Talk:John Chivington

Plagiarism
It is noted that much of the text on this page is the same as http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/a_c/chivington.htm - which is marked as '© 2001 THE WEST FILM PROJECT and WETA'. I am concerned that much of this text has been inappropriately included on the Chivington page.

Text that was removed
The following text was removed by another editor:

Many of the dead were mutilated, and most were women, children, and elderly men. Chivington and his men decorated their weapons, hats and gear with scalps and other body parts, including human fetuses and male and female genitalia. They also publicly displayed these battle trophies in the Apollo Theater and in saloons in Denver.

I live in Denver, and this information is generally accepted by many as a valid historical account. However, it definitely needs to be sourced. I'm not putting it back for now (unless i happen across a source), but i'm preserving it here in case anyone wishes to do the research to prove or disprove. Richard Myers (talk) 06:46, 10 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Oh goodness no, let's not let it stand if it isn't properly sourced, even if it is known via a number of sources to be historically accurate. I'm guessing Mr. Myers isn't an American Indian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.123.80.107 (talk) 22:23, 25 May 2010 (UTC)
 * If any of the "many sources" it's known by are considered reliable, then it shouldn't be all that hard to meet Wikipedia requirements, should it. Until then, reverting. Fat&amp;Happy (talk) 01:44, 26 May 2010 (UTC)

Check this cite: United States Congress Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, 1865, Appendix (testimonies and report) Elrey (talk) 23:27, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Genocide?
How come this article is not linked to others concerning war crimes and the like? I have read what the Nazis paramilitaries did in Eastern Europe, but if perspective is to be kept, they only shot people, burned them alive or deported them to the death camps, i don't remeber reading anything about mutilations and keeping body parts as trophies? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.151.216.19 (talk) 12:37, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

"They only shot people, burned them alive or deported them to death camps." And you want perspective when you have absolutely NONE of your own? LOL. You don't make the case for American Indians well with IDIOT statements like this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.51.145.197 (talk) 05:09, 14 October 2014 (UTC)

Why was that an 'IDIOT' statement? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.70.206.173 (talk) 15:31, 13 March 2019 (UTC)

Infamy
Chivington is remembered for the Sand Creek Massacre. He is not remembered in history for anything else.

User:Fat&Happy clearly has a right-wing racist agenda to whitewash history. The definition of killing of unarmed elderly people, and women and children is as unpleasant as it gets.

The definition of such an evil act is infamy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.145.117.87 (talk) 15:20, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Cause of death
Is currently listed as cancer, but in "Circle of Fire: The Indian War of 1865" John D. McDermott p.176 notes "... the examining physician listing the cause of death as diarrhea, injury to the rectum, and indigestion." His reference is Chivington Pension File (National Archives Record Group 15, Records of the Veterans Administration, Pension File 41647). I would like to change the cause of death to reflect this material. Elrey (talk) 23:20, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

Some of the sourcing re the number of tribal casualties, quoted material
The NPS/Sand Creek website does not have a 'George Bent' section at the present time, plus the Edmond/Edmund Guerrier quote from 1913 (within the references) is also not appropriately sourced. I have no doubt that Chivington and his men perpetrated an atrocity on an unarmed people, but the sourcing is now problematic. If interested editors can work on finding the appropriate references that would be a great help, the Sandy Creek Massacre is important enough to be sourced from what people of that time left behind in their own words. Shearonink (talk) 00:34, 26 July 2013 (UTC)

Date of birth
The date of birth requires clarification. The first paragraph of the article reads "January 27, 1821" while the infobox has "June 27, 1821". I found two sources that confirm January: But there are other sources which confirm June. I wonder if they got their (incorrect) information from Wikipedia. - For the time being I will alter the infobox to read January, too. --ChoG (talk) 16:57, 30 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Thomas S. Edrington, John Taylor: The Battle of Glorieta Pass: A Gettysburg in the West, March 26-28, 1862. UNM Press, 2000, pg. 38
 * Lori Cox-Paul: John M Chivington. The ‘Reverend Colonel’, ‘Marry-Your-Daughter’, ‘Sand Creek Massacre’ (PDF). Nebraska History, 88, 2007, pg. 127

Allegation of deliberate hoax re: colorblindness
A user on reddit states:

"In eighth grade, 6 years ago, my classmates and I were assigned to do a mock trial on John S Chivington. To keep things brief I will sum up the truth behind John S Chivington. He was a general On the U.S. frontier who was responsible for the massacre of 1000's of Indians. I don't remember the name of the massicer nor do I care enough to look it up; you can do that yourself. anyways, when he charged the indian encampment the Indians did not fight and instead raised the white flag of truce. John ignored the flag and killed them all. We were allowed to use Wikipedia for a source so my team and I who had to defend the undefendable John edited Wikipedia. We added a short lie. "John was born with color blindness that made it hard for him to interpret certain shades of grey.[4][5]" yes we spelled gray wrong. we won the trial saying that John couldn't see the white flag cause of his color blindness and his Wikipedia page remains the same to this day."

https://www.reddit.com/r/Showerthoughts/comments/3yo55g/im_convinced_most_of_the_adults_who_told_me_wiki/cyf8o37

It seems this would merit further investigation. 24.147.93.169 (talk) 20:03, 29 December 2015 (UTC)


 * Well a large part of the reddit account/story is not factual...the false statement was added in November 2015 from a college-IP - not 6 years ago. Thank you for removing it.  But then again, Wikipedia is the encyclopedia anyone can edit and "Vandalism happens." Shearonink (talk) 20:19, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * It is accurate. Here (and a few previous edits) he adds it for the first time in Dec 2010. Here he adds it again in 2011. Oncenawhile (talk) 22:13, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Thanks. You certainly did a more thorough search than I did. So the original vandalism occurred in the appropriate timeframe and, I guess, now - every so often - through the miracle of sharing on the Internet, it gets recycled through the article again....  Shearonink (talk) 22:22, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
 * Looks like pretty much every edit from that IP address has been some form of vandalism --Flounder19 (talk) 22:24, 29 December 2015 (UTC)

Adding in Lt. Joseph Cramer
Not my field/don't have time but someone should add in info from https://theconversation.com/remembering-the-us-soldiers-who-refused-orders-to-murder-native-americans-at-sand-creek-68211 notably info about Lt. Joseph Cramer who also refused to participate and condemned the massacre. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Davidbrake (talk • contribs) 13:09, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

Role in Push for Statehood
In the introduction, it says "The Freemasons, including Chivington and the first Governor, John Evans, were instrumental in pressing for Colorado statehood." But in the body under Later Life and Death, it says, "Public outrage forced Chivington to withdraw from politics and kept him out of Colorado's campaign for statehood." Clearly a contradiction. So which is it? -- Srwalden (talk) 12:02, 16 August 2019 (UTC)
 * If he was involved in statehood early on, prior to his dastardly and damnable actions at Sand Creek, it should say so in the header and then the text in Later Life and Death be amended to reflect this tidbit. I have no idea either way. I came here for information. -- Srwalden (talk) 12:16, 16 August 2019 (UTC)