Earlier this month I wrote about sometimes feeling
embarrassed to identify as a Christian. But I am embarrassed not only because of
things some Christian leaders do in the present but also because of what
some have done in the past. The Sand Creek Massacre is one sad example.
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The Bare Facts
There are background events that I don’t have
the space to elucidate here, but here are the bare facts of the Sand Creek
Massacre, which occurred 155 years ago yesterday, on November 29, 1864.
The Third Colorado Cavalry commanded by
Colonel John Chivington attacked a settlement of Cheyenne/Arapaho Indians at
Sand Creek, about 175 miles southeast of Denver. At Chivington’s insistence,
they murdered around 200 Native Americans, most of them women and children.
Prior to the massacre, Chivington reportedly
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. ...
Kill and scalp all, big and little; nits make lice.”
This
was all done with the approval of Colorado Governor John Evans, who was also
the Superintendent of Indian Affairs in Colorado.
The Embarrassing Facts
John Milton Chivington was born in 1821 into an
Ohio farm family. In 1844 he was ordained as a Methodist minister, serving in
that capacity in Illinois, Missouri, and then assisting in a Methodist
missionary expedition to the Wyandot Indians in Kansas in 1853. (The church I
now attend is in Wyandotte County.)
Gov. Evans was also a Methodist. He had joined
with other Methodists in 1850 to found Northwestern University in Illinois.
Then two years after becoming governor of Colorado in 1862, he and Chivington
founded Colorado Seminary, which later became the University of Denver.
The Sand Creek Massacre has, indeed, been an
embarrassment for the United Methodist Church, and five years ago they sought
repentance for that national disgrace (see here).
There were two Cavalrymen with the Third
Regiment, Silas Soule and Joseph Cramer, who refused to join in the massacre
and testified against Chivington—and Soule was shot in the back and killed in
April 1865 because of his testimony against Chivington.
It is also embarrassing to us Christians that
in contrast to Evans and Chivington, Soule was described as a “healthy skeptic”
rather than a religious believer.
Repenting of the Facts
This past Sunday Sarah Neher, the Director of Faith Formation and Youth
Ministries at Rainbow Mennonite Church, preached on “Deconstructing
Thanksgiving.” It was a bold, fitting sermon for the Sunday before the national
holiday and for the last week of National American Indian Heritage Month (here is a link to more about that).
Sarah said in her sermon,
This simple narrative [of the traditional Thanksgiving] sets the story like a fairytale. Casting Colonization as beneficial for everyone and that it was relatively peaceful. When in reality over the centuries since Europeans invaded Indigenous land, Natives have experienced genocide, the theft of their lands, and the attempted extinction of their culture.
Yes, the Sand Creek Massacre was simply the continuation of the “whites’”
treatment of Native Americans from the beginning—starting with the Pequot War
of 1636~38 and the Mystic Massacre of May 1637.
It was the continuation of words about “the merciless Indian Savages” included
in the Declaration of Independence of 1776.
Perhaps rather than observing the day after Thanksgiving as “Black
Friday,” those of us in the dominant culture should rather observe the days
following Thanksgiving as Repentance Weekend for the way our ancestors treated
the Native Americans.
That treatment has, indeed, been a national disgrace.
_____
For Further Information
Here
is the link to an article about the 21st annual Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual
Healing Run/Walk, currently in progress.
“Who is the
Savage” is an excellent 14-minute video about Black Kettle, the “peace
chief” head of the Sand Creek Native Americans in 1864.
And here
is the link to a Rocky Mountain PBS documentary on the Sand Creek Massacre.
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On this Saturday morning, the first comments received are the following from my much appreciated Thinking Friend Eric Dollard in Chicago.
ReplyDelete"Thanks, Leroy, for reminding us of how the white man has shamefully treated Native Americans.
"As with most children, I played cowboys and Indians with my friends and the Indians were usually the bad guys. But in the early 70's, I read Dee Brown's book, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, as a corrective to so many false impressions of Native Americans. I was previously aware of injustices imposed on Native Americans, but Brown's book pulled it all together, at least for me.
"Our treatment of Native Americans is still not as it should be."
Thanks for your comments, Eric.
DeleteBack in September I bought a copy of Brown's book, which I had never read--and I still haven't started it. After hearing this from you I am eager to read it.
It is difficult for me to understand the of killing Anyone like this even if Not a Christian.
ReplyDeleteBut as we Christians know, GOD has allowed satan to be god of this world so we could see how lacking we are without GOD running things.
I hope this makes sense to some of you reading this comment and I think it is appropriate to ask GOD for forgiveness on this ThanksGiving Holiday weekend.
Blessings to All,
John(Tim) Carr
Thanks for your comments, John Tim.
DeleteUpon reading your comments I thought of one of my favorite--and one of the most important--Bible verses:
"If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness" (I John 1:9).
This is what we as individuals need to do and what we of the dominant American culture need to do.
