[Cheyenne woman: Cheyenne Language] Far, so far from the earth that is home. The very air, foreign, smelling of salt and fish. Choking the breath out of you. Listen, you can hear the waves. What is this place so far from home? Surely this is the first river in our journey across the Four Great Rivers to Seyana, the path to Maheo, the place beyond.
[Sidney Lanier] "I saw 72 big Indians yesterday: proper men. They were weary and greatly worn; but as they stepped out of the cars of the train and folded their blankets about them, there was a large dignity about their movements that made me desire to salute their grave excellencies."
[Narrator] St. Augustine, Florida, 1875: The United States Army has brought as prisoners of war the most dangerous of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, Caddo, Comanche.
Fort Marion, a place devoid of feeling. Wet, moss covered walls as thick and as high as an ancient Cottonwood. Dark dank rooms.
[Sidney Lanier] "I find the arrival of the Indians both troubling and interesting. The decision to imprison them in the old Spanish Fort is deplorable. It is as unfit for them as they for it."
[Narrator] The pain of homesickness and hopelessness haunted their movements. Their shorn hair shameful. Each mourned, as they prepared for death.
For now: the confinement. Perhaps this was the end of the journey until they met Maheo.
Without understanding, these warriors prisoners, seek comfort in memories of home. The leg irons, curious stares, and strange food haunt them as they search for answers to silent questions:
[Cheyenne man] "How will our people know their way back home?"
Thirty three Cheyenne people made the unholy journey across the country with Captain Richard Pratt including Bear's Heart, Minimic, Cohoe, Medicine Water and his wife: Buffalo Calf Woman, Mochi. There were other women at Fort Marion. Wives coming with their men but Mochi was the only Native American prisioner-of-war.
With nothing to do but remember, the prisoners turned their sorrow into sketches...ledger drawings... so called because they were drawn in ledger accounting books.
Here was one link to the past, a way to remember who and what they were, personal pictures of a way of life few whites had seen. Not everyone made drawings, Mochi's story survived through oral family history.
[Mochi] "This is my story as I would tell my grandchildren and they would tell their grandchildren."
[Announcer] The spirits of men and women who touched this land, who molded it with their tears, sweat and laughter, are the threads woven into our lives today. They are our Rocky Mountain Legacy.
Tears in the Sand
[Narrator] Once, the Tsis Tsis Tas were hunters and gatherers, not the warlike, nomads of their reputation. They had permanent villages, grew corn, made pottery, living in harmony with the earth.
Then, the Europeans came and the Tsis Tsis Tas departed from their native lands around the Great Lakes...known by their French name: Cheyennes.
This was not a mass exodus, but rather each band moving, then another, and another...to get away from the guns of the French traders. Ultimately, as if foretold, the Cheyenne arrived in short grass country, now known as North Dakota. There they met the Kiowa, Obijiwa, Cree.
[John Sipes, Jr] "Then, the Old Ones say around 1810, 1820, the Sioux people kept coming and coming and then the Old Ones say they had a dispute. Eventually the Cheyenne moved on out to the Yellowstone country.
[Narrator] Historians have insisted the Cheyenne migrated to chase the buffalo.
[John Sipes, Jr] "I've hear the Old Ones say that wasn't the only reason. The Cheyenne had lots of horses and they had to move to keep the horse herds in good grass. You know a horse will eat down to the root and pull the root, and, of course, with the millions of buffalo, they had to move all the time to keep the good pasture for the horse because that was our main mode of transportation at the time."
[Narrator] A prophet rose up among the Tsis Tsis Tas bringing new teachings. Sweet Medicine told of things to come. When the time of hunger came, Sweet Medicine left the people and lived four years in Bear Butte, the Holy Mountain.
[Cheyenne Man, Sweet Medicine] "You live the way I have taught you and follow the Sacred Arrows. You must not forget them, for they will give you strength and the ability to take care of yourselves.
There is a time when many things will change. Strangers will appear among you. Their skins are light- colored and they will out number you. Their words will be strange.
The buffalo will disappear and another animal will take its place, a slick haired animal with a long tail and split hoofs. First there will be another animal you must to use. It has a shaggy neck. It's hoofs are round. This animal will carry you on his back and help you in many ways. So fear him not. Do not forget the Sacred Arrows. I have seen these things and you will see that they are true."
[Narrator] And so it was, the Tsis Tsis Tas met the Spanish, the white man, naming him 'vehoe', spider, because his clothes were little woven spider webs. Much later the Cheyenne would learn that the spider was also a trickster, full of deceit. For now, vehoe appeared to be a friend.
The fur traders followed the Spanish. The Bent boys along with Ceran St. Vrain established aa trading fort along the Arkansas River named Fort William, but known to all as Bent's Fort.
