Listen to Indigenous voices for the next 250 years of American history

On the 150th anniversary of the Sand Creek Massacre, I stood on the steps of the Colorado State Capitol when then-Governor John Hickenlooper delivered an official apology for the massacre perpetrated on my people.

After he said “I am sorry!” he turned around and shook the hands of Cheyenne and Arapaho representatives. When he shook mine, I told him: “My relative White Antelope was there and what was done to him is unspeakable. My great-grandfather Vehoc was there and what happened to him is unthinkable.”

He nodded his head and promised that Colorado will not run from this history. Almost a decade later I ask, again, what has been done to address the inter-generational effects of genocide? And I ask in the same breath, what is being done to address the inter-generational effects of climate change?

The devastating storms that hit Colorado around the Solstice, including rivers of hail and a tornado in Highlands Ranch, are a sign that cannot be ignored anymore. For our people the Solstice is a time of renewal; I see an opportunity to change.

Within a month of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, that many of my great-grandparents were in, Colorado joined the United States on August 1, 1876, and the state is set to commemorate its 150th anniversary in three years. America celebrates 250 years of independence in 2026 as well. My call to Coloradans is to use the next three years to build the basis for a true commemoration – where, as the meaning of the word suggests we “bring these events to memory together.”

To me, it means looking at our joint history and at our stories together to build a stronger foundation for the next 150 years where Indigenous knowledge and wisdom helps inform more sustainable ways to live in Colorado for all current and future generations. We cannot achieve this goal if Indigenous voices are not included.

There is a difference between Western linear ways of teaching history, which tend to cover up difficult parts, like the effects of genocide on our people, while we continue to suffer; and our Indigenous circular ways carried in our peoples’ stories, connecting the past to the future.

Have you ever heard the stories of the Cheyenne and Arapaho people and how we were effectively driven from the state of Colorado? This continues to affect us today and deprives Coloradans of gaining a deeper connection to this land through our teachings. Have you ever thought about the need to find a resolution for all our future generations?

I speak about the inter-generational effects of genocide. Yet readers might connect more to the inter-generational effects of climate change since we all know how it is affecting our children and how it will affect generations to come disproportionately. All these inter-generational effects are the result of the same exploitative, oppressive mindset that took hold with the formation of Colorado some 150 years ago.

To make you better understand the inter-generational effects of genocide let me contrast the story of my family against the timeline often used to teach history.

Colorado was established as a slave-free territory on February 28, 1861, just before the beginning of the Civil War. My great-grandfather was born around that time after his mother Vonha had been raped by a U.S. soldier. He was named Vehoc, the word my people use to refer to Europeans. It means spider, still later the missionaries misinterpreted it as Whiteman and it still remains our family name today, as a reminder of the brutal colonial encounter.

Vehoc was a little boy, on November 29, 1864, when the Third Regiment of Colorado Volunteers led by Colonel John Chivington, fell into a peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho village flying white peace and American flags. White Antelope, a relative on my mother’s side, who advocated peace, was massacred and mutilated there, alongside many women and children. In many ways, our people were driven from the state of Colorado. Dispossession is the core indicator of colonialism and Colorado scores very high on this scale, almost wiping our people off the map.

This not only came at a great cost to our people, it came at a great cost to the land and Coloradans, losing the connection to our knowledge about this land.

While you might know many places by their colonial names, including the perpetrators of genocide, like Governor Evans, who gave the orders that preceded the Sand Creek Massacre; some of us still know the sacred names of these places and carry a deeper connection and an obligation to protect them.

Our ancestors taught us to talk to storms, they did not run from them, they turned into them, like the buffalo, because they knew they were going to come out on the other side. Our buffalo were almost driven to extinction and with them, ecosystems like buffalo grass and we have slowly been bringing both back. Along with the buffalo, the horse has the same gifts that can reconnect us to spirit and right-brained ways of thinking. To counter climate change it will take a shift from linear exponential exploitative growth to circular sustainable growth.

Yet we are not involved in the decision-making regarding access to these lands and resources, as required by international law and as necessary to ensure that they are maintained for future generations.

It is not just about changing the names of places and apologies.

We need a shift in all of our thinking to Indigenous ways that look at both history and future growth in a circular, sustainable manner. I was raised by my parents and grandparents with Indigenous right-brained circular teachings and can also demonstrate how Western left-brained linear ways of thinking have impacted us as Indigenous Peoples, the land and all our children.

Some academics, like Ian MacGilchrist, are starting to understand this, suggesting that through the domination of Western linear thinking, which is based in the left hemisphere of the brain, humanity has been brought to the brink of extinction.

While many Western scientists and leaders from the local to the international level have identified the collective problems we are facing, they do not have the solutions. The systems that created these problems cannot solve them, so it is time to circle back to Indigenous ways of thinking and build solutions from here.

My great-grandparents took our Cheyenne teachings, which are more needed now than ever, underground to protect them through the genocidal campaigns, falsely referred to as the Indian wars. On June 25, 1876, my ancestors took a stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn to protect our way of life, the air, land, and water. Custer and the 7th Cavalry perished because they did not learn from our peace ceremony after they perpetrated the Massacre at Washita against the Cheyenne almost 4 years to the day after Sand Creek.

My mother Florence Whiteman, was born almost 50 years to the day after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, and was raised by her grandparents who were there and brought her into ceremony when she was very young. She became the last warrior woman of the Cheyenne. Still, she was forced to attend boarding school and after she contracted tuberculosis she was tortured at the Cushman Indian Hospital in Tacoma.

The forceful removal of Indigenous children from their families with the intent to take their culture away constitutes genocide under the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, alongside incidents of physical genocide described above. My mother said she would never have survived without her training in ceremony.

Still, alongside my mother, I and some other family members suffer from autoimmune conditions that are often linked to trauma, which we carry in our bones inter-generationally. For my family, we go back only three to four generations to the genocidal campaigns.

The only reason we survived is because of the resilience of our ancestors which we also carry in our bones and thanks to the teachings they passed on from generation to generation. They constitute the most powerful counter-remedy to the inter-generational effects of genocide; and carry the key to unlocking a more sustainable way of life for all future generations.

The America 250 — Colorado 150 Commission has already been established “to guide Colorado’s twin commemorations in ways that enable all Coloradans to participate.” The Commission foresees including one member of the Ute Tribe, who yet has to be appointed, still no Cheyenne and Arapaho representatives are foreseen. It makes me question if we have learned anything from history?

The question we have to answer together is: How can we bring Cheyenne and Arapaho knowledge back to these lands to ensure more sustainable decision-making? We all know that we have to make a just transition in order to mitigate and address the effects of climate change.

Rather than again cutting out Cheyenne and Arapaho people, it is time to put our indigenous knowledge and ways of thinking at the center of decision-making regarding our sacred homelands, for the good of all Coloradans and Americans.

Heove ve ‘keso (Yellowbird) traditional Northern Cheyenne Chief Phillip Whiteman Jr., descends from ancestors who were at the Sand Creek Massacre and the Battle of Little Bighorn. He is a former Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association (PRCA) bronc rider and two times Indian National Finals Rodeo (INFR) World Champion and keeper of horse medicine and songs. He has been conducting trainings for organizations, foundations and Indigenous Peoples in North America and beyond for over 20 years. (For more information see: phillipwhitemanjr.org).

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