AFTERMATH


their duplicity and depraved mutilations. In 1865, the Sand Creek Massacre became the subject of three federal investigations, one military and two congressional, yet, because of a general amnesty after the Civil War, no one was brought to justice for any of the crimes. Capt. Soule, along with several other veterans of Sand Creek, testified against Chivington. He was murdered in 1865, according to some accounts by a Chivington supporter. Although Black Kettle escaped, his peace


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advocacy was pushed aside. Plains tribes, united by the atrocity, intensified their attacks on settlers and cavalry. Black Kettle himself was killed almost exactly four years later, Nov. 27, 1868, on the Washita River near what is now Cheyenne, Okla., in a U.S. Cavalry attack on a peaceful encampment in the then new Cheyenne–Arapaho reservation. The troops, who were pursuing a raiding band, were led by Lt. Col. George A. Custer. Chivington himself was asked to resign


from the Army by Gen. Curtis, who distanced himself from the massacre. The former minis- ter moved around the country, followed by his reputation. He ultimately returned to Denver, where he was appointed a deputy sheriff, and died in 1881. In 1993, the Smithsonian Institution re-


patriated the skeletal remains of individuals related to the Sand Creek massacre. Fourteen were returned to the Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma and 17 indi- viduals to the Northern Cheyenne. In 2012, two more were returned to the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribe. They are buried at the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site.


lthough Chivington’s men returned to Denver to public applause, the rest of the nation was shocked by news of


22 AMERICAN INDIAN WINTER 2014


PHOTO BY GEORGE LEVI


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