Sand Creek Massacre DBQ 2021

Sand Creek Massacre DBQ 20 Pts (2 quizzes worth!} J. Bang USH 11 Note: If you decide to take the AP test, you will be required to complete a DBQ. A DBQ is a sequence of 5-8 documents which you will use to prepare an essay in response to a question. The question is graded on several factors: your understanding of the documents as demonstrated in your essay, citations of relevant pieces of the documents in your essay, use of the maximum number of the documents in your essay, as well as plausibility and validity of your thesis and argument. You are also required to bring in knowledge from outside the documents (what you learned in class.) This exercise is intended to give you some experience with this type of question. As the date of the test draws nearer, you will do another one on an official AP set of documents. This is not an official set, and the documents are longer than you will have on the test. The idea, however, is the same. Instructions: Please read through the documents tonight/ and formulate a thesis statement and the framework of an argument in response to the prompt below. A series of bulleted points with assertions and quotes from the documents are sufficient for your argument framework. Background and Question: In 1864, there was a massacre at Sand Creek in the Colorado Territory. This is a bit before what you read about for today's class, since the Massacre happened during the Civil War. There was an investigation, and the massacre was roundly condemned. Questions remained however, and this set of documents presents both sides of the question. There is conflicting testimony, some of it very disturbing/ and notes from the Congressional Report. It is seen as a low point in the history of the American west. Please use the documents, as well as what we have learned about US policy in the West in regards to the Indians in responding to the question. You can bring in material from class, Unger/ as well as the required documents. Please respond to the following question with a thesis statement and some quotations to back up your thesis statement: How did conflicting American assumptions about, and policies towards, Native Americans in the West play out in the Sand Creek Massacre? Another way to look at this question would be: How did the actions of all sides demonstrate the results ofAmerican policy and assumptions towards Native Americans in the West? CHAPTER 17 DOCUMENT SET 1 The Native American Presence: The Massacre at Sand Creek .Chapter 17 focuses on the exploitation of the trans-Mississippi West, the last major frontier region in the United States. Before the immense resources of the interior could be developed, however, an important residual problem had to be dealt with-the Native American presence. Even before the Civil War, the Indian's fate had been sealed as a result of the federal government's aggressive land-acquisition policy. This action dismissed the original inhabitants of scarce land as obstacles to the march of "civilization" (see Chapter 8). The following documents describe an incident that tested American values. As the concentrated tribai reservations policy,was implemented, the Plains Indians (ought an unsuccessful rear-guard resistance, characterized by bitter hostilities and, as noted in your textbook, atrocities on both sides. One of the most brutal confrontations occurred in 1864 at Sand Creek, Colorado Territory, where the militia attacked a band of friendly Cheyennes and Arapahos in what became a v"icious massacre. Within a few hours, nearly 500 were killed, many of them women and children. Public outrage ultimately led to a congressional investigation of the grisly event. ,This incident provides the basis fora challenging exercise in historical analysis. Through an examination of the documents from the congressional investigation, Questions for Analysis try to make an interpretive judgment of the evidence. Your responsibility is first to determine exactly what happened at Sand Creek and then to explain how and why those events transpired. Act as your own historian. The documents included in this set are the report of the Congressional Committee (1865), the response by Colorado's Governor John Evans, Colonel J. M. Chivington's defense of his command, several eyewitness accounts (Lieutenant James D. Connor, Lieutenant Joseph A. Cramer, and Captain Presley Talbot), second-hand reports (Major E. W. Wynkoop), Black Kettle's peace pledge, and the account of reformer Helen Hunt Jackson. Your textbook provides background on the subjugation of the Plains Indians, government Indian policy, and reform efforts undertaken by "friends" of the Indian. Your task is to extract the "truth" from the evidence. As you approach the documents, consider the reliability of the source. Try to decide whether a witness is credible or suspect. Determine what a given document reveals about its author. Does the document contribute to your interpretation of the Sand Creek incident? Develop a clear picture of the events in question and a hypothesis to explain them. Then determine how the incident fits into the history of the westward movement. 1. What do the documents reveal about the Native Americans involved in the conflict at Sand Creek? How would you assess the military's understanding and perception of the IJldians' intentions? To what extent were Chivington's and Evans's actions justified? 2. What do the events at Sand Creek teU us about the nature of Indian warfare on the Great Plains and the status of white relations with the Native American population in the nineteenth century? Do the documents speak to the matter of human weaknesses or strengths? 3. Why do you think Sand Creek became a political issue in 1864-1865? What do the documents suggest concerning the search for causes and the assignment of ultimate responsibility? Were the criticisms in the congressional report justified? 4. Why were Black Kettle, White Antelope, and their followers encamped at Sand Creek? What does their presence suggest about the Native American situation in 1864 and the white advance? Did the Cheyennes and Arapahos.have a right to hold any land? What land? Why or why not? What realistic alternatives were there to Indian dependency on the white government? 5. Define ethnocentrism and explain how it was a factor in the Sand Creek incident. In what way do the documents demonstra:te the inability of whites and Indial)s to move toward a successful cultural adjustment? 23 24 CHAPTER 17 6. How can the views of Hefen Hunt Jackson be best understood? What evidence suggests that her attitude toward Native Americans prevailed in the white community? How did the "friends of the Indian" propose to solve Native Americans' problems? What was the ultimate result of their efforts? 