History is usually a series of slow-moving gears, but sometimes those gears grind together so violently they change everything. On a freezing November morning in 1864, about 675 Colorado volunteer cavalrymen rode into a peaceful camp of Cheyenne and Arapaho. What happened next wasn't a battle. It was a slaughter. Most of the victims were women, children, and the elderly. When people ask why did the Sand Creek Massacre happen, they often want a simple answer—maybe one bad guy or one bad decision. Honestly? It's way more complicated than that. It was a perfect storm of gold-rush greed, a civil war raging back East, and a few powerful men who were desperate for political clout.
John Chivington, the man who led the charge, wasn't just some random soldier. He was a Methodist preacher. He had political ambitions. He wanted to be Colorado’s first congressman. In his mind, a "glorious victory" over "hostile Indians" was his ticket to Washington. But he wasn't acting in a vacuum. The people of Denver were terrified. They were hungry. They were convinced they were about to be wiped out by tribes that, for the most part, just wanted to be left alone.
The Hunger for Statehood and the Gold Rush Chaos
You've got to understand the vibe in Colorado in the 1860s. It was chaotic. The Pike's Peak Gold Rush had dumped thousands of white settlers onto lands that were explicitly guaranteed to the Cheyenne and Arapaho by the Treaty of Fort Laramie in 1851. Suddenly, there's a city (Denver) where there used to be buffalo range.
The settlers didn't care about treaties. They wanted land. They wanted the railroad. But the Cheyenne and Arapaho were in the way. Territorial Governor John Evans was under massive pressure to "clear the path" for the railroad and to prove that Colorado was stable enough to become a state. If the territory stayed dangerous, the money from the East would stop flowing.
Evans wasn't a soldier; he was a politician. In the summer of 1864, he issued a proclamation that basically told "friendly" Indians to report to specific forts for protection. Those who didn't? They were fair game. This created a legal gray area that Chivington was more than happy to exploit.
Why did the Sand Creek Massacre happen when the tribes thought they were safe?
This is the part that’s truly gut-wrenching. Black Kettle, a Cheyenne chief, did exactly what the government told him to do. He went to Fort Lyon. He sought peace. He was told by Major Edward Wynkoop that if he moved his people to Sand Creek, they would be under the protection of the U.S. Army.
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Black Kettle even flew an American flag and a white flag of truce over his lodge. He believed the word of the officers he had spoken with. But while Wynkoop was trying to be honorable, Chivington was back in Denver, seething.
Chivington had raised a regiment of "100-day volunteers." Their enlistment was about to run out. If they didn't fight someone soon, they’d go home without any "glory." Chivington famously said, "Damn any man who sympathizes with Indians! I have come to kill Indians, and believe it is right and honorable to use any means under God's heaven to kill Indians." He didn't distinguish between "hostile" and "friendly." To him, they were all obstacles.
The Civil War Factor
People forget that while this was happening, the U.S. was tearing itself apart in the Civil War. This matters because it meant the "best" troops and the most oversight were all back East. Colorado was left with volunteers—men who weren't necessarily disciplined soldiers.
The federal government was distracted. President Lincoln had his hands full with Robert E. Lee. This gave men like Evans and Chivington a long leash. They felt they could settle the "Indian problem" while the rest of the country was looking the other way. There was also this weird anxiety that the Confederacy might try to stir up the tribes to attack the Union from the West. There’s almost no evidence this was actually happening on a large scale, but paranoia is a powerful drug.
The Hungate Massacre: The Spark in the Powder Keg
In June 1864, a family of settlers—the Hungates—were killed about 25 miles from Denver. Their bodies were brought into the city and put on public display. It was gruesome. It was horrifying.
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The city went into a total panic. People stayed up all night with guns, waiting for an invasion that never came. Even though it wasn't clear which specific group of people killed the Hungates, the public blamed all Native Americans. The cry for "total war" became deafening. Newspapers like the Rocky Mountain News didn't help; they fanned the flames, calling for the "extermination of the red devils."
When you ask why did the Sand Creek Massacre happen, you have to look at this media environment. It dehumanized the victims long before the first shot was fired.
A Betrayal of Command
Not everyone in the military was on board with Chivington’s plan. Captain Silas Soule and Lieutenant Joseph Cramer, who were under Chivington's command, saw exactly what was happening and refused to order their men to fire.
Soule later wrote letters describing the horror. He saw soldiers cutting unborn babies out of mothers. He saw toddlers being used for target practice. Because Soule spoke up, we actually have an accurate historical record of the atrocities. He was later assassinated in the streets of Denver for his testimony.
The massacre happened because the chain of command broke. Chivington ignored his superiors in the Department of the Missouri who had suggested a more measured approach. He took matters into his own hands because he knew that in the short term, the people of Denver would hail him as a hero. And they did—at first. When the troops returned to Denver, they paraded through the streets with body parts as trophies. It was only later, when the Congressional investigations started, that the mood shifted.
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The Economic Reality
Follow the money. It always comes back to that. The Cheyenne and Arapaho sat on land that was crucial for the expansion of the United States. The 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie had given them a massive chunk of land. But the 1861 Treaty of Fort Wise (which only a few chiefs signed under questionable circumstances) took away about 90% of it.
The tribes who didn't sign the Fort Wise treaty—the ones who stayed on their ancestral lands—were seen as "insurgents." But they were just staying in the home they were promised. The massacre was, at its core, a violent land grab masquerading as a defensive military action.
What we can learn from the fallout
The aftermath was a disaster for everyone. Instead of "ending" the Indian Wars, Sand Creek ignited them. Tribes across the plains realized that peace treaties didn't matter. If you could be slaughtered while flying a white flag, why bother talking? It led to decades of increased bloodshed across the West.
The U.S. government eventually admitted it was a "foul and dastardly massacre," but no one was ever truly punished. Chivington resigned from the army, which protected him from a court-martial. Evans was forced to resign as governor.
If you're looking to understand this deeper or want to see the impact today, there are a few things you can actually do:
- Visit the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site: It’s in Kiowa County, Colorado. It’s a somber, quiet place. Standing there gives you a sense of the isolation and the sheer scale of the betrayal that no history book can capture.
- Read the Testimony of Silas Soule: You can find his letters online through the National Park Service. It’s raw. It’s difficult to read. But it’s the most honest account of what happened when the "official" reports were lying.
- Support Tribal Education: The Northern Cheyenne and the Arapaho tribes still deal with the intergenerational trauma of this event. Look into the Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual Healing Run, an annual event that commemorates the victims.
- Audit your sources: When reading about Western history, check if the narrative is centered only on the "pioneers." Modern historians like Ari Kelman (who wrote A Misplaced Massacre) offer a much more nuanced look at how memory and history collide.
Understanding why did the Sand Creek Massacre happen requires looking at the worst parts of human nature: the desire for power, the fear of the "other," and the willingness to ignore morality for the sake of political gain. It wasn't an accident. It was a choice.