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Webmaster's Note:
Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway is a powerfully written, and moving
account of the Sand Creek Massacre, as well as the Cheyenne way of life.
Recently released from Oklahoma Press, it includes gold nuggets never released
before, and which we discuss below.
Historian and author Louis Kraft, talks with us about his book, Sand Creek and
the Tragic End of a Lifeway, his process with research and writing of history.
December 2020
Bob Reece: Many
books have been written about Sand Creek. Why this book, and why now?
Louis Kraft: This goes back to the former and great editor-in-chief at
the University of Oklahoma Press (OU Press), Chuck Rankin. But first a little
background. In the late 1990s Durwood Ball, who was editor-in-chief at the
University of New Mexico Press (UNM Press), jumped on Gatewood and Geronimo when
I offered it to him. Before it was printed in 2000 it had almost sold out in
hardbound. By that time I had obtained permission to take the drafts of Lt.
Charles B. Gatewood's aborted attempt to write a memoir about his time working
with the Apaches and began to draft what would become Lt. Charles Gatewood & His
Apache Wars Memoir (University of Nebraska Press, 2005). Durwood, who had become
a friend, moved on to become editor of the New Mexico Historical Review (UNM)
and David Holtby became the editor-in-chief at UNM Press. I had had a good deal
with Durwood: 25 copies of the hardbound book, 10 of the softcover, and I
retained all film and TV rights (which meant zilch as nothing ever
materialized). David dragged me along until I delivered a final manuscript. He
then sent me the contract and it was a joke—the number of book copies dropped
considerably as did my royalties, and the film and TV rights became I think 70
percent for the press. I countered, Holtby stood firm, and I said adios.
By this time I knew Chuck, having met him at the beginning of this century, and
presented the manuscript to him. He was interested but the two peer reviews were
negative. I had the contact information of both reviewers, and questioned some
of their comments. Both refused to reply, and Chuck sent me a short note that
stated OU Press would not print my book. I used the review comments that I
agreed with and sent the updated manuscript to the University of Nebraska Press.
They liked the manuscript, their peer reviews were good, and I received the same
deal that I had for G&G plus an advance.
During this time Chuck and I continued our relationship, and he even questioned
why I moved the second Gatewood book to Nebraska. I told him that his letter
that fired me was now in the Louis Kraft Collection at the Chávez History
Library (Museum of New Mexico, Santa Fe). This didn’t hurt our relationship and
it morphed into what would be my next Indian wars book, Ned Wynkoop and the
Lonely Road from Sand Creek (OU Press, 2011). When the Wynkoop book went into
production in early 2011, Chuck approached me regarding writing about the Sand
Creek massacre. I said "no," but he refused to drop the subject. See question 7
below for more information.
B.R. Regarding your first visit to SC: when was that, and what was that
experience like for you?
L.K. I think that it was in 1987 I did a 16-day Custer trip with my
daughter in the north. This included a private tour from his campsite, the
forced march early on June 25, a visit to the Crow's Nest, and then the movement
to the Little Big Horn River, with Jim Court in his van. At that time Jim was a
former superintendent of the former Custer Battlefield National Monument and
gave private tours. This included a confrontation with a Crow who didn't think
much of him when we stopped to study and talk about Medicine Tail Coulee from
within the village on the west side of the river. I thought that he was going to
be attacked, and positioned myself behind the Indian in case I needed to break
up a fight. Luckily Jim was able to soothe tempers with his words and nothing
happened. Later that day we entered the national monument and discussed Reno and
Custer’s fights on their battlefields.
Finally to your question; Jerry Russell and his Order of the Indian Wars
organization held their annual event/convention in Colorado. As we would drive
past their location on our trek home I called Jerry and asked if we could join
his bus tour to the Sand Creek Massacre site that was then on private property,
and afterward attend the banquet. He agreed. This was my first trip to what has
become sacred land. My daughter and I dropped down from the bluffs (which are
now proven to be south of where the actual village was) while one or more people
discussed the massacre above us with those who had taken part in the entire
convention and tours. What they said, I have no clue. What my daughter and I
experienced was priceless, although I must state that I was one stupid cowboy.
There were a lot of rattlesnakes below the bluffs on that day and I actually
stalked a young one. No more need be said, other than we weren't bitten.
At this time I had absolutely no intention of writing about the massacre.
B.R. What a coincidence. I presented a paper titled, “Massacre at the
Pueblo 1854” for that 1987 OIW convention in Pueblo, Colorado. In addition, I
was on that same bus trip to Bent’s Fort – where we were served lunch – and
finally to Sand Creek.
