Talk:Battle at Sappa Creek

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Cheyenne Autumn (1953) by Mari Sandoz
The article says: "Sandoz published a widely read book entitled Cheyenne Autumn, which suggested that the battle was in reality a massacre, one of the first times the word was used to describe the actions of white men against Indians."

I doubt that a book as recent as 1953 would be one of the first times white men were described as massacring Indians.

I note that films The Yellow Tomahawk (1954) and Tomahawk (1951) both mention the Sand Creek Massacre of November 29, 1864. I don't remember whether the specific word "massacre" was used in those films but I remember they described Sand Creek as massacre even if the actual word wasn't used. And no doubt the films can be watched online or their scripts read.

The Last Wagon (1956) mentions the massacre of Apaches at Campt Grant on April 30, 1871 without actually using the "M" word.

"About 300 Apache back at the water. Comin' from all over- White Mountains- Mescaleros- a lot of tribes. Seems some whites led a sneak attack on Camp Grant. Slaughtered 110 Apache women and children. They're gathering to make the whites pay up"

https://www.scripts.com/script/the_last_wagon_12298/6]

So the idea that there were some massacres of Indians by whites was so common in the 1950s that it was mentioned in movies.

The tv series The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin was on from 1954 to 1959. And I have read an episode synopsis of an empisode where an Indian village is attacked and slaughtered. So a children's tv show in the 1950s could feature a massacre of Indians by whites without being accused of controversial storylines.

And I remember reading a magazine article about Sand Creek describing it as an evil event and presumably using the "M" word, probably before 1960.

And if necessary one can go back to the first general history of the Indians Wars in the trans-Mississippi west Massacres of the Mountains: A History of the Indian Wars of the Far West 1815-1876 J.P. Dunn (1886).

In the winter of 1864-65 General Carleton ordered a campaign against the western Apaches. it is claimed that Carleton ordered the total extermination of all the western Apaches. And Dunn says that the policy of exterminating Apaches was tried without success for several years. So it seems likely that Dunn described massacres committed by whites against indians as well massacres committed by Indians.

You can read it here and see if Dunn used the "M" word to describe whites killing Indians.

https://archive.org/details/massacresofmount0000dunn_k8u3

A Century of Dishonor (1881) by Helen Hunt Jackson was highly critical of US treatment of Indians. The table of contents has a section labled "Massacres of Indians by Whites".

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_Century_of_Dishonor

The Marias Massacre by troops under Major Baker on January 23, 1871 soon became very controversial, and I find it hard to believe that it was never called a massacre in 1871. Wendell Philips was quoted as saying he knew of only three savages on the plains: "Baker, Custer, and worst of all Sheridan", so I imagine he sometimes wrote about massacres of Indians by whites. 2601:49:101:5FA0:6941:9CE5:6BA0:BDAA (talk) 08:31, 22 April 2024 (UTC)