Pilgrimage II, Day 1 – Preparing to Encounter the Shadow

Pilgrimage II, Day 1 - Opening Considerations

At the Colorado History Center, the story of the Sand Creek Massacre is laid out in detail with time line, artifacts and stories passed down over the last 161 years.

It is a story of indigenous leaders who worked hard to achieve peaceful solutions, some traveling all the way to Washington to meet with President Lincoln to protect their people. Lincoln would award a silver peace medallion to one of the leaders, Chief Lean Bear. He would be wearing that medal as he approached the soldiers encircling the elderly, women and children at Sand Creek awaiting notification to move to their new reservation. He approached the soldiers under a white flag of surrender topped by an American flag, as Lincoln had instructed him. Before he could say a word, Lean Bear would be shot dead.

This event well reflects the betrayal these peoples The opening words of the exhibit asserted, “This exhibit tells the stories of the worst betrayal that ever happened to the Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples as we heard them from our elders…”

“They wanted to wipe us out, but they failed. We are survivors and we remember what happened to our loved ones. We continue telling the stories the surviving victims handed down. We commemorate the family members who were killed that day, even as we continue living with the unresolved trauma the massacre left behind for Cheyenne and Arapaho peoples.”

The lives of the Arapaho and Cheyenne peoples would never be the same thereafter.

Today was the first day of this second pilgrimage. We have just begun our descent into our collective American Shadow. Saturday we will offer our prayers in the place where these atrocities occurred.  

Pilgrimage II, Day 1 - Making the Right Moral Decision

He was the leader of one of the five companies of soldiers dispatched to Sand Creek. Captain Silas Soule quickly sized up the situation and ordered his troops not to join in the massacre. He disobeyed orders in doing so but recognized the orders to be evil.

Soule would later testify before Congress that the victims of the massacre were slaughtered without cause. Two months later, Soule would be shot dead in the streets of Denver possibly out of retaliation for his testimony.

Soule’s grave at Riverside Cemetery has become a de facto shrine for indigenous pilgrims leaving stones on his tombstone along with flowers and American flags. He is an example of a leader faced with a difficult decision who found a way to make the right moral choice in the face of enormous pressure to acquiesce to evil.

Pilgrimage II, Day 1  - Downtime in a Cowboy Town

We would spend our first night of the pilgrimage in Cheyenne, Wyoming. After an intense introduction to Sand Creek, we were only too happy to arrive at the century old Plains Hotel. This town truly has a cowboy heritage. The desk clerk told us the small elevator was installed to prevent cowboys from bringing their horses up to their rooms, presumably to keep them from being stolen. It’s a quirky place with a long history.

 

Pilgrimage II, Day 1 - A Quirky Pub and Grub

The desk clerk at the hotel recommended Stanford’s Grub and Pub. It proved to be just what the doctor ordered. In the heart of downtown Cheyenne, this quirky place offered 53 beers on tap, bison as a substitute for beef on any sandwich and a collection of antique that covered virtually every inch of wall and ceiling space. It’s been a good evening.

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 Harry Scott Coverston

 Orlando, Florida

  frharry@cfl.rr.com

 hcoverston.orlando@gmail.com

 If the unexamined life is not worth living, surely an unexamined belief system, be it religious or political, is not worth holding. Most things worth considering do not come in sound bites.

Those who believe religion and politics aren't connected don't understand either. – Mahatma Gandhi

For what does G-d require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your G-d?  - Micah 6:8, Hebrew Scriptures

Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it. - Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Wisdom of the Jewish Sages (1993)

       © Harry Coverston, 2025

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