Here was the first consistent contact with the whites. Trading buffalo robes for flour, sugar, metal, beads. William Bent more than a friend – a brother! One to seek in council, Little White Man, as he was called, married into the Tsis Tsis Tas.
The plains around the Arkansas River were regular campsites for the Cheyenne. Each season they would stay longer and longer upon hunting buffalo, raiding the massive horse herds of the Comanche and Kiowa, trading at adobe fort, until some called it home. Dividing "The People" into the North Platte and the Arkansas, Tsis Tsis Tas.
[Sherman Goose] "We have two different tribes of Cheyenne. Their dialect is a little different because of the naming of the objects that came with the white man when he came to this country, that we had no name for. For instance, we didn't have any coffee. When the white man came we had to think a little bit to dig up a name for coffee. So we call it 'Black Soup'. Same as oatmeal. We never had oatmeal. We never did grow any oats. So we called it 'Slobber Gravey' because of it's consistency when you spoon it out of a bowl. It's kind a thick. So we called it 'slobber gravey'. Sugar – called it 'Sweet Water'. Course, light bread was called 'White Man's Bread'. Whiskey – 'White Man's Water'.
[Standing Bird] "When life began Maheo made the earth and gave us all things. We wore the skins of four leggeds for Maheo gave us the buffalo and all animals to enable us to survive. We would sneak up on hands and knees, softly, until within a hundred steps. Then we would rise on our knee and shoot him. The women sliced the meat and hung it to dry. They dried the hides, too, and scraped them with sharp stones until they grew soft."
[Narrator] A nomadic life. In springtime, moving to the communal summer camp. In the time of the Freezing Moon, moving to the winter camp. Each group of lodges like family, extended kinship. Where cousins were brothers.
Their mothers and grandmothers taught the ways of the Tsis Tsis Tas, made the meals, kept the lodge. And the Grandfathers and fathers met in council. The Tsis Tsis Tas were the new neighbors on the plains taking their share of the buffalo...the antelope.
Then, gold was discovered in California; and nothing would ever be exactly the same again. The Tsis Tsis Tas learned to keep their distance from the whites when their people began dying of cholera. One Cheyenne warrior with his weapons canted as he made medicine against the 'white man's sickness'
[Cheyenne Man] "If I could see this thing, if I knew where it was, I would go there and kill it!"
[Narrator] Gold Seekers and army men are an untrusting lot. Fearful that the fighting between the tribes would delay travel to the gold fields, the Government choose to "treat" with the Plains tribes...everyone of them.
[John Sipes, Jr] "1851 during the Great Horse Creek Treaty. That's what the Cheyenne know it as. Because the Old Ones say that's the reason they call it, "Horse Creek" was that's the first place they seen a tame horse."
[Chief Old Bark] "Grand Father and Father. I am glad to see so many Indians and whites meeting in peace. I am glad you have taken pity on us. The buffalo used to be plenty in our country, but is getting scarce. I know you will tell me right and it must be good for me and my people. If all the nations here were willing to do what you tell them, then we could sleep in peace. We would not have to watch our horses or our lodges in the night."
[Narrator] As a result of the Treaty of 1851, the Tsis Tsis Tas, now had boundaries to their hunting grounds...
[male voice] "Commencing at the place where the road leaves the North Fork of the Platte River to it's source thence along the main range of the Rocky Mountains to the head waters of the Arkansas River, thence down the Arkansas River to the crossing of the Santa Fe Road thence northwesterly to the forks of the Platte River and to the place of the beginning." Fort Laramie Treaty, 1851
[Narrator] The government would build roads, forts and military posts while ownership of the land remained in the hand of the various tribal nations. The government got what they wanted: safe passage for the 49ers to California.
Tsis Tsis Tas: Alights-On-Cloud, White Antelope, and Little Chief travel to Washington City, a place the Old Ones called Wash-Dine, to meet with the Great White Father and sign a peace treaty with the Pawnee. Alights-On-Cloud, the legendary Iron Shirt, carried himself with honor across the country. Later, when President Filmore told them it was improper to smoke in front of the ladies, he refused to sign the treaty.
Before the decade was out GOLD! was found at the Confluence of the South Platte and Cherry Creek Rivers and thousands of emigrants made their way to Pikes Peak region...
Here they were, these whites, crisscrossing the prairies in endless numbers, right through the hunting lands of the Tsis Tsis Tas. Settlements became towns; then, there were saloons and lawyers and shop keepers.
[Sherman Goose] "They say the first pilgrim that landed at Plymoth Rock had three items on his person. He had the Bible, a shot gun, and a pint of whiskey. One of those items would get him a home. If it failed he'd try the next one, maybe use all three. But it got him a home."
[Narrator] Slowly, the ancient cottonwoods began to disappear. Cattle chewed the grass into the ground and the buffalo grew scarce.