Sorry, I digressed. What are some of the important aspects of the Cheyenne and
their lifeway that you learned or experienced during the research and writing of
your book?
L.K. Really not much that I didn't know, have in house, or would mine at
the George Bird Grinnell Collection, then housed at the Braun Research Library
(Southwest Museum, Los Angeles). I had been seeking information there dating
back to the mid-1990s. Over a decade ago, the Southwest Museum merged with the
Autry Museum in Los Angeles (don't remember the name at the time of the merger,
but the museum's current name is Autry Museum of the American West). Both museum
archives shutdown in late 2014–early 2015 and will reopen in late 2020 or 2021
in Burbank, California (about six miles from my house). The new state of art
100,000 square foot archive is called the Resources Center of the Autry.
Grinnell’s collection is large, and I think that it is more valuable than his
two classic books on the Cheyennes.
I've been studying the Cheyenne Indians since the mid-1980s when I began writing
articles and giving talks about them and their relationship with the white man.
In 1992 The Final Showdown was published. It was a novel about race relations in
Kansas in 1867 as the story led up to the Medicine Lodge Peace council that
fall. Most of the characters actually lived, such as Black Kettle and Stone
Forehead. I spent a lot of time dealing with their culture and thought I would
be a novelist, but a follow-up contracted western book was canceled by the
publisher and Dick Upton, of Upton and Sons, Publishers, and I had been
discussing the possibility of me writing a nonfiction book about George
Armstrong Custer. Custer and the Cheyenne: George Armstrong Custer’s Winter
Campaign on the Southern Plains was published in 1995, and it led up to the
Custer-Cheyenne mystic and chief Stone Forehead confrontation on the Staked
Plains of Texas after the battle of the Washita wherein Custer ended his
participation in that war in March 1869 without further bloodshed. ... The talks
and articles continued, and it was shortly after this time that I began meeting
Cheyennes at events I spoke at. As the years passed, some of them joined my
small but growing number of friends that I saw whenever possible, and who helped
me at times. Alas, this is where I had the ten-year detour with the Gatewood/Apache
books, and other than research, the Wynkoop/Cheyenne project (I already had
about 30,000 words) went on forced leave. This is the book that Chuck Rankin
contracted with me I think in 2005, and it continued through the creation of the
Sand Creek book.
Although my research on the Cheyennes has been ongoing for a long time I don't
mentally think, "Ah-ha! That’s new!" Honestly, there are hundreds (thousands?)
and probably more new facts that I've learned about the Cheyennes over my
lifetime. "But what?" is the question, and at this point in time I don't have an
answer.
B.R. Many characters of the SC story appear in your pages. Who did you
find most interesting? Who had the most tragic story? Who did you find most
frustrating?
L.K. This is not a good question for me, for the simple reason that when
I first began to research Ned Wynkoop in the 1980s it was because I wanted to
find an Indian agent who was stealing from his wards to become a villain in a
novel I intended to write. My research proved without a doubt that he wasn't
getting rich by defrauding the Cheyennes and Arapahos. The novel was never
written. At the same time I was hooked on Wynkoop. I think that my first article
on him was printed in 1987 (LBHA's Research Review), and my first talk was at
the OIW 1989 SoCal symposium. ... Wynkoop has been key to my Cheyenne Indian
wars writing life. Without him, and Custer's 1867-1869 connection with the
Cheyennes, there would have never been a Sand Creek book.
The most interesting are two people. One, Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle was
present at the massacre, while the other Arapaho Chief Little Raven smartly
chose not to believe the white man's words and wasn't present. Both of these men
became the leading Indians in the Sand Creek book, but although I thought Black
Kettle would be my go-to person Cheyenne-wise there were a hell of a lot of gaps
in what I knew about him. For the record, many of Black Kettle's words have been
recorded, but for some reason don't make it into nonfiction books. Little Raven
was a total surprise. Because of this, I didn't have much in regards to his
life, and more important his words to the white man have been totally ignored,
for he was verbal. Little Raven was a true discovery for me, as he had mostly
been dismissed as a fat chief whose lone concern was his multiple wives. Good
grief, what a joke.
