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News from Indian Country
Pgge 9 Spilygy Tyrrcoo
Jgnugry 9, 2013
Massacre descendants seek justice 148 years later
ANADARKO, Okla. (AP)
They dance for the dead.
The foreman, the minister
and the princess in the buck
skin dress stom p and twirl
and sing on a gymnasium floor
protected by a tarp.
A bout 100 people watch
from chairs arranged around
a drum circle. All o f them are
family, in a way, bound to a
terrible event 148 years ago
on the banks o f an ice-en
crusted creek in Colorado.
The old lawyer is here, too,
the former Oklahoma attor
ney general who smoked the
truth pipe in a tepee as the
C heyenne arro w keep er
looked on.
They gather every year—
d e scen d an ts o f th e Sand
C reek M assacre and their
unlikely allies— in a long
search' for justice that started
w ith optim ism , languished
and now has a breath o f new
Ufe.
•¡ t
15,000 d e scen d an ts have
been identified— a step that
trust leaders believe is neces
sary.
H o m er Flute, a form er
auto-pafts- factory foreman
whoi has headed th e tru st
since 1990, sits on the gym's
wooden bleachers and consid
ers th e unlikely g ro u p o f
people in his company.
“Sand Creek is like a cob
web,” Flute says. “It links in
all different directions, and
you don’t know where it’s go
ing. You find people you didn’t
know existed, and they are
kin to you somehow. The idea
is you belong to these people
and they belong to you.”
Killing, desecration
I t is one o f the darkest
marks on Colorado’s history.
O n a clear night in N o
vem ber 1864, 700 men un
der th e com m and o f Col.
John Chivington set o ff from
F o rt Lyon on the E astern
463 killed
Plains.
Tensions had been running
A t daw n on Nov. 29,
1864, Colorado soldiers at high in the Colorado Terri
tack ed p eacefu l In d ian s tory, where white settlers and
camped on the banks o f Sand Indians w ere. clashing over
Creek in what is now south land.
That April, Arapahos had
eastern Colorado, slaughter
ing an estimated 163— mainly slaughtered a ranching fam
women, children and the eld ily east o f Denver, inflaming
erly-—and desecrating their public opinion.
Y et th e re h ad b een
bodies.
The backlash was so se progress toward peace. The
vere, the U.S. government not great peace chiefs— W hite
only acknowledged wrongdo Antelope and Black Kettle o f
ing but promised reparations the Cheyenne, and Left Hand
b f land and cash to survivors o f the A rap ah o — w ere
camped on Sand Creek un
and relatives o f victims.
That promise— spelled out der governm ent assurances
in an 1865 treaty— remains they would be safe.
Chivington, a fierce aboli
unfulfilled, according to de
scendants and their attorneys, tionist and former Method
i Cham pions o f the cause ist minister, had a different
have died or moved on. And view. H e rallied his m en
descendants who once stood against the “red scoundrels,”
as allies now view one another urging them to rem em ber
their own women and chil
with scorn.
But on this early Decem dren.
The first shots were fired
ber day, in a town that calls
itself the “Indian Capital of at daybreak^ as the village o f
the Nation,” descendants re about 100 lodges, almost en
ceive a rare progress report.' tirely Cheyenne with a few
The newly expanded legal Arapaho, began to stir.
T h e village was largely
team fo r the Sand C reek
Massacre Descendants Trust em pty o f m en, who. w ere
has opened a dialogue with away hunting buffalo. The
D epartm ent o f Interior offi cavalrymen fired from sand
cials about the claim. A t the bluffs and pounded targets
least, the discussions could lay w ith shells from m ountain
the groundwork for a federal howitzers.
Soldiers paid no heed to
lawsuit, the lawyers say.
A nd.after decades o f re the large American flag and
search and recruitment, about smaller white flag beneath it
tied to a lodgepole in the vil
lage.
Witnesses described Indi
ans on their knees begging for
mercy, children clubbed in the
head and a w om an’s belly
sliced .open. Indians hid in
p its dug in th e sandy
creekbed.
Once the killing was over,
the desecration began. White
Antelope’s ears and genitals
w ere cu t o ff. O n e m an
claimed to have a cut out a
woman’s heart and impaled it
on a stick.
Body parts were taken as
trophies and put on display
in a Denver theater.
Initially, the incident was
hailed as a heroic battle. But
recriminations came quickly
in congressional and military
hearings the following year.
Soldiers wearing uniforms
that should be “the emblem
o f justice and humanity” had
executed a “foul and dastardly
massacre,” , a congressional
committee found. Chivington
suffered no consequences; by
then, he was out o f the mili
tary.