Here are comments posted on Facebook this morning by local friend Ken Grenz:
ReplyDelete"Thanks for your post. As I posted [on Facebook] yesterday, we made the detour to the Eastern Colorado site of Sand Creek. I recommend it. Of many books telling this story is a recent one by Gary Roberts called 'Massacre at Sand Creek.'
"Also, John Evans was seen as a respectable figure in his time, a great philanthropist in both Chicago (Evanston was named for him) and Denver, but though he was 'out of town at the time,' his manner of oversight implicates him in the event."
A couple of hours ago I received the following comments from Thinking Friend Truett Baker in Arizona:
ReplyDelete"How sad! And to think that this country was founded upon Judaeo-Christian principles is nauseous. Columbus and others opined that their mission was to bring the Gospel to the natives and instead, they brought diseases, thievery and murder. It makes me wonder how on earth could 'God Bless America?' Leroy, you 'unmade' my day by reminding us of this terrible blight on our faith and on our country. In retrospect, I guess we need these kinds of reminders to show us how precious is God's grace, that He doesn't wipe us off the earth for our malevolence."
And then these comments from Thinking Friend Glenn Hinson in Kentucky:
ReplyDelete"Thank you for posting that, Leroy. I had never heard about it. How many horrendous deeds for which we must atone?! I am embarrassed to recall my reaction as a boy to those awful, shoot-em-up and damning western movies. How ignorant I was! The Sand Creek Massacre surely plunges us to the depths of the evil within us that no claim to be Christian can atone for!"
I was privileged in the mid-1980s to teach music at/on the Standing Rock Senior High School in Fort Yates, ND. It was one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life. We, in North Dakota, are surrounded with Native American Reservations in the Dakotas. I lived in the Grand Forks/Traill County area growing up and I was taught to respect ALL people as equal, not just black persons. I will never forget the marvelous learning experiences I had with the dear Native American people, as I pastored with them in their setting. They taught ME a lot!
ReplyDeleteFacebook friend Mitch Kaufman posted the following comments on FB:
ReplyDelete"A horrible episode in our nation's history. It's hard to describe, but this site speaks to a visitor in very vivid terms. At least it did for me. The landscape is very much like it was 150 years ago, and does a lot to tell the tale. Definitely worth a visit."
Bob Fritsch another FB friend posted this brief comment:
ReplyDelete"Irony emerges as I think of King Herod’s motives and acts in ordering the Massacre of the Innocents!😢"
I grew up in Albuquerque NM. The city is surrounded by Navajo, Hopei, Apache and several Pueblos. The city is land locked by these 1st Nation's people who have been victims of violence since the Spanish came to seek out Gold and wealth. Juan de Onate began persecution of the Native Americans over 400 years ago by cutting off one foot of the Indians and made them slaves.
ReplyDeleteWhen New Mexico was opened by the stagecoach and then the railroad every kind of unspeakable violence occurred. A statue of Juan de Onate sits at the entrance of Old Town Albuquerque (only a few blocks from the oldest Catholic church) celebrating the oppression brought to Native Americans by white conquers (even though the Native Americans protested and sued to keep the statue from being erected).
As a boy the Indian children were separated from their parents and placed in religious schools in order to teach the them white man’s religion.
Approximately seventy-five years ago Baptist placed missions on the reservations and Pueblos to win the "Nations" to Christ. The Mission Board built buildings with little or no regard for the culture or Indian structures. After fifty years the Board decided that it could no longer afford to keep missionaries on the reservation and pulled out the funding in 2010.
With a sense of defeat the Board left behind buildings that were long boxes, with pianos, pews and a pulpit. The failure was not that missionaries didn't work hard or care. The defeat came as a result of white men disregarding the different cultures and operating from a Patristic model for dealing with non-white cultures.
I confess that I am embarrassed by the way religious structures still think of the Native American peoples. I am also embarrassed by city, county and state governments that continue to use the Native peoples for their political gain.
As we are in the Christmas season, churches from the South are making ready the microwaves and coffee pots. Children will receive the newest electric games, etc. The irony is few Indians have electricity and what they do have will not run a microwave and a heater at the same time. All the gifts will be sent and given out by well-meaning people from Church Land with the idea that they are coming to New Mexico to save the "little Indians"
What a sad state of affairs!!!
Thanks for your thought-provoking comments, Frank.
DeleteEarlier this year I read an intriguing book titled "Rescuing the Gospel from the Cowboys" (2015) by Richard Twiss (1940~2013), a Native American Christian. In spite of all the injustices done by Christians to Native Americans, Twiss adheres to both his ethnic identity and to his faith in Jesus Christ.
Here are substantial comments from local Thinking Friend Marilyn Peot:
ReplyDelete"Thank you! Yes, I've learned that the first Thanksgiving has been handed down to us with false information. The more I studied and reflected on how the 'white immigrants' dared to subject such horrors on the Native occupants of this land, the more I continue to be horrified! I went to high school with members of the Oneida tribe and lived close to the Chippewa of Keshena. We all blended beautifully at Green Bay East High School--and I look back on those days with reverence 'especially as I reflect on the horror.' One woman from the reservation is in our CSJ community--she has her own stories to tell.
