Church forges ties with Sand Creek Massacre descendants

Key points:

• First United Methodist Church in Sheridan, Wyoming, has nurtured a two-decade relationship with the Northern Cheyenne tribe in Lame Deer, Montana.
• Activities have ranged from providing food to attending powwows and raising funds for the annual Sand Creek Massacre Healing Run.
• The church’s Native American Committee crafted legislation passed by the 2012 General Conference to begin the denomination’s work in acknowledging its ties to the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre.

In the beginning, Otto Braided Hair Jr. wanted nothing to do with Methodists, and for good reason.

His great-grandparents were among the survivors of the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, when U.S. troops attacked a village of Cheyenne people and Arapaho people and killed more than 230 women, children and elders. The Cheyenne and Arapaho were told to camp there by the U.S. military with the promise that flying a U.S. flag and a white flag would signal to troops not to harm them.

The attack was led by Col. John Chivington, a Methodist Episcopal pastor, and ordered by Colorado Territorial Gov. John Evans, also a Methodist and an Indian agent who was to look out for the general welfare of the tribes. In the years following the massacre, the denomination had done little to acknowledge or atone for its role.

In his book Massacre at Sand Creek: How Methodists Were Involved in an American Tragedy, historian Gary L. Roberts wrote, “The Methodist Episcopal Church never confronted John M. Chivington’s role in the Sand Creek Massacre in any formal way. What stands out most strikingly in the Methodist response to Sand Creek, however, is indifference.”

So when Braided Hair’s brother, Steve Brady Sr., directed him to teach members of First United Methodist Church in Sheridan, Wyoming, about the Sand Creek Massacre, his initial reaction was disinterest.

Braided Hair, a Sand Creek Massacre descendants representative of the Northern Cheyenne tribe in Lame Deer, Montana, said, “I just didn't want anything to do with churches, period. Their people killed my own people.”

But his brother wanted the congregation to learn about the massacre and the denomination’s responsibility in it.

“I can see that now,” Braided Hair said. “Steve must’ve seen that these guys needed to get educated.”

Church member JuDee Anderson said she hadn’t been aware of Methodist ties to Sand Creek until she got to know Brady in 2005, when the two worked at the high school on the Northern Cheyenne reservation in Lame Deer.

“Steve was telling me a lot of things about the Cheyenne and the history, and one day we were talking about Christianity,” she said. “During that conversation, I said I was Methodist. After a long pause, he told me the Sand Creek Massacre was led by Methodists, which I just about choked on.” 

She took this information back to her church’s Peace with Justice Committee and proposed ways to address it — an idea that had unanimous support from the small group.

“I knew from working on the reservation that many promises of the white folks coming in and out are never fulfilled,” Anderson said. “I told the committee, ‘We’re not going to do this unless we are committed.’ They all said, ‘Let’s open this door.’”

She asked Brady to speak to the committee, but he suggested that Braided Hair get involved. The idea didn’t have enthusiastic support from Braided Hair, but he set up the initial meeting out of respect for his brother.

By Braided Hair’s telling, it was a miserable experience.

“I was ready to get the hell out of there. I was wanting them to hurry and get it over with,” he said. “And then my brother said, ‘Tell them what they need to know.’”

Slowly, the dialogue began.

In September 2006, the church committee was asked to deliver food to the 2007 dedication of the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site. 

“Then we just kept getting invited back,” Anderson said. “I think what happened is over time and with frequent participation, we learned to listen and earned their trust.”

After the first few meetings, the Peace with Justice Committee opted to become the Native American Ministry Committee. The name was later changed to the Native American Committee, Anderson said, to ensure that the intended message was accurately communicated.

Rather than wanting to “colonize or Christianize,” she said, “we were and are focused on learning the history, the cultures, to create relationships and encourage Acts of Repentance by the Church.”

Braided Hair’s initial opposition and mistrust are products of generations of pain inflicted upon his ancestors that continue in many ways today: The massacre itself and attempts to downplay it. The discrimination Natives still face when they shop in towns that border the Lame Deer reservation. Early Hollywood’s portrayals of Native Americans as savages.

That pain and mistrust showed up following an unexpected request from descendants of Gov. Evans wanting to attend the first Sand Creek Massacre Commemoration Spiritual Healing Run in 1999. Braided Hair was at odds with the Sand Creek committee’s decision to allow them to come.