Sand Creek was a defin
ing m om ent in relations be
tween whites and Indians in
the West.
“I t’s never been fo rg o t
te n ,” said D av id H alaas,
former chief historian o f the
Colorado Historical Society
and an ally to the Cheyennes
in the Sand Creek struggle.
“It’s an open wound that still
hasn't healed.” | .
T he 1865 Treaty o f the
Little Arkansas acknowledged
“gross and wanton outrages
p erpetrated against certain
b a n d s” o f C heyenne' an d
A rapaho; Article d prom ised
land in locations to be deter
mined and cash for victims.
‘Going to succeed’
Robert Simpson rem em
bers his grandmother coming
to him when he was in high
school and telling him to write
dow n nam es o f ancestors
b u tch ered a t'S a n d Creek.
O ne day, she said, he would
need them.
Simpson joined the Army,
fo u g h t in V ietn am and
worked as a sheriff’s deputy.
L ater in life, he atten d ed
sem in ary an d b ecam e a
Methodist minister— just like
C hivington, th e villain o f
Sand Creek.
A soft-spoken bear o f a
man who apologizes when he
gets em otional about Sand
Creek, Simpson is pastor o f
J.J. Methvin Memorial United
M e th o d ist
C h u rch
in
Anadarko and a descendants
trust leader.
“All this was by divine in
tervention,” Sim pson said.
“We were picked to do th is '
for a reason, and. we are go
ing to succeed. It’s been a long
journey for all o f us, but we
are still going forward.”
O ther reparations efforts
over the years have gone no
w here. Bills in tro d u ced in
Congress in 1949,1953,1957
and 1965 failed-
In the 1960s, the federal
Indian Claims Commission
ruled th a t the Sand Creek
claims were “individual in na
ture and must be brought by
descendants.”
Tribal members thought
identifying the descendants
would fall to them. Activity
stalled for' several years.
T hen, an anthropologist
named Jo h n M oore got in
volv ed . M o o re so u g h t to
solve a mystery central to any
claim—identifying the tribal
bands at Sand C reek and
in the early 1980s destroyed
the historical record o f a site
that was inhabited by ances
tors o f the Paiute Tribe for
5,000 years.
A m ong some 2,000 arti
facts were the hand-woven
baskets the children w ere
buried in, a necklace o f un
born antelope hooves and an
abalone shell, a cordage net
for catching rabbits, and moc
casins.
By the time the artifacts
were found, the statute o f
limitations had run out on any
federal criminal charges, but
tbe U.S. D epartm ent o f Inte
rior sued Harelson and won
a $2.5 million civil judgment
against him.
Acknowledging in an inter
view w ith T he A ssociated
P ress at th e tim e th a t he
could have done a better job
excavating the site, Harelson
maintained that amateurs like
himself tramping the desert
were responsible for many
sig n ifican t arch aeo lo g ical
Abuse o f the
remains o f the
children outraged
the Pyramid Take
Paiute Tribe...
finds. The Nevada State Mu
seum confirmed he was re
sp o n sib le fo r fin d in g the
bones o f a prehistoric camel
in their collection.
B ut the abuse o f the re
mains o f th e children o u t
rag ed th e P y ram id Lake
Paiute Tribe, which said the
remains could not be rebur
ied without the skulls.
State police later recovered
two skulls in a separate inves
tigation, and said they believed
they came from the remains
found in Harelson’s garden.
H arelson served 30 days
in jail rather th a n perform
com m unity service for his
convictions.
filled with tobacco and herbs.
To the Cheyenne, “smoking
on it” is a sacred vow.
Before the dying embers
o f a fire, smoke drifted *up
through the top o f the tepee,
sealing the deal. There would
be a paper contract, too, lay
ing out Derryberry’s contin-
gency*fee.
D erryberry said the goal
o f the descendants search
always was to cast as wide a
net as possible. I f someone
had one drop o f blood trace
able to Sand Creek, that was
enough.
Shirley Wells discovered
h er ancestral ties to Sand
Creek while researching her
family tree in the 1990s.
She has taught the story to
h er 11-year-old daughter,
Samantha, who is starting a
four-year term as the descen
dants trust’s princess, travel
ing to powwows and other
events as an ambassador.
“It is sad, but it makes me
feel good my ancestors would
be willing to sacrifice their
lives for us,” she said. “I know
they are in heaven and always
watching down on us.”
Trail of Tears monument plan
FO RT SMITH, Ark: (AP)
— The Inter-Tribal Council o f
the Five Civilized Tribes has
accepted the U.S. Marshals
Museum’s property offer to
build a Trail o f Tears monu
m ent in Fort Smith.