Sweet Medicine's prophecy was coming true!
The lodges of the Cheyenne and Arapaho continued to over look the Cherry Creek and South Platte Rivers watching the frenzy with which the whites embraced everything: the land, the gold, the whiskey. It must have been a curious site to a people used to greeting each day as it came.
Arapaho Chief Little Raven summed up the feelings of many:
[Little Raven] "Take the Gold! But remember the Land belongs to us...and don't stay too long."
[Narrator] Then a group of drunken whites raped several women in the Arapaho village while their men were gone and the people had a hint of things to come.
William Bent, friend and Indian Agent, warned Washington to rescue the Indians, and withdraw them from contact with whites. These Indians are compressed into a small circle of territory, destitute of food and bisected by a constantly marching line of emigrants. "
"There is no alternative, but to exterminate them, which the dictates of justice and humanity alike forbid." AB Greenwood, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1859
Like a wild fire, the idea of land ownership spread. "The purchase of Indian title to all lands within the contemplated territory would be perhaps the surest, if not, the only course, to insure friendly relations"
Commissioner Greenwood called for a treaty council at Fort Wise in the Fall of 1860. Agreement is elusive. In the end, it boiled down to what the white's wanted.
[Newspaper Correspondent] "The Indians will probably be put in some locality where they will not interfere with our manifest destiny."
February 8, 1861: The Treaty of Fort Wise sets aside a reservation for the Arapaho and the Cheyenne surveyed and divided so that each person receives 40 Acres. Additionally, the treaty provided for the purchase of the land on which Denver City stood at the going rate of $1.25/ an acre
Later, the Treaty is amended and the purchase of Denver City never made.
To the indignation of settlers, the Cheyenne and Arapaho were not ready to settle down on the small gameless reserve. Instead, bands continued to follow the diminishing buffalo becoming increasingly defensive.
[Cheyenne Man] "We will protect our way of life and drive the whites from our country." Bull Bear, Dog Soldier
[Narrator] From the day of his arrival in the Territory, Governor John Evans seemed anxious about the Cheyenne and Arapaho. Like most new comers, Evans saw danger with each gathering.
At Fort Lyon, Silas Soule felt the feelings of the Governor: "The fort command receive a stream of orders from the Governor. But they all add up to 'let 'em starve'."
Evans became a stumbling block unable to keep appointments, unable to find field notes, generally standing in the way of the allotment of land to the tribal nations. Seeing ghosts and danger at every turn.
[John Evans] "I am informed that a large party of Arapaho Indians are camped the Cache a La Poudre. They may have gone too far already."
[Narrator] Meanwhile, on the plains of Kansas Territory, Lt. George Eayre and his Colorado Volunteers encounter a Cheyenne hunting party. Eayre orders his men prepare for battle. Two Cheyenne shout a greeting. The young Lieutenant, perhaps with his first encounter, opens fire...killing Cheyenne Peace chiefs: Lean Bear and Star. The encounter reported as a "war party of 400". Tempers flare. The Cheyenne are enraged and retaliate. Lt. Eayre sent to find and kill the savage, burning villages along the way.
Preacher turned Civil War hero, John Chivington, orders an attack on 12 unsuspecting Arapaho lodges. Killing many. Retribution is fast and swift. Chief Big Mouth's warriors coming upon the Hungate homestead south of Denver, kill the homesteaders. Wade Hungate finds his wife and children, heads nearly severed, before he is killed. And the die is cast. The Cheyenne are blamed and Governor Evans has all the proof he needs.
Evans wires War Department: "Indian hostilities commenced. One settlement devastated 25 miles east of here. Our troops near all gone. Shall I call a regiment of 100-day men? "
[Narrator] In camps all over the Territory, men signed on as Indian fighters. The Governor issues a written proclamation urging the friendly indians to go to Fort Lyon. While mobilizing the citizens to: " go in pursuit of all hostile Indians. Kill and destroy wherever they may be found. The conflict is upon us and all good citizens are called upon to do their duty."
Major Edward Wynkoop, commander at Fort Lyon, looking for peace, brings a delegation of Cheyenne and Arapaho to Denver. Governor Evans and Col. Chivington refuse to meet. Finally they reluctantly agree to meet OUTSIDE Denver, at Camp Weld...
[Chief Black Kettle] "All we ask is that we may have peace with the whites. We want to hold you by the hand. You are our father. We want to take good tidings home to our people, that they may sleep in peace."
[Narrator] With much discussion about who killed the Hungates, who fought with the soldiers, the delegates answer every charge. Gov. Evans consistently trying to find hostility. Major Wynkoop's peace effort jeopardized the Governor's plan to kill the hostiles, leading Evans to replace him at Fort Lyon with Maj. Scott Anthony.