1. A Congressional Committee Decries the Violence at Sand Creek, 1865 The Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War submit the following report: · ! In the summer of 1864 Governor Evans, of Colorado Territory, as acting superintendent of Indian affairs, sent notice to the various bands and tribes of Indians within his jurisdiction that such as desired'to be considered friendly to the whites should at once repair to the nearest military post in order to be protected from the soldiers who were to take the field against the hostile In4ians .... All the testimony goes to show that the Indians, under the immediate control of Black Kettle and - White Antelope of the Cheyennes, and Left Hand of the Arapahoes, were and had been friendly to the whites, and had not been guilty of any acts of hostility or depredation. The Indian agents, the Indian interpreter and others examined by your committee, all testify to the good character of those Indians. Even Governor Evans and Major Anthony, though evi,. dently willing to convey to your committee a false impression of the character of those Indians, were forced, in spite of their prevarication, to admit that they knew of nothing they had done which rendered them deserving of punishment. . .. . "'These Indians, at the suggestion of Governor Evans and Colonel Chivington, repaired to Fort Lyon and placed themselves under the protection of Major Wynkoop. They were led to believe that they were regarded in the light of friendly Indians, and would be treated as such as long as they conducted themselves quietly.... Major Anthony having demanded their arms, which they surrendered to him, they conducted themselves quietly, and in every way manifested a disposition to remain at peace with the whites .... At the suggestion of Major Anthony (and from one in his position a suggestion was equivalent to a command) these Indians went to a place on Sand creek, about thirty-five miles from Fort Lyon, and there established their camp, their arms being restored to them .... Upon observing the approach of the soldiers, Black Kettle, the head chief, ran up to the top of his lodge an American flag, which had been presented to him some years before by Commissioner Greenwood, 'with a small white flag under it, as he had been advised to do in case he met with any troops on the prairies. Mr. Smith, the interpreter, supposing they might be strange troops, unaWare of the character of the Indians encamped there, advanced from his lodge to meet them, but was fired upon, and returned to his lodge. And then the scene of murder and barbarity began-men, women, and children were indiscriminately slaughtere& In a few minutes all the Indians were flying over the plain in terror and confusion. A few who endeavored to hide themselves under the bank of the creek Were surrounded and shot down in cold blood, offering but feeble resistance. From the sucking babe to the old warrior, all who were overtaken were deliberately murdered. Not content with killing women and children, /who were incapable of offering any resistance, the soidiers indulged in acts of barbarity of the most revolting character; such, it is to be hoped, as never before disgraced the acts of men claiming to be civilized. No attempt was made by the officers to restrain the savage cruelty of the men under their command, but they stood by and witnessed these acts without one word of. reproof, if they did not incite their commission. For more than two hours the work of murder add barbarity was continued, until more than one hundred dead bodies, threefourths of them of women and children, lay on the plain as evidences of the fiendish malignity and cruelty of the officers who had so sedulously and carefully plotted the massacre, and of the soldiers who had so faithfully acted out the spirit of their officers. It is difficult to believe that beings in the form of men, and disgracing the uniform of United States soldiers and officers, could commit or countenance the commission of such acts of cruelty and barbarity as are detailed in the testimony, but which your committee will not specify in their report. It is true that DOCUMENT SET 1 The Native American Presence there seems to have existed among the people inhabiting that region of country a hostile feeling towards the Indians. Some of the Indians had committed acts of hostility towards the whites; but no effort seems to have been made by the authorities there to prevent these hostilities, other than by the commission of even worse acts. The hatred of the whites to the Indians would seem to have been inflamed and excited to the utmost; the bodies of persons killed at a great distance-whether by Indians or not, is not certainwere brought to the capital of the Territory and exposed to the public gaze for the purpose of inflaming still more the already excited feeling of the people. Their cupidity was appealed to, for the governor in a proclamation calls upon all, "either individually or in such parties as they may organize," "to kill and destroy as enemies of the country, wherever they may be found, all such hostile Indians," authorizing them to "hold to their own private use and benefit all the property of said hostile Indians that they may capture." ... As to Colonel Chivington, your committee can 25 hardly find fitting terms to describe his conduct. Wearing the uniform of the United States, which should be the emblem of justice and humanity; holding the important position of commander of a military district, and therefore having the honor of the government to that extent in his keeping, he deliberately planned and executed a foul and dastardly massacre which would have disgraced the veriest savage among those who were the victims of his cruelty. Having full knowledge of their friendly character, having himself been instrumentaJ to some extent in placing them in their position of fancied security, he took advantage of their inapprehension and defenceless condition to gratify the worst passions that ever cursed the heart of man .... [T]he truth is that he surprised and murdered, in cold blood, the unsuspecting men, women, and children on Sand creek, who had every reason to believe they were under the protection of the United States authorities, and then returned to Denver and boasted of the brave deeds he and the men under his command had performed. 2. Colonel J. M.-Chivington Defends His Actions, 1865 Answer. My reason for making ~he attack on the Indian camp was, that I believed the Indians in the camp were hostile to the whites. That they ~ere of the same tribes with those who had murdered many persons and destroyed much valuable property on the Platte and Arkansas rivers during the previous spring, summer and fall was beyond a doubt. When a tribe of Indians is at war with the whites it is impossible to determine what party or band of the tribe or the name of the Indian or Indians belonging to the tribe so at war are guilty of the acts of hostility. ; .. I had no reason to believe that Black Kettle