Muscogee (Creek) Nation
Principal Chief George Tiger
•sent a letter last m onth to
museum officials, saying that
the council’s executive com
mittee unanimously approved
the offer. “This was a very
generous and thoughtful ges
ture on behalf o f the M u
seum Board to com m em o
rate the tragic and historic
events surrounding the re
m oval o f our ancestors to
Indian Territory. It is also a
reflection o f the tribes’ his
tory with the U.S. Marshals
Service,” Tiger wrote.
The monument would rep
resent the tribes’ forced jour
ney w est into w hat is now
the monum ent, which will be
paid for by the Inter-Tribal
Council.
The Museum Board first
invited the Five C ivilized
Tribes to place the monument
in June 2011. While present
ing the proposal to the board,
Marshals Museum President
O k la h o m a d u ring the 19th
an d C E O Jim D u n n n o te d
century, known as the Trail
o f Tears.
Tiger serves as president
the Five Civilized Tribes,
which are the Creek, Chero
kee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and
Seminole nations. T he m u
seum will provide the land for
that each o f the tribes had
passed through the Fort Smith
area at least once during the
Trail o f Tears. Since then, he
said, the M arshals Service
and the tribes have worked
closely together.
Uncovered bones could be 1,000 years old
DUNCAN, Okla. (AP) -
A Stephens County rancher
was on his leased land work
in g last week near Mud Creek
w hen he made a surprising
discovery.
He found skeletal remains
o f a h u m an an d quickly
Man in Paiute grave looting case dies
(AP) — A former insurance
agent and amateur archaeolo
gist convicted o f looting an
cient Indian graves in the
Nevada desert and later of
fering $10,000 in opals for a
hit man to kill a former busi-
ness p a rtn e r has d ied in
prison.
The D epartm ent o f Cor
rections confirmed that Jack
Lee Harelson, 72, o f Grants
Pass, died D ec. 14 in the
Oregon State Penitentiary in
Salem. T he agency said he
died o f natural causes in the
prison infirmary.
When he was arrested in
1995, authorities said they
found the headless mummi
fied remains o f two children
wrapped in garbage bags and
buried uncerem oniously in
Harelson's garden.
A U.S. D epartm ent o f In
terior archaeologist said at the
time that Harelson’s unautho
rized excavations o f the EL
ep h an t M ountain Cave in
Nevada’s Black Rock D esert
tracking their movements af
terward.
H e also began w orking
w ith L aird C om ets evah, a
Cheyenne chief, and his wife,
Colleen, who were identifying
descendants through records
and oral histories. Moore and
his graduate students dug
through decades-old census
reco rd s and o th e r d o c u
ments.
T h e g o in g w as tough.
Cheyenne change their names
and use nicknam es. T here
were problems with transla
tions.
By 1990, enough progress
had been made to form a new
pan-tribal descendants group.
Laird Cometsevah recruited
Flute, an Apache tribal mem
ber known for his organiza
tional skills, to head it.
The group also hired a law
yer— Larry Derryberry, who
served as Oklahoma attorney
general in the 1970s.
In 1991, in a cerem ony
n ear th e m assacre- site,
D erryberry entered a tepee
w ith tru st leaders and the
C h eyenne S acred A rro w
Keeper, the tribe’s highest re
ligious office.
The lawyer smoked a pipe
In 2005, H arelso n was
convicted in a retrial o f try
ing to hire a hit man to kill
Lloyd Olds o f Brookings, a
partner in an opal mine whom
H a re lso n b lam ed fo r his
grave-robbing conviction.
Key evidence came from
tape recordings o f conversa
tions with an inform ant who
to ld H arelso n he knew a
hitmarn According to testi
mony, Harelson gave the in
form ant a jar full ©f opals
valued at $10,000 to pay for
the slayings.
H arelson’s defense attor
ney argued he was the victim
o f entrapment by police, the
hit man never existed, and the
tape recordings rtf his m ur
der plans rep resen ted the
musings o f a lonely old man
who never had anyintention
o f going ahead with them.
Harelson was acquitted o f
charges he also w an ted a
judge, two state police offic
ers, and another partner in
the opal mine to be killed.
called 911. Stephens County
S h eriff Wayne M cK inney
said when they arrived at the
scene, which was no easy feat,
they knew the bones had been
there for some time.
“We think at least 50 years
old,” he said. That was based
on some photos they sent to
the medical examiner’s office.
B ut by later in the w eek,
McKinney realized they had
something much more inter
esting.
“We were waiting on a fo
rensic archaeologist team,” he
said. That team, with an OU
professor, arrived and within
hours, McKinney said early
estimates determine the skull
and bones to be anywhere
from 800 to 1,000 years old.
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