[Sherman Goose] "In reality, behind closed doors, Governor Evans said 'I've already wired for permission to form a volunteer group to annihilate all the Indians. Therefore tell these people to go camp wherever they want to. They're going to be killed anyway.".
[Narrator] The Cheyenne travel to the shelter of Fort Lyon expecting to find a friend. They are met by Maj. Anthony, who immediately sends them away from the fort. Black Kettle makes camp along the Big Sandy with War Bonnet, Lone Bear, Sand Hills, White Antelope...in all 100 lodges assemble.
[John Sipes, Jr.] "The Cheyenne call Sand Creek, "Bo-no". In Cheyenne means dry creek, no water. The old folks say there was no water in there."
Twenty four hours before their enlistment time is up, the 100-dayers finally march. At Fort Lyon, Chivington finds Maj Anthony enthusiatic about the surprise attack on the Sand Creek encampment. His officers, however, have to be bullied and abused. Their desire is to protect the Cheyenne.
Forty miles as the crow flies, the lodges at the Big Sandy prepared for another cold night. At 9 PM the order came to move out.
November 29, 1864: The morning breaks to a gray sky. The frosty wind gently rustles the remaining leaves of fall. Silently, the serenity broken.
[Cheyenne Woman, Mochi] "Listen, the pony herds are acting up, the village dogs are barking. Mother hears it, too. 'Mochis, do you hear that? It must be a large buffalo herd.' "Father runs into the lodge, shouting: 'Quick, come look!'
[Narrator] After they set up the guns on the bluff, Chivington stirs his men:
[Chivington] "I don't tell you to kill all ages and sex, but look back on the plains of the Platte , where your mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters have been slain."
[Mochi] "The sight is frightening. There on the ridge to the west, are soldiers watching, like a large, blue "shi-shi-kneh-woh-ees", snake, uncoiling, menacing. "From our place in Bumping Wolf's camp, we see old Chief White Antelope come out of his lodge, also, "Moke-Tavato",Black Kettle. They call out to remain calm. Black Kettle raises the American Flag that he received in Denver and a white flag also...so the soldiers will know we are friendly.
A rain of bullets and cannon fire fall on us.
Explosion after explosion rip our lodges. Pieces of hide, and dirt, and belongings fly thru the air. Above the roar of the guns, I hear the screams of my family.
Chief White Antelope shouts in the language of the vehoes "-- – 'Stop! Stop!..."
As I watch, I am sure I hear the Death Song.
They shoot him! Then, one of the soldiers dismounts and grabbing White Antelope's hair, makes a cut. He hold in his hand the fresh cut scalp! The soldier rips the clothing and cuts away the private manhood.
Almost within a single breath...Mother, Father, Grandfather, fall. I'm grabbing for them. "Neh-met-huts", my husband, Standing Bull, is slaughtered protecting me.
I want to die! I want to live! I want to die!
Too numb to think, I reach for Father's Buffalo gun.
I will run! I will run! I MUST fight!
Running hard, the freezing, smoke filled air singes my throat."
[soldier] "The soldiers continue firing on these Indians, who numbered about a hundred, until they almost completely destroyed.
[Mochi] "The bullets are like wind blowing past me..."
[Maj. Scott Anthony] "I have never seen men fight so bravely. I saw 3 Indians charge not less than 150 men. They came within 4 yards, firing their revolvers and arrows until they were shot down."
[Narrator] Black Kettle watches as his Cheyenne people are killed. In his heart, Coyote calls:
[Cheyenne Male, Coyote] "It is time to run and save the people you can save. Come after me, I know the way out. Follow the earth. Along the left-hand fork of Sandy Creek. Call who can be called and follow me."
[Narrator] Standing atop a cliff, Captain Silas Soule holds back his men. Never in his young life has he had to stand so firm, feel so hopeless. Never has this young officer felt the choking sear of human fear so accutely or looked shame so squarely in the eye.
[Silas Soule] "It wasn't an army. It was a mob. I flat refused to order in my men or open fire."
[Mochi] "Without thinking we dig in the sandy earth making holes to get away from the bullets and...to make a stand."
[Narrator] And then, it was night.
[George Bent] "We crawled out of the holes, stiff and sore, with blood frozen on our wounded and half-naked bodies. Slowly, painfully we retreated up the creek."
[Narrator] Colonel Chivington prepared his report to General Curtis:
[Chivington] "I, at daylight attacked Cheyenne villages of one hundred and thirty lodges, from nine to ten hundred warriors strong."
[Mochi] "More than half of us are wounded and all are on foot. We stop in a ravine for the night. It is SO cold. We cover ourselves with grass to keep warm."
[Chivington] "Killed chiefs Black Kettle, White Antelope, No-Ta-Nee and Little Robe and between 4 and 5 hundred other Indians. Our loss: nine killed, 38 wounded." November 29, 1864 Col John M. Chivington
[Narrator] Major Scott Anthony tallied differently:
[Maj Scott Anthony] "Our loss in killed and wounded in the 'Great Battle' was very near as many as there were armed Indians in the camp: 13 dead and 38 wounded."
