Student Question
What were the consequences of the Sand Creek massacre?
Quick answer:
The Sand Creek massacre had devastating consequences for the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Wutapai tribes, resulting in significant loss of life, particularly among women and children. It disrupted the Cheyenne's governance as many leaders were killed, leading to increased retaliatory raids by the Dog Soldiers. The massacre also reversed efforts to accommodate white settlers, as many Native American leaders lost faith in peaceful policies following the violent attack.
There were a number of tribes that lost massive amounts of men women and children, some of them particularly large numbers of women and children as many of the men were not present as they were off in war parties at the time.
Tribes that were particularly hard hit were the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and the Wutapai. Another major effect of the massacre had to do with trying to rebuild the governing structure of the Cheyenne tribe since a large number of the ruling group were killed. This led in part to the intensification of the retaliation since the older more conservative members of the governing body were overridden by the outrage of the Dog Soldiers who then led raids on settlers in the surrounding areas. The trend of trying to accomodate the white settlers was reversed in many areas as the massacre made many of the Indian leaders feel that policy was not successful.
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