The Last American Frontier

by Frederic L. Paxson

In a way, the Arapaho and Cheyenne Indians lay off the beaten tracks and apart from contact with the whites. Their home was in the triangle between the great trails, with a mountain wall behind them that offered almost insuperable obstacles to those who would cross the continent through their domain. The Gunnison railroad survey, which was run along the thirty-ninth parallel and through the Cochetopa Pass, revealed the difficulty of penetrating the range at this point. Accordingly, a decade which built up Oregon and California made little impression on this section until in 1858 gold was discovered in Cherry Creek. Then came the deluge.

Nearly one hundred thousand miners and hangers-on crossed the plains to the Pike's Peak country in 1859 and settled unblushingly in the midst of the Indian lands. They "possessed nothing more than the right of transit over these lands," admitted the Peace Commissioners in 1868. Yet they "took possession of them for the purpose of mining, and, against the protest of the Indians, founded cities, established farms, and opened roads. Before 1861 the Cheyenne and Arapaho had been driven from the mountain regions down upon the waters of the Arkansas, and were becoming sullen and discontented because of this violation of their rights." The treaty of 1851 had guaranteed the Indians in their possession, pledging the United States to prevent depredations by the whites, but here, as in most similar cases, the guarantees had no weight in the face of a population under way. The Indians were brushed aside, the United States agents made no real attempts to enforce the treaty, and within a few months the settlers were demanding protection against the surrounding tribes. "The Indians saw their former homes and hunting grounds overrun by a greedy population, thirsting for gold," continued the Commissioners. "They saw their game driven east to the plains, and soon found themselves the objects of jealousy and hatred. They too must go. The presence of the injured is too often painful to the wrong-doer, and innocence offensive to the eyes of guilt. It now became apparent that what had been taken by force must be retained by the ravisher, and nothing was left for the Indian but to ratify a treaty consecrating the act."

Instead of a war of revenge in which the Arapaho and Cheyenne strove to defend their lands and to drive out the intruders, a war in which the United States ought to have coöperated with the Indians, a treaty of cession followed. On February 18, 1861, at Fort Wise, which was the new name for Bent's old fort on the Arkansas, an agreement was signed by which these tribes gave up much of the great range reserved for them in 1851, and accepted in its place, with what were believed to be greater guarantees, a triangular tract bounded, east and northeast, by Sand Creek, in eastern Colorado; on the south by the Arkansas and Purgatory rivers; and extending west some ninety miles from the junction of Sand Creek and the Arkansas. The cessions made by the Ute on the other side of the range, not long after this, are another part of the same story of mining aggression. The new Sand Creek reserve was designed to remove the Arapaho and Cheyenne from under the feet of the restless prospectors. For years they had kept the peace in the face of great provocation. For three years more they put up with white encroachment before their war began.

The Colorado miners, like those of the other boom camps, had been loud in their demand for transportation. To satisfy this, overland traffic had been organized on a large scale, while during 1862 the stage and freight service of the plains fell under the control of Ben Holladay. Early in August, 1864, Holladay was nearly driven out of business. About the 10th of the month, simultaneous attacks were made along his mail line from the Little Blue River to within eighty miles of Denver. In the forays, stations were sacked and burned, isolated farms were wiped out, small parties on the trails were destroyed. At Ewbank Station, a family of ten "was massacred and scalped, and one of the females, besides having suffered the latter inhuman barbarity, was pinned to the earth by a stake thrust through her person, in a most revolting manner; ... at Plum Creek ... nine persons were murdered, their train, consisting of ten wagons, burnt, and two women and two children captured.... The old Indian traders ... and the settlers ... abandoned their habitations." For a distance of 370 miles, Holladay's general superintendent declared, every ranch but one was "deserted and the property abandoned to the Indians."

Fifteen years after the destruction of his stations, Holladay was still claiming damages from the United States and presenting affidavits from his men which revealed the character of the attacks. George H. Carlyle told how his stage was chased by Indians for twenty miles, how he had helped to bury the mutilated bodies of the Plum Creek victims, and how within a week the route had to be abandoned, and every ranch from Fort Kearney to Julesburg was deserted. The division agent told how property had been lost in the hurried flight. To save some of the stock, fodder and supplies had to be sacrificed,—hundreds of sacks of corn, scores of tons of hay, besides the buildings and their equipment. Nowhere were the Indians overbold in their attacks. In small bands they waited their time to take the stations by surprise. Well-armed coaches might expect to get through with little more than a few random shots, but along the hilltops they could often see the savages waiting in safety for them to pass. Indian warfare was not one of organized bodies and formal manœuvres. Only when cornered did the Indian stand to fight. But in wild, unexpected descents the tribes fell upon the lines of communication, reducing the frontier to an abject terror overnight.

The destruction of the stage route was not the first, though it was the most general hostility which marked the commencement of a new Indian war. Since the spring of 1864 events had occurred which in the absence of a more rigorous control than the Indian Department possessed, were likely to lead to trouble. The Cheyenne had been dissatisfied with the Fort Wise treaty ever since its conclusion. The Sioux were carrying on a prolonged war. The Arapaho, Comanche, and Kiowa were ready to be started on the war-path. It was the old story of too much compression and isolated attacks going unpunished. Whatever the merits of an original controversy, the only way to keep the savages under control was to make fair retribution follow close upon the commission of an outrage. But the punishment needed to be fair.

In April, 1864, a ranchman named Ripley came into one of the camps on the South Platte and declared that some Indians had stolen his stock. Perhaps his statement was true; but it must be remembered that the ranchman whose stock strayed away was prone to charge theft against the Indians, and that there is only Ripley's own word that he ever had any stock. Captain Sanborn, commanding, sent out a troop of cavalry to recover the animals. They came upon some Indians with horses which Ripley claimed as his, and in an attempt to disarm them, a fight occurred in which the troop was driven off. Their lieutenant thought the Indians were Cheyenne.

A few weeks after this, Major Jacob Downing, who had been in Camp Sanborn inspecting troops, came into Denver and got from Colonel Chivington about forty men, with whom "to go against the Indians." Downing later swore that he found the Cheyenne village at Cedar Bluffs. "We commenced shooting; I ordered the men to commence killing them.... They lost ... some twenty-six killed and thirty wounded.... I burnt up their lodges and everything I could get hold of.... We captured about one hundred head of stock, which was distributed among the boys."

On the 12th of June, a family living on Box Elder Creek, twenty miles east of Denver, was murdered by the Indians. Hungate, his wife, and two children were killed, the house burned, and fifty or sixty head of stock run off. When the "scalped and horribly mangled bodies" were brought into Denver, the population, already uneasy, was thrown into panic by this appearance of danger so close to the city. Governor Evans began at once to organize the militia for home defence and to appeal to Washington for help.

By the time of the attack upon the stage line it was clear that an Indian war existed, involving in varying degrees parts of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, and Kiowa tribes. The merits of the causes which provoked it were considerably in doubt. On the frontier there was no hesitation in charging it all to the innate savagery of the tribes. Governor Evans was entirely satisfied that "while some of the Indians might yet be friendly, there was no hope of a general peace on the plains, until after a severe chastisement of the Indians for these depredations."