“I disagreed with them, but I respected their decision. They were elders who I had all respect for, so I went through with it,” he said.

At some point, he began reflecting on two figures present at Sand Creek in 1864: Capt. Silas Soule and Lt. Joseph Cramer.

Both were commanding officers of the First Colorado Cavalry who defied Chivington and ordered their men not to fire. Soule testified before a U.S. military commission investigating the Sand Creek Massacre and was later murdered — possibly in retaliation for telling the truth. Letters written by both men recounting the event have helped to shed light on the scale of the atrocity, when many official reports tried to reframe the narrative as a military victory against a dangerous foe.

Braided Hair has since encountered descendants of Evans, Soule and other cavalrymen — families who have helped return remains or belongings taken by their ancestors. All of this influenced how he viewed the committee from Sheridan.

“Somewhere along the way, I started to really see they’re not bad people. Sure, they might be Methodists and Christians, but they’re not Chivingtons and they’re not Custers,” he said.

“I slowly began to realize they need healing, too. I would consider anyone who wants to heal to be of special character.”

People from the Sheridan church began preparing and taking food to the annual Healing Run, which covers 180 miles from the Sand Creek site to the Colorado State Capitol building in Denver — retracing the path of the U.S. Army soldiers retreating after the ambush. Over the years, the support and participation has expanded.

Tension still existed early in the relationship, but Anderson said that when Braided Hair introduced her to his wife, Barbara, it served as “the bridge we needed” to get past it.

Barbara and her six aunts came to the church and gave lessons on beading and making fry bread. She even accompanied Anderson to a national United Methodist Women’s Assembly to make a presentation on accompaniment and solidarity and to teach classes on Thom White Wolf Fassett’s “Giving Our Hearts Away” mission study.

“Since then, the activities have been almost continuous — not only needs but just social interaction, getting to know people on a one-to-one basis,” said Lloyd Marsden, a member of the Native American Committee.

Marsden said church members have gathered coats and other winter clothing, helped with a sign language school at the reservation and attended different traditional events there. Raising funds and helping out at the Healing Run are big priorities.

“There’s lots of activities, and many of them are simple, like providing transportation somewhere,” he said. “We’ve learned to take our cues from the people there and what they need.”

Anderson said maintaining a consistent presence has been vital.

“Our first or second year of going over there, we were at a powwow and one of the other Sand Creek descendent representatives walked by and said, ‘You guys are over here all the time. You’re beginning to become a fixture here.’ And I said, ‘Yup — that’s our plan.’”

Anderson and Braided Hair crafted a petition submitted to the 2012 United Methodist General Conference that called for full disclosure of the denomination’s role in the Sand Creek Massacre. The adopted petition funded a report by Roberts that was delivered to the 2016 General Conference and later published as a book.

That General Conference passed a resolution, “United Methodist Responses to The Sand Creek Massacre,” which included a commitment to “learning and teaching its own history and entering into a journey of healing in relationship with the descendants of the Sand Creek Massacre of 1864.”  

Retired Bishop Elaine JW Stanovsky, who was episcopal leader of the Rocky Mountain and Yellowstone conferences at the time, said she has “deep gratitude” for Anderson’s persistence in both forging ties with the Sand Creek descendants and bringing awareness of the massacre to the denomination — especially considering that Anderson herself was initially unaware.

 

Otto Braided Hair Jr. participates in the report on the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre presented to the 2016 United Methodist General Conference in Portland, Ore. File photo by Mike DuBose, UM News.

“She has been shaped by Christian faith and found herself working with people on the Northern Cheyenne reservation. That experience opened a door for her that she was willing to walk through to really appreciate the depth of the generational trauma and vulnerability of the whole culture,” Stanovsky said.

However, Anderson gives credit elsewhere.

“I’ll tell you whose idea it was: God. And there's no doubt about that,” she said.

The resolution was readopted by the 2024 General Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina, with updates laying out specific actions the denomination will undertake to work toward a true reconciliation.

“We want to focus the work on repentance and healing,” Anderson said.

Bishop Kristin Stoneking, who leads the Mountain Sky Conference, said the Sheridan committee’s work aligns with one of the priorities of the Western Jurisdiction’s plan for Indigenous Ministries: truth-telling.

