Coming to Terms with Colorado’s Past Through Mount Blue Sky

What Native Americans Can Teach Us in Our Churches and Public Life, Part Two

There is a painful episode in Colorado’s early history that I did not learn about in the public schools or in the Methodist Church growing up in Denver. I mention the Methodist Church not only because of my family’s membership going back to the 1930s, but also because the church has a connection to the painful episode. Oddly, my awareness about these things came through the recent re-naming of a mountain. 

It is fair to say that Mount Evans was ingrained in the psyches of all Denver natives because it is the most prominent and familiar mountain west of Denver. You can climb it, drive to the top of it, get married up there if you like.  

The 14,264-foot peak was named after John Evans, Colorado’s second territorial governor and ex officio superintendent of Indian affairs. It was a big deal last year when the mountain’s name was changed to Mount Blue Sky at the request of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes and with the approval of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.  

Evans resigned after he approved of Col. John Chivington leading an 1864 U.S. cavalry massacre of more than 200 Arapaho and Cheyenne people — most of them women, children, and the elderly — at Sand Creek in what is now southeastern Colorado. After mutilating their victims, many of the soldiers returned to Denver parading body parts as trophies in Denver saloons and public places. 

Both Chivington and Evans were leaders in the Methodist community. Chivington had been a pastor in the church, and Evans had established the University of Denver originally as a Methodist seminary. Neither accepted blame for Sand Creek, even after a Congressional hearing, though Evans lost his job in the aftermath.

Mount Blue Sky is a fitting name for the mountain. The Arapaho were known as the “Blue Sky People”, while the Cheyenne hold an annual renewal-of-life ceremony called Blue Sky.

“It is a huge step, not only for the Cheyenne and Arapaho people, but also for the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, Southern Ute Tribe, Northern Arapaho Tribe, Northern Cheyenne Tribe, and other allies who worked diligently to begin the healing process, bringing honor to a monumental and majestic mountain,” Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes Gov. Reggie Wassana said after the name change was officially approved.

George Tinker, the Osage Theologian Who Spoke Truth in the Methodist Church 

Colorado citizens own a huge debt to George “Tink” Tinker, a scholar of the Osage Nation who taught for more than three decades at the Iliff School of Theology, a historic Methodist school in Denver that emerged from the University of Denver. Thirteen years before Colorado’s state government had the good sense to change the name of the peak named for Evans, Tinker brought up the matter in the Methodist church.  

George Tinker, a prophetic voice in the Methodist Church

Speaking at the “Act of Repentance” worship service at the 2012 General Conference of the Methodist Church in Tampa, Florida, Tinker called out Evans for ordering Chivington to proceed against this peaceful Cheyenne village. Evans, Tinker declared, conceived "murder in his heart" by refusing to receive a delegation of Cheyenne peace chiefs, setting in motion a process leading to the massacre.  

"See, that's the history that we've somehow got to deal with," Tinker told the conference. "It's not just Sand Creek, but it's virtually every bit of the Christian conquest of North America." 

Tinker also brought to light that for 80 years, Iliff “proudly and publicly displayed a volume bound in the skin taken from an American Indian killed by a quaker settler in western Virginia.” Tinker has written extensively about the matter which has taken Iliff decades to come to terms with.  The cover of the book, entitled “The History of Christianity” was removed in 1974; the book remains at Iliff.

After the Sand Creek Massacre the remaining Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians fled the eastern plains of Colorado and headed north to Wyoming and Montana; some later settled on a reservation in Oklahoma. The massacre disrupted the traditional Cheyenne power structure. Violence between settlers and the Cheyenne and Arapaho continued into the late 1860s. 

Today the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes who lost their Colorado lands live on reservations in Oklahoma, Wyoming and Montana.  Some members participate in the Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual Healing Run from the massacre site to Denver.  The 180-mile, five-day run traces the route that the Cavalry took back to Denver where they paraded their “war trophies”. As Kaden Walksnice, a descendent of Sand Creek survivors, told Rocky Mountain PBS, “We run to heal our past, present and in hopes for our futures.” 

In 2014, then Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper formally apologized to descendants of Sand Creek massacre victims at a 150th anniversary of the event held in Denver. Hickenlooper stated, "We should not be afraid to criticize and condemn that which is inexcusable. ... On behalf of the State of Colorado, I want to apologize. We will not run from this history." 

Twin Guides 

In my last post, I quoted Cherokee theologian Randy Woodley about the need for white Christians “to heal the relationships between themselves, Creator, the land, and the local Indigenous people.”  

Considering how important the name change to Mount Blue Sky was to the Arapaho and Cheyenne peoples, I’ve been thinking about the most prominent peaks west of us in the northern part of the state: Long’s Peak and Mount Meeker. Long’s Peak was named for Stephen Harriman Long, an American army civil engineer who explored the high plains and Colorado mountains. From reading his journal, most of his contacts with Native Americans were conciliatory.  

Nathan Meeker was another story. Initially a journalist, he sought to form a utopian, agrarian community, which became Greeley, Colo. That didn’t work out so well, nor did his experience as an Indian agent. He was killed by the Utes after insisting that they halt their nomadic way of life and instead plow a Colorado mountain valley and plant crops.  

The Arapaho called Long’s and Meeker Nay-ni-sote-uu-u “Twin Guides.” In Boulder County, the Rabbit Mountain Open Space we love to hike has a trailside sign that explains how Twin Guides helped the Arapaho and Cheyenne find their way back to the Front Range of the Rockies from the plains. 

After hiking this trail many times, my wife and I agreed that to honor the original “inhabitants” we would start referring to these landmark mountains as Twin Guides. We’ve dubbed Meeker as “South Twin Guide” and Long’s as “North Twin Guide.” We can see both these peaks from our living room window.

We’d love to see the name change catch on in Northern Colorado.

My next post in this series will touch on the history of the Arapaho tribe who were displaced by early settlers in our immediate area and the story of the “Council Tree.”