I think that 2nd Colorado Territorial governor John Evans was the most tragic,
for the 1865 investigations into the attack linked him with Colonel John
Chivington for all time and made him guilty for the massacre. He did make a
damning proclamation during the summer of 1864, that gave whites an open ticket
to attack and kill Indians, but he was in the East long before Chivington
attacked the Sand Creek village and knew nothing of it until Chivington wired
him of his glorious victory that December. As far as I'm concerned, he was a
good man who tried to make Colorado a central hub in the expansion to the
Pacific coast. The goal was to deal with him fairly. If I lived in Denver in
1864 and knew Evans, I think that I would have respected and liked him.
Most frustrating was obtaining proof that sworn testimony by mixed-blood
Cheyennes George Bent and his sister Julia Bent Guerrier actually existed.
Historian Dee Cordry, whose book on the Cheyennes when it is published is going
to be mandatory reading for anyone interested in the Tsistsistas, the
"Called-out People." These documents, which Dee had shared with me, but without
citations, even though we knew where they should be housed. An Oklahoma
historian and expert in the state's archives, Bill Welgy, did research for me
eventually informed me, along with another person that I only had one contact
with, that these archives had been shut down to researchers like myself to
protect whites who had stolen Indian land in the past. That should have killed
this oh-so important information that we had in hand, but Dee's best friend,
Harvey Pratt, is a direct descendant of Julia and her husband mixed-blood
Cheyenne Edmund Guerrier. He had documents and allowed us to use him as the
citation.
B.R. How do you decide the subject for your books? What was it about this
subject that encouraged you to write?
L.K. Most of my subjects for books grow over the years, and I usually
have a wealth of information in-house long before I decide to write the books.
Actually a lot of the people I write about overlap.
We're back with Chuck Rankin, and let me say this—I think the world of him.
Chuck refused to give up on me writing a book about the Sand Creek Massacre. I
had all of the massacre books (hell, I designed Greg Michno's first Sand Creek
book for Dick Upton). At the same time I had no desire to write about the sexual
butchery of people who thought that they had been removed from the 1864 Cheyenne
war. As time passed and Chuck and I talked the angle for the storyline changed.
It opened our conversations to me writing about the key players in the Sand
Creek tragedy: 1) The Cheyennes and Arapahos; 2) The whites that married into
the tribes; 3) The whites that craved Indian land; 4) The offspring of
white-Indian marriages; and finally 5) Whites who dared to speak out against the
massacre. Chuck bought into this and between us we created a 37-page proposal
that was accepted. In this proposal I made it clear that my epilogue would be
the end portion of the book title ("the Tragic End of a Lifeway"), and that it
would be long.
Short answer: Chuck Rankin. No Chuck, no book.
B.R. Once you make that final decision for subject, what are some of the
processes you follow to complete the book?
L.K. My research dictates the flow of the text (and notes) in the book.
The research is ongoing long before I sign a contract to write a book, and it
continues throughout the creation of the manuscript.
B.R. It must be countless hours of research, notes, writing chapter after
chapter. What keeps you going? What is your discipline to reach the final
chapter?
L.K. My research directs the writing of the book. If what I thought I
knew is no longer true while writing the book, the text in the book changes. ...
I buy into each and every book project long before I sign the contract. I must
do this for I have no desire to waste a year, three years, or six, and then
learn that I should have never decided to write this book. Time is a precious
thing that we can never get back. Knowing this, I make damn sure that my current
manuscript is one that I will be in-tune with as much on the last day as on the
first day of the project. It is a marriage that sometimes is not a smooth
process, but it works for me.
I don't write from chapter 1 until chapter XX. Instead I write in the chapters
with what I know, and this could be in chapter 5 or chapter 14. I don't begin to
study the entire manuscript until I think I’m getting close to having a rough
first draft (although I am constantly on the lookout for duplication and/or
moving people and/or events to different chapters when I realize that I placed
them in the wrong location. In the case of the Sand Creek manuscript, at least
twice the manuscript zoomed to over 205,000 words. My contract stated
125,000-135,000 words. Oops, a major problem. I pitched Adam Kane, who replaced
Chuck Rankin as editor-in-chief (I have nothing but praise for Adam), increased
the word count to 150,000. I told him "no, " that I needed at least 165,000.
Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway is a large book with many people and
events spread over many years. Transitions are key to this and I spent a lot of
time with them. Also, I enjoy every piece of creating a book from research,
discovery, writing, editing, writing, fixing, polishing, using constructive
criticism (and this includes written reviews), emails, phone calls, and when I’m
lucky in-person discussions. But it doesn’t stop there, for I enjoy taking part
in the entire production process.
B.R. What challenges did you encounter during your research and writing
of this book?
