis Vasquez set up shop further downstream on the Platte. Wild country then, in the future Denver. About fifteen hundred Arapahoes lived at the confluence of Cherry Creek and the Platte River during the 1840's and 1850's.

The "Great White Father," promised the land between between the Platte and Arkansas rivers at the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains to the Arapahoe and Cheyenne Indians in the 1851 Fort Larimer Treaty.

Sort of redundant to mention I guess that the discovery of gold at that confluence sparked the thundering herd to travel across the desolate prairie in 1858 - 1859 to the site eager for gold and thus the treaty was violated, like all the others made with the Indians. Nothing new there.

There was peace yet between the Arapahoe and the paleface in 1858. Even though the treaty was being violated then. Some 100,000 gold seekers hit the scene here at that time.

Things got sticky when many Arapaho refused to sign the Fort Wise Treaty of 1861 - which expelled them from their homeland at Cherry Creek and South Platte. Indian agent William Bent the founder of Bent's Fort resigned rather than take part in this treaty which put the Arapaho in a much smaller, more arid tract of land in south eastern Colorado north of the Arkansas River.

As near as I can understand, some of the disgruntled Arapaho left Sand Creek because they were never given the promised agricultural tools and training, or even enough water to farm, and facing starvation began to hunt buffalo on and off the reservation. Some of them came back to the Denver area.

(---Reading between the lines of an uncertain and unclear history, I presume the Arapaho up near Denver had resorted to their tradition of being hunters and when buffalo could not be found resorted to killing ranch cattle.---) Unpleasantness started to show between the Arapaho and the Anglo's, one publicized incident involved the Van Wormer ranch east of Denver. First incident was the stealing of several horses and some of the rancher's personal goods. Later at the same ranch in 1864 the ranch manager and his family were killed. Amid the burned ruins of the ranch, a rescue party found the two little girls with their throats cut, the mother had been raped, stabbed and scalped, her husband had been shot numerous times, then horribly mutilated and scalped by rampaging Arapaho. (---Still my idea and not supported by written history, I would guess that the first incident caused the rancher to do something to harm Indians found near the property, causing resentment which led to the massacre.---)

Anyway this was the justification ? which led Colonel John M. Chivington in charge of the pursuit of the renegades to go to Sand Creek several months later. No history states that any of the renegades ever went back to Sand Creek, at least none I can find. Although the tribe was promised protection at a camp called Sand Creek, Chivington and his men massacred 163 Indians, mostly women and children there.

The media which was in existence then too, had whipped up the mood of Denverites and caused a bloodthirsty sentiment amongst the populace. Colonel John M. Chivington, in charge of the pursuit of the renegades left town bent on slaughter. The tribe had been promised protection at a camp called Sand Creek. A few months later Chivington and his men massacred 163 Indians, mostly women and children. One Mother escaped with three children, the only child surviving was the babe in her arms. A sad, sad event which was celebrated in Denver at the time.

In this article, "Mile High City," by Doctor Thomas Noel is related that in 1994 Little Raven Street was opened in the 2100 Block of 15th Street on the banks of the Platte River. Little Raven was one of the chiefs who did his best to keep things peaceful between the two sides. In 1996 "Tsistsis-Hinono'ei" (Cheyenne/Arapaho) Park was dedicated on east Iowa Avenue in Aurora. A stone monument at the entrance to the park reading, "Dedicated to the Arapaho and Cheyenne Nations." Wild flowers frame this park which contains ceremonial Indian circles, red sandstone slabs inscribed with Indian memories and an abstract lodge pole and I-beam structure by an Indian artist. (Both of those I will visit soon.) Dr. Noel ends his article with a last sentence, "Belatedly, the Mile High City is celebrating the Arapaho Camp in which it was born."

I am trying to put myself back in that time and place as an Arapaho Indian undergoing the crimson tide of American history. Thinking also of the sacred ground of the Black Hills in South Dakota which was taken from the Lakota. And Wounded Knee, plus what I have read of similar things from the eastern coast of the United States, ultimately to the western coast ......... and it makes me wonder, were we the "Good Guys?"

I think not only behind, but all over we have yet, Wet Ears . . . . . . . .

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