Indigenous

In front of descendants of Sand Creek Massacre survivors, Colorado lawmakers unanimously greenlighted a memorial sculpture Monday to commemorate the 1864 atrocity at the State Capitol.

The memorial will comprise of a massive, 24-foot-tall sculpture of an Arapaho chief, a Cheyenne chief and a Native American woman holding a child.

The current plan is for the sculpture replace a Civil War statue that was pulled down by protestors in 2020. The location, right in front of the iconic Capitol building, has been boarded off since.

The 1864 Sand Creek Massacre is possibly the worst atrocity in Colorado history. About 250 Arapaho and Cheyenne civilians, mostly women, children and the elderly, were killed by U.S. troops along Colorado's eastern plains, near the modern day town of Eads.

Otto Braided Hair is a representative for the Northern Cheyenne and a descendant of Sand Creek Massacre victims. He was on the Senate floor during Monday's vote on the resolution.

Braided Hair and other Sand Creek victims' descendants have been working for decades to memorialize the massacre at the Capitol. Coming more than a century and a half after the initial event, they say this is just one step in the healing process.

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