Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced Wednesday the expansion of a historic National Park Service committed to bloodshed through U. S. troops of more than two hundred Native Americans in what is now southeastern Colorado.
Haaland, the first Native American to head a U. S. cabinet agency. He made the announcement a solemn rite at the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, about 170 miles southeast of Denver, to honor the dead, survivors and their descendants.
The move marks Haaland’s newest move to act on the issues of Native Americans in his role as Secretary of the Interior. Haaland’s Tribal Homelands initiative supports fundraising to acquire land and asks federal administrators to seek indigenous wisdom about resources.
Haaland’s strain to head the federal firm that has exerted influence over the country’s tribes for nearly two centuries has been hailed as historic by Democrats and tribal teams who have said it refers to indigenous peoples, who lived in North America before the creation of the United States. I would do it for the first time, seeing a Native American lead the hard branch where decisions are made about relationships with the nearly six hundred tribes identified at the federal level.
Earlier this year, the firm released a one-of-a-kind report on the approach to Native Americans that the U. S. government has been using to report. The U. S. government has supported to strip indigenous peoples of their cultures and identities. He also officially declared a pejorative term “squaw” and took steps to remove it from federal government use and reposition other pejorative position names.
The expansion of the Sand Creek Massacre site will provide more opportunities for visitors to be more informed about the Cheyenne and Arapaho Massacre of 1864, most commonly women and children, Haaland said Wednesday. He said it is the “solemn responsibility” of his ministry to “tell the story of our nation. “
“The events that took place here forever repositioned the direction of the Northern Cheyenne, Northern Arapaho, and Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes,” he said. in an unprovoked attack. Stories like the Sand Creek bloodbath are not easy to tell, but it is my duty, our duty, to make sure they are told. This story is part of American history.
The historic closure of Eads, Colorado, preserves the haunting landscape of the November 29, 1864 attack by a United States Volunteer Cavalry Regiment. women, young and old.
The expedition supposedly to retaliate for Native American incursions against white settlers. Soldiers brought portions of frames to Denver to celebrate. But some commanders refused to attack, saying Native American leaders thought they had made peace with the American commander near Fort Lyon who had tried to wave white flags. Congress condemned the leader, Colonel John M. Chivington, for an unprovoked massacre.
Max Bear, the tribal historic preservation officer for the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma, praised Haaland’s tribute as a support for the narrative project to which he and many others dedicate their lives.
“We don’t need our young people and grandchildren to fight an uphill war because of what happened to our parents,” said Bear, a descendant of Chief Cheyenne Black Whiteman, who sought food and shelter for widowers and orphans after the attack.
Whiteman also signed the Lodge of Medicine Treaty in 1867, designed to end retaliatory Indian raids by forcibly settling Cheyenne, Arapaho and tribes on reservations in “Indian territory” in what is now Oklahoma, Bear said.
“We weren’t at war. . . You can’t call Sand Creek a battle,” Bear said. “At this time of banning e-books, I think it’s more vital than ever that our story is told correctly. “
Sand Creek was established as a National Park Service historic site in 2007. The service collaborated with the Cheyenne of northern Montana, the Arapaho of northern Wyoming, and the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes of Oklahoma.
The new extension will also maintain what Haaland is one of the largest intact shortland prairie ecosystems in the national park system.
In recent years, Colorado officials have been there to fix it.
State and U. S. officials are preparing to rename Mount Evans, a peak in the Rocky Mountains named after territorial Governor John Evans, who resigned after the Sand Creek massacre.
Last year, Gov. Jared Polis rescinded an 1864 proclamation through Evans that called for killing Native Americans and taking their property. In 2014, Gov. John Hickenlooper apologized on behalf of the state to tribal members on the 150th anniversary of the massacre.
Tribal representatives, National Park Service Superintendent Chuck Sams and Colorado officials Hickenklooper, now a U. S. senator. U. S. officials attended Wednesday’s ceremony.
Incorporating land from a personal seller, the expansion was funded through the Land and Water Conservation Fund, established through Congress in 1964, and Great Outdoors Colorado, which invests state lottery proceeds in wilderness preservation. The lands have vital archaeological remains and are considered sacred by the tribes.