[Mochi] "Sleep does not come easily... we remember our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters...our babies so brutally murdered...lying alone on the ground, cold, with the soldiers doing unspeakable things to them.
"This day, I vow revenge for the murder of my family and my people."
This day, I declare war on veho – white man.
[John Sipes, Jr.] "Mochis is my great, great grandmother. She was born in 1844, yellowstone country. Wyoming...She was 20 years old at Sand Creek
[Mochi] This day I become a warrior and a warrior I will be forever.
[John Sipes Jr] She knew of no other way to handle losing all her family but to fight back, the Old Ones said.
[Mochi] The words of White Antelope's death song would become mine: 'Nothing lives long. Only the earth and the mountains'
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Mochis and Medicine Water
Copyright © Florida State Archives, JAX HistSoc. 286 |
[Narrator] As Mochis dedicated herself to the memory of her people, soldiers were ransacking the village, collecting buffalo robes, deerskin shirts, and creating for themselves other 'trophies' from the body parts of the dead. Once satisfied, they burned the lodges.
The only prisioners: two children found after the battle and taken back to Denver by the men of the Third
November 29, 1864, The battle at Sand Creek: To the Cheyenne, this day would be forever "Bo-No-ya-Hit"...The Sand Creek Massacre. 148 Cheyenne dead, only 60 were men.
As dawn broke the soldiers marched South while the Cheyennes continued their escape – North.
[John Sipes, Jr] "They went back to the Smoky Hill River area with the Dog Soldiers were the arrows were during Sand Creek. That little strip of Kansas, they considered Dog Soldier country.That's where basically, they ended up.
[Narrrator] Their arrival in the camp met with tears, and warmth...blankets and food and comfort for the survivors. Chief Black Kettle, his shame as big as the earth, also arrives, to taunts and jeers.
[Cheyenne Men] His faith in whites led to the murder of women and children. Why did you not stay at Sand Creek and die with your brother. You are an old fool."
[Narrator] There are no thoughts of peace now. The whites had declared war on them...and in anger they would strike back. The Smoky Hill camp was full of warriors...many of them Dog Soldiers, one of the war societies. Everyone clamored for war, even the women
[John Sipes, Jr] "When Sand Creek occurred, it was in the cold time, you know, winter time. Yet, when they sent the pipes out. I think that's the only time they ever sent the war pipes out to get someone to ally with them and to fight with them. The first ones to pick up the pipes were the Lakota, Low Brule Sioux".
[Narrator] Within days, the Cheyennes, Spotted Tail Souix and Pawnee Killer Sioux and the Northern Arapaho had declared war against the United States. The alliance of tribes which Governor Evans feared... was now a reality.
The efforts of peace chiefs were for naught. Caught between the Dog Soldiers and the waring whites and the teachings of Sweet Medicine:
[Cheyenne Man, Sweet Medicine] "Though your son might be killed in front of your lodge, you should take your sacred pipe and smoke it and pray to the creator, Maheo.
[Narrator] Peace chiefs White Antelope, Yellow Wolf, Standing-in-Water, Lone Bear, Bumping Wolf perished at Sand Creek. As they mourned for their dead, an exhausted and discouraged Black Kettle and a small band, too weary to fight, moved south toward the Arkansas
While at Fort Lyon, John Chivington bragged about the defeat he had handed the Cheyennes and Arapahoes...
"...a brilliant thing, which will make me a brigadier general or put a star on my shoulders."
At first glance, the fort command seemed in sympathy with the Cheyennes.
[Maj Scott Anthony] "We here feel wronged by his action; he has whipped the only peaceable Indians in the country."
The Major's displeasure with the Colonel only thinly veiled in his letter to his brother:
[Scott Anthony] "I am inclined to think the Colonel dare not risk a longer trip into the hostile Indian country for fear he could not get promoted before reports were published showing his foolish action in that affair. He has, within sight of them, turned back with the largest and best outfited command that ever went against Indians in this locality."
[Narrator] Within the month, the proud citizens of Denver City would welcome their war hero and his men.
"Headed by the First Regiment band and by Colonels Chivington and Shoup, the rank and file of the 'bloody Thirdsters made a most imposing procession. Althought covered o'er with dust, the boys looked bully." Rocky Mountain News December 22, 1864
The soldiers arrived with their trophies to a nearly circus like atmosphere.
"Cheyenne scalps are getting as thick here as toads in Egypt. Everybody has got one, and is anxious to get another to send to the east."
The men of 'Third' sold beaded deerskin shirts and dresses for a mere $20.00 a piece.
