The Sand Creek Massacre and the History of Greater Reconstruction in the American West
In the traditional U.S. historical narrative, the Civil War & Reconstruction era is a North vs. South story. Nevertheless, the era of western expansion, a central theme throughout the nineteenth century, has no contingent place within this traditional narrative. Meanwhile, the history of the American West and its diverse peoples appears in many textbooks as an unrelated albeit contemporaneous narrative. Separated by geographical regions, historians often do not examine these concurrent histories. However, many of these historical events and actors were interconnected. As I am interested in understanding the Reconstruction era’s national impact, I intend to explore how Reconstruction policies were enacted in the 1860s and 70s trans-Mississippi West, building which builds on the historical contributions of Historian Elliot West in “Greater Reconstruction,” which aims to reimagine a more national ideal of Reconstruction, not confined to the Southern states. Moreover, this era includes western Native peoples' post-Civil War reform era history. This project aims to uncover the history of the Reconstruction of Native peoples by concentrating on the Southern Arapaho and Cheyenne of the Colorado plains territory. Elliott West’s “Greater Reconstruction” concept specifically connects mid-nineteenth-century race-making and nation-state-building political projects in the American South and West. For this project, I plan to center the 1864 Sand Creek massacre that took place in the southeastern Colorado Territory as a marking point in the Civil War in the West and Greater Reconstruction. This massacre involved the brutal murder and mutilation of an estimated 200 Cheyenne and Arapaho people by the U.S. Army. By contextualizing this massacre in terms of other Civil War-era Indian “wars,” I will be able to examine the federal government’s decision to investigate the attack on the Native people, which was not only a common occurrence but widely supported among military personnel. I will significantly rely on Congressional testimony and investigation reports (39th Congress, 2nd Session, U.S. Senate, Reports of Committees, No. 156.), along with Bureau of Indian Affairs records (Record Group 75.19.10). These sources will help me determine why this particular Native massacre received so much federal scrutiny. I also intend to put the Sand Creek investigation in a historical conversation with the federal government’s attempts to reconstruct the Southern Arapaho and Cheyenne through new treaty provisions (primarily in the Medicine Lodge Treaty of 1867) that forced them into reservation life in Native Territory. Rather than portraying these developments as contradictory, I hope to connect them by identifying their shared Greater Reconstruction-era political motivations as 19th-century Republicans attempted to build a politically and culturally unified nation. More broadly, I hope to shed light on an overlooked aspect of Greater Reconstruction and its complicated and often negative impact on the Arapaho people. In so doing, this project contributes to the growing inclusion of marginalized voices and perspectives in the history of Reconstruction, which is still primarily dominated by prominent American military and political figures. Finally, this project will take steps to clarify the meaning and legacy of this critical era of political reform and nation-state building concerning American society today.
Greater Reconstruction, Native American, Sand Creek, Colorado, Civil War, Reconstruction
City University of New York - City College
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