L.K. This is an easy answer, for it was filling in the gaps to all the
lives of the leading and supporting players in the Sand Creek story and making
them to (hopefully) move forward while merging them with the events that drove
the manuscript toward conclusion.
B.R. The story of SC is a tragedy tale filled with people fighting
personal demons. What do you think motivated Chivington, Wynkoop, and Black
Kettle?
L.K. John Chivington was an ambitious man. He was successful as a man of
God, strongly stood against slavery, and insisted upon a commission in the
Colorado Volunteers after the Civil War became reality in 1861. He rightly was
honored for his leadership and actions in New Mexico in 1862, which stopped the
Southern invasion of the Southwest (and most likely a strike against Denver and
Colorado Territory). He also had political ambitions, was associated with John
Evans, and William Byers, publisher-editor of the Rocky Mountain News. They
shared similar visions for Denver and Colorado Territory's future. ... The
Cheyennes and Arapahos lived in the land they craved, and had to be removed. The
threat to people living on the frontier was real. He knew that some of the
chiefs that had met with Evans in Denver in late September 1864 to discuss
ending the war and the people who followed their lead were camped on Sand Creek.
They were Cheyennes and Arapahos, and their people were still waging war. He had
tasted victory on the battlefield in 1862 and wanted to increase his celebrity
as a man of war. Due to the failure at the polls that killed the Colorado
statehood movement he needed a victory over the Indians before the Third
Colorado Volunteer Cavalry's enlistment ended (if you do the math it was close)
for these reasons: 1) Secure a major victory over the enemy, which would make
him a great Indian fighter; and 2) Show the Indians the futility of continuing
the conflict and bow to the white man's demands. I don't think many people
consider themselves evil, and certainly not Chivington, who believed his attack
on the Sand Creek village was justified. To my knowledge he never changed his
view of what happened on November 29-30, 1864.
Ned Wynkoop knew Chivington prior to his enlistment in the First Colorado
Volunteer Regiment in 1861, but their religious and pro-Union views brought them
closer together. Wynkoop stood behind Chivington when he was running for
congress on the Statehood slate. After the Southern invasion had been stopped,
the problem quickly turned to the Cheyennes and Arapahos. Wynkoop, like many who
migrated to the frontier, did not have a positive view of Indians. By spring
1864 the Cheyenne war had become reality. At the beginning of early September
1864, and although a major in what was now the First Colorado Volunteer Cavalry
commanding Fort Lyon in the southeastern portion of the territory, he had yet to
personally engage the enemy. On September 3 he received two letters dictated by
Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle. There was a huge village (perhaps 2,000 people) on
a tributary of the Smoky Hill in Kansas and he and other chiefs wanted to
discuss ending the current war. Black Kettle also threw in a carrot, and that
was that there were white captives in the village that they would free. Wynkoop
had two problems: 1) This could be a suicide mission, and his officers made this
clear, and 2) It would take at least a week and probably longer to send a
message to headquarters in Kansas and the same amount of time to receive an
answer. A village of this size could not sustain its horse herds and people in
the same location for any length of time. Wynkoop acted without orders, placed
his small command at risk of death, but prevailed as seven chiefs, including
Black Kettle, Arapaho Neva (Left Hand's brother), and Dog Man Bull Bear agreed
to travel to Denver to speak with Governor Evans. He also received a teenager
and three children captives. Evans had the same problem as Chivington, for he
was responsible for the creation of the Third Colorado, and felt that the
regiment had to score a major victory over the Indians. Both Chivington (who was
present) and he felt that no peace had been agreed upon while Wynkoop, Byers,
and others thought a temporary peace had been established until the military
decided what to do with these people. In early November Wynkoop was replaced by
Major Scott Anthony as commander at Fort Lyon and ordered to Kansas, where he
anticipated being removed from the military. Soon after Chivington attacked the
Sand Creek village. When Wynkoop heard what had happened he insisted upon a
meeting with Major General Samuel Curtis, who commanded the Department of
Kansas, was exonerated, and ordered back to Fort Lyon to resume command. He
lashed out against the Sand Creek attack and the brutal murder of the people in
the Sand Creek village for the rest of his life. This ended his relationship
with Chivington, led to him becoming a hated white man on the frontier, and
eventually becoming the U.S. Indian agent for the Southern Cheyennes and
Arapahos.