The town was alight with Indian feve. The Denver Theatre offering "the great Indian Drama"...
"A full and fashionable audience were at the Denver Theatre last night. the play was put upon the stage in splendid style, with numerous novel trappings and trophies of the big fight at Sand Creek."
As thought bore on the wind, the seeds of conscience were sprouting. By the end of the year, Washington was alive with rumors that Sand Creek was not a glorious field of battle.
"The affair at Fort Lyon, Colorado Territory, in which Col Chivington destroyed a large Indian village and all it's inhabitants, is to be made the subject of congressional investigation." A Washington paper, 12/20/64
[Sherman Goose] "The real reason was for selfishness. The land that they occupied was their home. They thought the Great Spirit put them there to live there from now on. Which, of course, was true. But the white man wanted the land for his own use. He didn't care about civilization or progress, only the land."
"The War Department wanted the Indians out of Colorado, the Territory of Colorado. And the War Department gave orders to General Curtis out of Kansas. And General Curtis and Chivington were good friends."
"I want no peace til the Indians suffer more."
[Narrator] By the end of the year, 2000 warriors had assembled along the Platte River preparing for war against the whites. Charles and George Bent joined the Dog Soldiers as warriors.
January 7, 1865: during the Moon of the Strong Wind...1000 Cheyenne, Sioux and Arapaho warriors attacked the small army camp and stage stop at the mouth of Lodgepole Creek, Julesburg. Killing 15 soldiers and looting the stagestop taking food and provisions for their horses. The shopkeeper fled in haste leaving the payroll strongbox behind. The warriors chop the little green paper and throw it like confetti;'cept for George Bent...who stuffed his pockets with a great deal of money.
Among the warriors: Mochi and Medicine Water, feeling revenge, yet, sensing a sorrow for the loss of the soul of the land.
[Leg-in-the-Water] "The White man has taken our country, killed our game; was not satisfied with that, but killed our wives and children. Now. No peace. We have raised the war cry until death."
[Lt Ware] "The whole Indian country between the Platte and the Arkansas River was ablaze with war-paint and fight.
[Narrator] Up and down the Platte, capturing wagon trains, destroying telegraph lines, interrupting mail delivery, freight service. And so it would be for the next 12 years.
[Gen Nelson Miles] "The Sand Creek massacre is perhaps the foulest and most unjustifable crime. But for that horrible butchery, it is a fair presumption that all subsequent wars with the Cheyenne and Arapahoes might have been averted."
[Narrator] The lives of warriors were as ordinary as those of settlers...hunting food, worshiping, making tools, playing with the family, trading. The Old Ones taught a young Medicine Water to respect his elders, to be peaceful with others and to learn to make arrows for ...
[Cheyenne Man] If one does not make arrows, he will borrow moccasins, leggins and robes and be disliked. A man must be energetic and full of life. If you are not, your blanket will be ragged, your moccasins will be full of holes."
[Narrator] Within the village there were a few women warriors, like Mochi. They had their own medicine women, their own way to prepare for battle. All the while keeping the lodge, having babies, paying attention to passing on the traditions. Mochi sang her own songs, painted her own war shield, made her own medicine all taught to her by the old ones.
To make medicine was to enter into a time of fasting, prayer, thanksgiving and self-denial. A warrior wanted to subdue the passions of the flesh, to cleanse the soul, get into conformity with Maheo. Even the way a warrior dressed for battle was part of the medicine.
[Wooden Leg] "The preparation is for death. Every warrior wants to look his best when he goes to meet the great Spirit."
[John Sipes, Jr] The war horse played a vital part in all this. She only would have used the horse for war. It was tied, it was kept seperate. It was never mixed with the other herds. It was kept away. And there was a certain way that she tied the tail. the tail was. It could have been braided. It could have been tied down with eagle feathers. And there was a certain harness that it wore. If she painted her horse, it was her own paints, and her own design. It was not just get on a horse, let's go fight situation. It was a long process."
[Cheyenne Warrior] " He fights with me, fasts with me. He knows my heart and I know his. We are brothers. I can look into his eyes and see his soul."
[Sherman Goose] "At one time warfare consisted of counting coup. With this coup stick you rode by just as fast as the horse could go and you struck the enemy on the head with this little coup stick. More or less like a fly swatter. That carried more honor than killing the enemy."
Narrator] However, against the white settlers, more than a coup stick was needed. Here were two cultures that absolutely did not understand each other. To the whites the Plains tribes stood in the way of progress in the way of civilization; they were merely tenants-at-will, like the buffalo and the antelope. To the Cheyenne, the settlers were out of sync with Maheo.
[Sherman Goose] "It was strange that when they gave the white man a place to live that he fenced it immediately. They said it was pecular that a person should do that. Why did they do that? They couldn't figure out why he wanted to put a fence around what little acreage they gave him to live on."