“I’m grateful for them. They’ve done what we hope our local churches will do: to see places where healing is needed in their context — particularly where the church is culpable in the harm that’s happened — and to move into those spaces and be agents of helping through truth-telling, relationship and action,” she said.

Stoneking said that in discussions with the Sheridan committee and Sand Creek tribal representatives, an idea developed to recruit a mission volunteer from the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries. Another proposal would help the tribes establish a physical Colorado address, which they have long sought. Because their ancestors fled Colorado in the years following the massacre, the Cheyenne and Arapaho have no official presence that would allow them to establish a nonprofit to access grant money and fundraise for the Healing Run in the state where it is held.

She also cited the renewed push for the denomination to own its historical role in the massacre and work toward healing through the newly formed Sand Creek Massacre Interagency Task Force and initiatives from the commissions on Religion and Race and Archives and History.

“I’m really encouraged by the way the whole denomination — through the agencies, Council of Bishops and ecumenical office — has taken up the different aspects of this work to help people understand and consider how to continue to heal the harm,” Stoneking said.

In the years since the Sheridan church and Northern Cheyenne began working together, both Steve Brady and Barbara Braided Hair have passed away. Anderson noted that the committee and most of the congregation are older and she’s “forever looking for replacements.”

She’s preparing her 16-year-old granddaughter for the future.

“I told her a couple of years ago, ‘You're going to take up for me after I’m gone,’” she said. “And so it will go on, and it’s God's plan for us, and we hope that it will get bigger and spread more in the church because it’s also been very rewarding.”

Anderson said other churches — both United Methodist and other denominations — have helped at the Healing Run, which encourages her.

“Get in this picture. Go to a Healing Run, feed people, pray with us, sing — whatever. But let’s all get together. We need to heal. All of us do,” she said.

With maybe 40 members usually in worship and about six on the committee, Sheridan is a small church doing this big ministry.

Marsden refers to part of a quote often attributed to author and cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.” He said one of the committee’s goals is to write a book that could serve as a resource for other churches.

“My personal vision is that there should be relationships amongst all parishioners from every church with Indigenous or other cultural groups, in every church,” he said.

Stanovsky acknowledged that the Sheridan church has a unique geographical advantage, being fairly close to the remote Northern Cheyenne reservation.

“What does relationship-building look like beyond Sheridan? Their model is not easy to replicate, so we need a different model and we need to be creative thinking about that,” she said.

Stanovsky wondered whether it would be possible to host spring break immersion experiences for seminarians that would visit the Sand Creek site or the reservations. She also thought about replicating tours like those that visit key locations from the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, or sponsoring church mission trips to the reservations.

Anderson said regardless of how a church wants to be involved, the most important thing is building trust.

“It doesn’t come naturally and probably doesn’t come really quickly, but listening is critical. We need to be quiet and listen and be patient,” she said. “We’re not going to get a relationship if we’re not over there.”

Though the denomination has taken more steps in the past few decades to move toward some sort of healing with the Sand Creek descendants, there still exists the opinion that these events are long in the past and not relevant today.

“People tell us that it was way back in 1800s, so how come we’re still talking about it? Because you still treat us like crap,” said Braided Hair. “We’re not accepted, even though our people were on the continent first.

“Didn’t your own founding savior say to love thy neighbor?”

Anderson points out that the effects of the massacre are still felt by the tribes today, be it poverty, mental trauma, suicide or substance abuse.

“They lost everything, and they had a beautiful life, a beautiful culture. People are dying left and right because of what happened in the past, because we never gave them a hand up,” she said. 

Though it has often been challenging and not without conflict, Anderson is grateful for the relationship that has been built over the past 20 years.

“It has enriched us, to show caring and love for people that we harmed, and they’re still living the harm,” she said. “I’ve learned more about their spirituality, and I think we could end up having a lot of similarities. We know we have the same creator.”

Braided Hair has come to value the relationship as well.

“Even though I didn’t really want them there initially, they were there and they stayed there,” he said. “Somewhere along the way, we started treating them like family.”

Butler is a freelance writer in Nashville, Tennessee.

News media contact: Julie Dwyer at (615) 742-5470 or [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digests.