Black Kettle was a renowned war leader, but all his raiding and war activity
were against Mexicans, Kiowas, Comanches, Utes, and so on. He became the chief
of the Wah´tapiu band of Cheyennes in 1855. This marked the end of his warrior
days, and the beginning of his efforts to keep the peace with the white man, who
within a few years would migrate to the gold region in what would become
Colorado Territory in huge numbers beginning in 1859. This would put him at huge
risk with whites, who considered him the chief of all the Cheyennes (which he
wasn't and never would become), and his own people (especially those who stood
firmly against the white invasion). His words spoken to white leaders were
always about peace and the theft of Cheyenne land. In late November 1868, and
just days prior to his death at the battle of the Washita, he, with other
chiefs, braved the dead of winter to meet with Lieutenant Colonel William Hazen
at Fort Cobb in Indian Territory. Hazen commanded the military district that had
been recently created for the new reservation for Cheyennes, Arapahos, Kiowas,
and Comanches. Black Kettle had heard that white soldiers were south of the
Arkansas River hunting his people and wanted to move those who followed his lead
onto the reservation and avoid another Sand Creek. Hazen considered him the
leading war chief of the Cheyennes then in Indian Territory and refused the
request. He returned to his village on the Washita River and his subsequent
death.
B.R. One resource in your bibliography is Wynkoop's "Unfinished Colorado
History", which is retained at the History Colorado Museum. Amazing topics came
from this reference such as Chivington saving the Byers's family from the raging
flood waters of the South Platte River in May, 1864.
I looked for it in
some of the other SC books, and I could not find it in the bibliographies. Is
this a gold nugget that you uncovered?
L.K. I found a
shortened version of Wynkoop’s unfinished document at the Chávez History Library
in the late 1980s (it also houses a Wynkoop archive as does History Colorado,
but the Denver collection has the complete text of his unfinished memoir).* I've
used it for articles, talks, and Ned Wynkoop and the Lonely Road from Sand Creek
as well as Sand Creek and the Tragic End of a Lifeway over the years. I can't
say that I discovered it, for back in the 1980s I went to Santa Fe to look at
the Wynkoop Collection. The only thing I can offer in regards to Wynkoop's
unfinished memoir not being used in other books is that he was an outsider who
spoke out against the November 29, 1864, attack on the Cheyenne-Arapaho village
circles on Sand Creek. Meaning, and because of this, he was not a go-to source
for some historians. In the epilogue in the Sand Creek book I spoke about
Wynkoop speaking at the Cooper Institute (Cooper Union today) in New York City
in December 1868, and one of the questions he answered that night was basically
"what is the best way to handle the Indian question?" (a paraphrase here) He
answered: "make them American citizens, and allow them seats in congress."
(another paraphrase) An historian who had read the Sand Creek manuscript told me
that this was a new discovery. I chuckled, for it wasn't; it was also in the
Wynkoop book.
* Lewis H. Gerboth edited a small book entitled The Tall Chief: The
Autobiography of Edward W. Wynkoop (Denver: Colorado Historical Society, 1994).
His transcription of Wynkoop's words are decent. However, his short biography on
Wynkoop is error-riddled. For example: Custer attacked Black Kettle's Washita
village on November 27, 1868, and Wynkoop, who was en route to Fort Cobb in
Indian Territory to assume command of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency that had
been officially moved there (although I don't believe that there were any
Cheyennes or Arapahos present yet), halted his journey before reaching his
destination and wrote his resignation letter as Indian agent as he would no
longer be associated with the murder of men, women, and children (this isn't
close to his quote; part of it is in the Sand Creek book) on November 29, 1868,
while not knowing that Black Kettle had been killed two days earlier. Gerboth
not once, but twice, listed Wynkoop's resignation as November 27, 1868, and
Custer's attack on the Washita village as November 29, 1868. And I have seen
this error repeated in other books. Gerboth has a number of other errors in his
publication. Some Sand Creek books as well as others do cite Gerboth, which
isn't close to an autobiography.
B.R. Finally,
the last question I always ask historians during an interview is, what do you
think will be the subject of your next book?
L.K. There is no thinking required here for my next nonfiction book will
be ERROL AND OLIVIA. It will deal with Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland’s
lives and times during the 1930s and 1940s when they were under contract with
Warner Bros. This book has been in place for decades, and includes a wealth of
research that (believe it or not) is larger than I have for any of my Indian
wars nonfiction books. Los Angeles is a goldmine for Flynn and de Havilland
research, and like the Indian Wars I have a network of knowledgeable writers,
historians, and experts in the USA and elsewhere.
B.R. I know we could continue with this discussion about your book for
hours, but we must close for now. I cannot thank you enough for taking the time
to visit with us. Good luck with your book ERROL AND OLIVIA.
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