[Narrator] But now, the ancient cottonwoods were disappearing; the mountains were bald where once great forests had grown. Once the buffalo herds stretched for as far as the eye could see...now they were killed, wantonly, not for food, but for their hides. Treaty after treaty with these whites seemed for not. They wanted the land, and that was that.
As the government termed it: "this affair at Fort Lyon", opened a pandora's box that would change the face of the West forever. Unless something is done to settle this trouble...our prospects are blasted for some time to come and the development of a rich mining country indifinately postponed." JB Chaffee Jan. 10, 1865
"After Sand Creek, the Cheyenne didn't trust anybody. They didn't trust the soldiers, they didn't trust nobody."
[Narrator] Yet, life goes on. Mochi and Medicine Water found time to court, then marry. During the course of the next several years babies were born to their lodge. And still, Mochi and Medicine Water both rode as warriors...
[John Sipes, Jr] It's kind of unique that she was able to play all these roles: mother, keeper of the lodge, able to cook and feed, and then if it came time to fight, she went to fight."
[Narrator] In Denver City, another young man, Silas Soule, carries with him the memories of Sand Creek.
[Silas Soule] Dear Mother. Last November was a raid by Hundred Daysers under Col Chivington to kill Cheyennes at Sandy Creek. It was murder pure and simple. It was a horrible scene and I would not let my Company fire. All my years out here, the constant grinding down by death; how much is lost, never to be retreived?
[Narrator] Silas' isn't the only one with problems. The congressional investigation is underway. And public sentiment is high.
[Neb. Newspaper] "By all means let there be an investigation, but we advise the honorable congressional committee to get their scalps insured before they pass Plum Creek."
[Narrator] So the testimony began...everyone with any connection called...Governor Evans, Indian Agent Colley, Interpreter, John Smith, Lt Cramer, Maj Anthony...and Silas Soule.
[Silas Soule] Dear Mother: I am reforming in regard to my bad habits for I have kept off chewing tobacco and smoking a pipe. But I will smoke cigars when I can get them. I don't drink so you see I am getting quite respectable and will stand a chance of getting a wife when I go down east."
[Narrator] His reforming not withstanding, Si is the first called before the commission...and for six days, cross examined. Mochi and Medicine Water along with other Cheyennes, Sioux and Arapaho continue to press the white emigrant trains coming from the east.
President Lincoln sends 8000 troops to the West to fight the Indian Wars...unleashing a fury that will not end until a civilization is nearly destroyed before it is bent to fit into the white man's mold.
[Narrator] "The last half of my news is best of all! Your son is a married man! Her name is Theresa Cobberly, everyone calls here Hersa. I call her everlasting love of my life. When was it ever thus; that a soldier who wouldn't pull a trigger wore such laurels."
[Narrator] Silas' happiness isn't to last long...his fate, sealed on that ridge overlooking Sandy Creek, will call him in the dark of night...
"Our city was thrown into a feverish excitement last evening by the assassination of Captain SS Soule of the Colorado First." The ball killed him instantly. The assassin dropped his pistol at the scene....a trail of blood led in the direction of the military camps. Today in St. Paul's Church, Episcopal, the rights for one whom many called their conscience, gave those Denverites a chance to show their sympathy." Rocky Mountain News, April 27, 1865
[Narrator] In the end the Congressional Tribunal did little while assessing blame to Evans and Chivington and many of their officers. Chivington stood by his conduct, believing to the end that it was his destiny.
[Chivington] "Unless we settled this we'd not survive to statehood! We were being held hostage by Stone Age savages who knew no law that anyone could understand."
[Narrator] John Evans with a style that would make any politician proud avoided direct knowledge of anything.
"His testimony was characterized by such shuffling as has been shown by no witness examined. For the evident purpose of avoiding admission that he was fully aware that the Indians massacred so brutally at Sand Creek were then and had been friendly toward whites."
Statehood would not be helped by the massacre of the Cheyennes...and would not become a reality for more than a decade.
Medicine Water, Mochi and other Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Sioux warriors crisscrossed the plains. By October another council was held,called the Treaty of the Little Arkansas. Again, the peace chiefs gathered.
[Black Kettle] "I once thought I was the only man that persevered to be the friend of the white man; but since they have come and cleaned out our lodges, horsees, and everything else, it is hard for me to believe white men any more." Black Kettle
"I love the land and the buffalo and will not part with it. I want you to understand well what I say. Write it on paper. Let the Great Father see it." Kiowa Chief: White Bear
[Narrator] The results: another reservation, more land 'relinquished' to the white man, but they could hunt and roam in the uninhabited parts of the country...and the US government would pay $40 a head for 40 years to each man woman and child who moved to the reservation...and a provision for retribution for the wrongs at Sand Creek.
