The land we occupy is the territory of the Hinono’ei (Arapaho) people, and was home and crossroads for many tribes, including the Núu-agha-tʉvʉ-pʉ̱ (Ute), Tséstho’e (Cheyenne), Apache, and Comanche.
We honor Chief Left Hand (Nawath), leader of the last Hinono’ei band to spend their winters in the Boulder Valley. Many Hinono’ei peope were massacred by the US Cavalry at Sand Creek, Colorado, in 1864. The survivors were forced out of Colorado to reservations in Wyoming and Oklahoma, where most Hinono’ei live today.
More to the story…
Chief Niwot and his people lived along the Front Range, often spending winters in Boulder Valley. In the fall of 1858 during the Colorado Gold Rush, early prospectors were welcomed by Niwot and his people to the area, even though it was Arapaho territory. Chief Niwot was an intelligent man, not only urging his tribe to coexist peacefully with the white man, but also learning English, Cheyenne, and Sioux, which allowed him to communicate with white settlers and other tribes. Peaceful relations between the southern Arapaho and the white prospectors, however, did not last.
Colorado Territorial Governor John Evans ordered the peaceful southern Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes to relocate to Sand Creek, an area in southeast Colorado north of Fort Lyon, a United States Army fort at the time. Governor Evans then ordered the Third Colorado Cavalry, commanded by Colonel John Chivington, to patrol the land for hostile Indians.
Colonel Chivington and his men had patrolled Colorado’s eastern plains for months without finding any hostile tribes. Frustrated, they headed to Sand Creek. Despite Major Edward Wynkoop, commander of Fort Lyons, stating that the Native people at Sand Creek were peaceful, Chivington and his men attacked the Araphao camp the morning of Nov. 29, 1864. There are no exact statistics on the number of people who were killed that day, but most historians believe approximately 180 people were killed during the Sand Creek Massacre, including Chief Niwot, and mostly women, children, and the elderly.