"I have read EVERY DAY IS A GOOD DAY by Wilma Mankiller. She interviewed other Native Women who have lived through prejudice and dismissiveness. However, each one of them has made a life, loves America, and have come to the realization that there is a common thread moving through America that makes them think, instead of making demands on their young ones to return to the reservation, all of them should create community with the America they can believe in and together bring about the values they share with us and invite us to share with them. I loved their honesty, their energy for good, their hopes for building among all of us a community bond of hope and compassion.
"Have you seen the picture on Facebook? The title is: We should have built the Wall a long time ago. The picture is a group of Indians standing face to face with the white immigrants of Europe! Great idea!"
David Fulk, another local Thinking Friend, had trouble posting comments directly here (as others have had trouble doing from time to time and a problem which I don't know how to remedy), but I am happy to post his meaningful comments for him.
ReplyDelete"I’d heard of this massacre in my history studies, but had forgotten these sad details. I take a personal interest in the story of John Chivington who likely did missionary work among my Wyandot ancestors in the 1850s, many of whom are buried in the Huron Cemetery in downtown KCK. (Through these ancestors, I am a tribal member of the Wyandot Nation of Kansas).
"Hard to imagine that his calling to ministry and hands-on work with Native Americans would result in such an evil and deadly outcome a decade later. It does make me wonder what event or influence took place to turn him against a race of people he once served."
I am also happy to post the following comments from Gloria Throne, another local Thinking Friend:
ReplyDelete"Details of the story of the SAND CREEK MASSACRE have made me considerably more horrified at this bit of history. Your blog's links and other topics I googled filed in a lot of details such as the encamped Cheyenne and Arapaho were displaying white flags; Chivington and those who followed his orders charged ahead!
"Also Soule's letter which was hidden for years from public view revealed his willingness to have participated in the killing of Sioux or Kiowa or any fighting Indians. I'm grateful for Tom Bensing who wrote LIFE OF MORAL COURAGE about Soule, and I'm grateful for you for stimulating my search for an expanded view of The SAND CREEK MASSACRE."
Beneath the veneer of the American Dream lies the reality of the American Empire. Born in genocide, and raised on slavery, USAmerica has only fitfully tried to live up to its profound ideals. Look how we are treating refugees on our border, cutting funding meant to stabilize their home countries, and then separating parents from children as they flee violence USAmerica helped create back home, only to place both parents and children in cages. Tens of thousands of those separated children have parents whom the American government has "lost." Those children may never be restored to their families. The blood of Abel still cries from the ground to God, multiplied countless times. Our endless wars have become truly endless, only seeming to end when it is time to shift to a more profitable war (as defined by what President Eisenhower called "the military-industrial complex").
ReplyDeleteAs Matthew 7:21 tells us, not everyone who cries "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven. Too many so-called Christians have become apologists for the MIC. Unfortunately, one of those is in the White House, as what is left of USAmerican decency tries with fear and sadness to impeach the Orange Antichrist who has been especially badly misusing the highest office in the land. He is not just a lousy POTUS, there have been enough of those, he has actively worked against the very oath of office he took, and has drawn the self-identified elect of white evangelical Christians into his game. God promised never again to use flood to destroy the world (although places like Venice have discovered he is still flooding parts of it), but God has so many choices to use right now. Will it be nuclear war? Global Warming? Economic collapse of the neoliberal order? Or will Donald Trump manage to destroy it all by himself?
The massacre at Sand Creek was horrible. So was so much of all of USAmerican history, right down to today. A lot of us thought we were gradually making a better USAmerica, but now everything seems to be hanging in the balance. Perhaps it is true that the darkest hour is just before dawn. Perhaps peace on earth, good will towards men, will coming ringing wildly sweet. Jesus did not promise us the Prosperity Gospel. Jesus told us to pick up our crosses and follow Him. This is a dark Advent Season. Maybe not as dark as 1968, the year I graduated from high school with the assassination of MLK, the burning of USAmerica's cities, the assassination of RFK, and the election of Richard Nixon, based in part on his "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam. Well, if my plan was to fight on for five more years and then lose, I guess I would keep it "secret," too! Sometimes it feels like that Vietnam War never ended, not here in USAmerica. The blood of Abel still cries from the ground.
Thanks so much, Craig, for your thought-provoking comments!
DeleteI would still contend that the obvious place to begin reconciliation would be to honor the Supreme Court decision in Worcester v Georgia (never overturned), by giving the Cherokee nation this portion of their land back. This could be a final leadership success for Jimmy Carter since he has no conflict of interest (he is from south Georgia), and is a major proponent of justice for people of color. This only involves less than 20% of the land in the State. Having been Governor, he is obvious champion.
ReplyDeleteThe PBS documentary you cited is amazing, and your reference to Sarah Neher's sermon was beautiful. I hope she knows you called her "bold"! I first met Sarah when she portrayed Isaac (and her father, Abraham) in a short drama at Rainbow Mennonite Church, when she was in elementary school. It is amazing and wonderful that she has come back to us as an adult with a powerful presence in our congregation!
ReplyDelete