The sticking point would be a provision that the Smoky Hill area of Kansas be relinquish. The peace was stormy. The Dog Soldiers were willing but had found whiskey traders.
For all the rhetoric, not one thing really changed.
Arriving in Colorado Terrritory, General William T. Sherman deemed the "Indian Trouble" exaggerated.
[General Sherman] "The Cheyenne and Arapaho are off after buffalo. God only knows when, and I do see how, we can make a decent excuse for an Indian War." Wm Tescumsah Sherman
[Narrator] Medicine Water and Mochi joined other warriors harassing small outposts of settlers, causing General Sherman to concede:
[Gen Sherman] "They must be exterminated, for they cannot and will not settle down, and our people will force us to it."
[Narrator] The army continued to believe that might was the right of the white man. and the Cheyenne believed if they perservered they could save the the soul of the land...that the buffalo might roam forever... that their children's children might walk the same path as those who went before... The Cheyennes continued to fight for their country... the soldiers continued to fight for THEIR country...
George Custer led the 7th Calvary thru the snow toward another showdown with the Cheyenne. Camped along the Washita River, Black Kettle's village lay sleeping that morning the 27th of November, 1868. When the night mare began again. Men, women and children killed as they lay sleeping, including this time, Chief Black Kettle and his wife.
Perhaps it is true that history repeats itself. The strategy and outcome at the Washita seems frighteninly similar to Sand Creek.
[John Sipes, Jr] I know the elders in my family well enough that if I was to ask them if they thought that they were two people with the same kind of thoughts to fight. you know Chivington and Custer. would have been 2 peas in a pod.
[Sherman Goose] The stories that we hear and the stories that we know about Sand Creek and the Washita and other small incidents tend to want me to ask, make me want to ask: Who was the Savage?
[Narrator] Two cultures. Each thought the other was uncivilized. George Custer tried to understand the Plains tribes; but he did not.
[John Sipes, Jr] "After the massacre on the Lodge Pole River or the Washita River as others know it, that following spring, in March of 1869. Custer barged in on the Arrow Keepers Tepee where the Sacred Arrows were hanging and demanded to smoke. The chiefs that went in there to smoke with him, the arrow keeper lit the pipe. And they passed it around to him. And the chiefs instead of passing the pipe like normally is done , they passed it behind them until it came to him. And instead of taking the 4 normal sacred puffs of the pipe and going thru the procedure he just went to just smoking away. the arrow keeper told him, 'if you ever come to war with the Cheyenne again. you're gonna die.
The continual defense of their country took a heavy toll on the Cheyenne. Where once they had been able to feed their families and subsist on buffalo, today they were nearly destitute.
[Narrator] Amid all the atrocities created by both cultures stood a few men of great vision; Silas Soule was one such man:
[Silas Soule] The Cheyennes don't get their lands, or food, or justice. What they got was slaughtered."
[Narrator] Chief Black Kettle was another, hoping only to prevent the extinction of his people from the crush of white civilization.
The nightmare that was started at Sand Creek would not stop. By d1874, the Dog soldiers had declined in numbers and the Bowstring Society had taken lead of the fight. Medicine Water as Bowstring war chief, called warriors from the other societies to join his efforts to stop the soldiers, to stop the buffalo hunters, to take back the plains. Mochi rode at his side.
When they brutally murdered the Germann family in Kansas and captured their children, the end was near. Although Mochi and Medicine Water veiwed the action as no different than Sand Creek or the Washita; the US Government saw it differently.
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Buffalo Calf Woman, Mochis
Copyright © Florida State Archives, JAX HistSoc. 286 |
Mochi and Medicine Water were declared the most dangerous of the dangerous. After fighting for nearly 11 years, they secured the Sacred Arrows in a safe haven and surrendered to the soldiers at Fort Reno.
Without trial or tribunal, they were loaded into railcars and taken to St. Augusting, Florida, where they resided at Fort Marion as Prisioners of War until their release in 1878.
In 1881 surrounded by her family, Buffalo Calf woman, Mochi crossed the 4 Great Rivers to join Maheo in the land beyond. She was 41. Medicine Water continued until his death in 1926 to defy the white man...So many died that day at Sand Creek. It becomes part of who you are and why you have become. For the Tsis Tsis Tas there will always be Tears in the Sand
[Cheyenne Men] The spirits of those who perished at Sand Creek live on each time we speak their names:
White Hat, Bear Skin, Wounded Bear, Crow Necklace, Bear Feathers, Two Lances, Black Wolf, White Antelope, One eye, Tall Bear, Feather Head, Tall Wolf, Heap Of Crows, Spotted Crow, Standing Water, Big Head Red Arm, Stitting Bear, Big Shell, Kiowa Wolf Mule, Whtie Man, Tall Bull, Black Horse, Yellow Wolf, Loser in the Race.
