During the May 23-24, 2025, pilgrimage to the Sand Creek Massacre site – co-sponsored by the Episcopal Church in Colorado – Fred Mosqueda, a Southern Arapaho tribal elder whose great-great grandfather survived the surprise attack, told stories of survivors that have been passed down through generations. On Nov. 29, 1864, U.S. Army soldiers killed at least 230 Arapaho and Cheyenne people, most of whom were women, children and elderly, at the Big Sandy Creek encampment. Photo: Joe Hubbard
[Episcopal News Service] Episcopalians from the Episcopal Church in Colorado made a pilgrimage to the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site in today’s Kiowa County to learn how the deadliest day in the state’s history continues to impact the Cheyenne and Arapaho people more than 160 years later.
“The tribes tried to work with the U.S. government, but this betrayal showed us that we couldn’t trust them at all. It was fight or flight with the U.S. government as they totally slaughtered our people,” Fred Mosqueda, a Southern Arapaho tribal elder who lives in Oklahoma, told Episcopal News Service.
His great-great-grandfather, named Mixed Hair, survived the Nov. 29, 1864, surprise attack at the encampment near Big Sandy Creek. Despite efforts by Southern Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle and other tribal leaders to make peace with the white settlers, over the course of eight hours, U.S. Army cavalry soldiers, led by Col. John Milton Chivington, a Methodist pastor, killed and mutilated at least 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people, most of whom were women, children or elderly. The soldiers then looted the village, leaving most of it burned or destroyed.
Then-governor of the Territory of Colorado, John Evans, had earlier that year commanded all so-called “friendly Indians” to seek sanctuary at Fort Lyon while the Army would hunt “hostile Indians” like wild game. While Evans wasn’t directly involved with the massacre, his two proclamations – which current Colorado Gov. Jared Polis formally reversed in 2021 – created the conditions that lead up to the attack.
The Denver-based Episcopal Church in Colorado co-sponsored the May 23-24 pilgrimage with the Colorado Coalition of Indigenous Allies, the Mennonite Church-affiliated Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, and Everyday Epics.
Like many Christian pilgrimages, the pilgrimage to the Sand Creek Massacre site was a time of listening, learning and reflection. The word “reconciliation” is often used in discussions of healing and repair, but Marrton Dormish, a nondenominational Christian minister who led the pilgrimage, told ENS, “we’re not there yet.”
“I would say conciliation because there has never been a time, unfortunately, in our history when Native and non-Native people have been truly conciliatory toward each other,” said Dormish, who leads pilgrimages through his advocacy nonprofit, Everyday Epics. “We’re not doing anything again but rather trying to do it for the first time.”
Dormish, who attended Denver public schools, said he didn’t learn about the Sand Creek Massacre until he was an adult. Senate Bill 123, which would have required “the genocide against Native Americans, the Sand Creek Massacre and other massacres, and the Colorado Native American residential and boarding schools” to be taught in public schools, failed to pass earlier this month, though they’re included in some public school curricula.
The pilgrimage began on May 23 with an overview of the program and the Doctrine of Discovery, a centuries-old theological and political doctrine used to justify colonization and the oppression of Indigenous people. (The Episcopal Church became the first Christian body to officially repudiate the doctrine in 2009.) Sarah Augustine, co-founder and executive director of the Coalition to Dismantle the Doctrine of Discovery, and the Rev. Joe Hubbard, who leads the coalition’s Episcopal Indigenous Justice Roundtable, which meets monthly, led the opening session. Hubbard’s wife, Ashley Dobbs Hubbard, is Cherokee and serves as diocesan missioner for the Diocese of North Dakota.
“In Colorado, the pilgrimage was about telling the truth of what happened historically at the massacre. …That’s why it’s so important to have elders share their oral histories in thinking through what justice might look like for the Arapaho and the Cheyenne at this point,” Augustine, who is Tewa, told ENS. “In establishing relationships, Christians in Colorado have the opportunity to engage in a process of repair.”
On May 24, the pilgrims went to the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site – the only National Park site with the word “massacre” in its name – near Eads to listen to a historic overview by a park ranger. After the lecture and a period of reflection and discussion, the 53 pilgrims, most of whom were white, gathered at Monument Hill. The area overlooks Big Sandy Creek and is where some of the massacre victims who have been repatriated are interned. It also is the site of a monument that erroneously describes the massacre site as a “battle ground.” While at Monument Hill, Mosqueda and his wife, Mary Mosqueda, shared some stories of survivors that have been orally passed down through generations.
“It was an emotional presentation, hearing the horror stories,” Martha “Marti” Dever, co-coordinator of the Colorado Coalition for Indigenous Allies and a parishioner at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Boulder, told ENS.
The pilgrimage concluded with a liturgy of remembrance that included Indigenous and Christian traditions. Fred Mosqueda sang in his native Arapaho language; Augustine smudged pilgrims with smoldering sage, an Indigenous ritual of blessing and cleansing; and Hubbard gave blessings with holy water.
“People were really emotional during the liturgy, especially when the names of the deceased were read,” Sarah Hartzell, co-coordinator of the Colorado Coalition for Indigenous Allies and a parishioner at St. Ambrose Episcopal Church in Boulder, told ENS.
Pilgrims had the option to walk along the Bluff Trail for further reflection after the ceremony concluded.
“I think that this pilgrimage in Colorado is an important first step toward repair, but there is no rush to being absolved, and there was no triumphalism in the liturgy,” Hubbard told ENS. “This was a recognition that we must lament together if we can ever have a possibility of healing.”
-Shireen Korkzan is a reporter and assistant editor for Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at skorkzan@episcopalchurch.org.