For long trips, we try to locus out stops on a theme. Not everything is associated with the theme but it is a general guide. The theme for this trip has been the Indian Wars. I knew hardly anything about this topic before this trip, and now I feel that everything I have learned has mostly taught me how little I know.
Over the miles of driving we have discussed what the difference between a battle and a massacre was. Every battle ground we have been the (even Little Bighorn) started with the army surrounding and attacking an Indian village early in the morning. As unethical as a surprise attack in the early morning seems, I not sure that makes what happened afterwards a massacre.
The incident at Sand Creek in south-eastern Colorado in 1864 (even before the end of the Civil War) was early enough to set the tone for the later indian wars. I felt that this incident was a massacre because of these factors.
-most of the "soldiers" were untrained volunteers that were rallied for 100 days to avenge the death of a family killed by indians
-the casualties were disproportionate--12 soldiers to at least 160 indians
-women and children seem to have been killed with the same impunity as fighting men
-the bodies of the dead were mutilated
One soldiear wrote:
"I refused to fire and swore taht no one but a coward would, for by this time hundreds of women and cildren were coming towards us and getting on their knees for mercy"
News of the Sand Creek Massacre spread throughout the Indian territories and to the east. Unfortunatley it set the tone for more than a decade.
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