Learning Objective for Sand Creek: Battle or Massacre?

This unit focuses on the U.S. military’s November 1864 attack on a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians along Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado. While many in Colorado hailed it as a great victory that protected settlements there, others soon condemned it as an unwarranted assault on innocent victims. You will read and reflect on several primary sources and evaluate the nature of the attack: Was this a conflict between two adversaries at war (a battle) or a slaughter of innocent persons (a massacre)? When reading the documents in this unit, consider what efforts were made to address this question and to uncover the truth at the time. As you compare these documents, be mindful of audience, purpose, and point of view, and examine the sources carefully for any potential biases. After evaluating the documents, answer the unit’s central question: What can the nineteenth-century controversy over the events at Sand Creek teach us about the fundamental causes for the conflicts between white and native cultures in this period?