Separated by 1,600 miles, the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, in southeast Colorado and the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument (Fort Marion), in St. Augustine, Florida, represent uncommon places linked through common bonds of turmoil and suffering, sadness and hope, death and survival. 

Join Park Ranger Craig Moore at Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site on Saturday, March 19, 2016 for a free informative presentation titled “From Sand Creek to Fort Marion: Sea to Shining Sea.”  The presentation will begin at 1:00pm at the park’s Monument Hill overlook.

In the years following the Sand Creek Massacre, Cheyenne and Arapaho survivors were eventually forced onto a reservation in Indian Territory (Oklahoma).  In 1875, thirty-five Sand Creek survivors, including one woman, were labeled “ringleaders, accomplices and murderers” in fights against the U.S. and banished without trial to Fort Marion.

For those who survived both the massacre at Sand Creekand confinement in Fort Marion, their lives were changed in ways many might find incomprehensible. The odyssey of these people, from the bullets and pain of Sand Creek to the morbid isolation of a Florida prison, will be the focus of the afternoon program. 

Reservations are required.  Inclement weather on the morning of the event will cancel the program and participants with reservations will be notified.  Entrance to the park is free. For reservations and/or additional information, please call the park at 719-729-3003 (Monday through Friday, 10am to 4pm) or visit www.nps.gov/sand.

Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site is located in Kiowa County, Colorado. To visit the site, follow Colorado State Highway 96 east off Highway 287 near Eads, or west off Highway 385 at Sheridan Lake. Near Chivington, turn north onto County Road 54/Chief White Antelope Way orat Brandon, turn north onto County Road 59. Follow these roads to their intersections with County Road W. The park entrance is along County Road W one mile east of County Road 54 or several miles west of CR 59.

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Photo caption:  Cheyenne prisoners at Saint Augustine, Fort Marion, Florida, circa 1875.  Created by George Pierron, call number WA MSS S-1174.

Photo courtesy: Beinecke Library, Yale University.