Rick Williams is an Oglala Lakota citizen and a descendent of the Northern and Southern Cheyenne Indian people, all tribes with historical roots in Colorado. In the 1850s, his great-great-grandfather had a winter camp on Cherry Creek in what is now Denver.
Despite connections to the state that run deeper than those of many Coloradans, Williams isn’t celebrating this year’s 150th anniversary of statehood. His reasons: the broken treaties that deprived Native Americans of their lands; the upending of Native American communities during the gold rush and influx of settlers; the decimation of the bison herds that sustained tribes for centuries; and the removal of Native Americans from Colorado to other regions.
“Most people today are excited by the celebration” of statehood, Williams said. “For me, it is a dishonorable disgrace that insults my ancestors.”
Over hundreds of years, lived full-time or have connections to what is now the state of Colorado.
But by the time Colorado became the 38th star on the American flag in 1876, the Cheyenne and Arapaho people had been forced out or left for Oklahoma, Montana and Wyoming. Around 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho people were killed in on Nov. 29, 1864. U.S. Army Cavalry Col. John Chivington, an ordained Methodist Minister, led the attack on a camp of about 750 mostly women, children and elders about 170 miles southeast of Denver.
As proponents continued to pursue statehood, who inhabited roughly the western third of Colorado under an 1868 treaty, clashed with settlers and U.S. troops moving into their lands. They saw their territory continue to shrink until the northern and central bands were .
Other bands of Utes were relegated to land in the southwest corner of the state, where the and reservations are today.
Native American lives and communities were lost despite that identified most of the lands west of the Mississippi River as Indian territory. gave the Cheyenne and Arapaho sovereignty over the Platte River basin if they allowed white migrants to pass through and the government to build forts.
“You come to 1857, 1858, and all of a sudden, you have 100,000 people coming into the state and they’re all here illegally,” said Williams, an educator and the former CEO and president of the American Indian College Fund.
drastically shrank Cheyenne and Arapaho lands from an area between the North Platte River and the Arkansas River to land between the Arkansas River and the Sandy Fork of the Arkansas River, now known as Sand Creek. President Abraham Lincoln ratified the agreement, which tribal leaders denounced.
Northern Arapaho and Northern Cheyenne who were forced out of Colorado went to reservations in Wyoming and Montana. Under the Southern Arapaho and Southern Cheyenne went to reservations in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma.
Even with all that was lost, tribes still see Colorado as a part of their heritage. The Ute Mountain Ute and Southern Ute reservations are currently the only ones federally recognized in the state, but other Native American people with strong ties to Colorado have maintained their presence. Some never left. Many moved to Colorado or made trips to what they considered their ancestral homelands.
found in 2020 that more than 100,000 people who identify as American Indian/Alaska Native alone or in combination with one or more races were living in Colorado. Those numbers rose from the 2010 Census and the upward trend is expected to continue, according to the
Denver was one of five cities designated as relocation centers as part of the federal which was intended to assimilate Native Americans by encouraging them to leave reservations. Since then, the has been a place for Native Americans looking for community, said Nehemiah Tsosie, the director.
The center was the place where Tsosie went when he moved to Denver from Kirtland, N.M., in 2019 for work. Tsosie, a member of the Navajo Nation, was homesick and couldn’t find the kind of food he was used to.
“The center had a community meal, a community social gathering. They were singing powwow music,” Tsosie said. “It seemed like it was medicine for us.”
Williams, who grew up in western Nebraska, lives in the Denver area. He founded the nonprofit which has researched and publicized the history of Native Americans in Colorado and advocated for restoring the status of tribal nations in the state.
Native Americans might not see Colorado’s sesquicentennial as a reason to celebrate, but some see opportunities to reestablish connections.
“We have nothing to do with the anniversaries because we were not here. We were confined to a reservation in Oklahoma when Colorado became a state,” said Fred Mosqueda., the Arapaho outreach specialist on the tribe’s language and culture program for the jointly governed in western Oklahoma.
Mosqueda, whose ancestors were at Sand Creek, travels frequently to the Denver area. He was an adviser on the History Colorado Center’s Sand Creek exhibit. He and other tribal members are working with Boulder County on a project that could restore bison on county open space. He supports developing an in Denver.
The Vibrant Denver Bond Package approved by voters in 2025 includes $20 million for the embassy, proposed on open space on Denver International Airport land. Ernest House Jr., a Ute Mountain Ute Tribe member, was selected to lead the planning.
“When Rick Williams first brought the idea, I told him ‘The Cheyenne and Arapaho want to buy the first office,'” said Fred Mosqueda.. “It’ll bring all the tribes together, under one roof.”
The Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes are also looking to work more closely with the Colorado state government, Mosqueda added.
“We’re looking at becoming a part of Colorado again, to come home in a sense,” he said.
‘Deadliest day in Colorado history’
The resources, plains and mountains of present-day Colorado provided food, shelter and a way of life for Indians throughout the region.
“We lived on the buffalo. We followed the buffalo,” Mosqueda said. “I think there was a northern herd and a southern herd. I think they congregated where they crossed over to each other out there on the Eastern Plains.”
There was water year-round and other wildlife. “This was the perfect place to live. Much of our medicines still grow there today,” Mosqueda said. “We still go back to get them.”
The area was also a sweet spot for non-Indians, or “Euro-Americans,” advancing West. Middle regions of the country proved easier for people on the move because the climate was often better for growing crops, soils were fertile and the Mississippi, Ohio and other rivers provided transportation networks.
“That middle area had always just been kind of easier, more enticing,” said Thomas Andrews, a history professor at the University of Colorado Boulder and director of
Colorado’s appeal soared when gold was discovered near present-day Denver in 1858-59. to look for gold or set up businesses and farms to supply the miners, according to the History Colorado Center.
The gold rush, followed by discovery of other minerals and development of irrigation on the Front Range spurred more growth, Thomas said. At the time, “Colorado is easily the fastest-growing, most vibrant part of the inner mountain West.”
, but it took five tries over 17 years for it to become a state, said Katherine Mercier, an exhibit developer and historian at the History Colorado Center. She believes a major reason was the conflict resulting from settlers moving onto Indian lands.
“In order to become a state, you need land. If you have native people living on the land, then it’s not available for mining, or for agriculture, or for establishing your colony, or building (an irrigation) ditch,” Mercier said.
Many of the people in power trying to make Colorado a state saw native people as an obstacle and tried to move them off much of the land to clear the way, she added.
Mercier consulted with tribes when developing on Colorado becoming a state in 1876, the 100th anniversary of the United States. That earned Colorado the nickname of the Centennial State.
Andrews sees the presence of Native American tribes as just one of many issues playing into Colorado’s struggle to being admitted to the Union. There was reluctance among some to become a state because residents would have to pay taxes to run the government, he said.
Partisan political divides played into the effort because the area was considered heavily Republican, Andrews said, fueling concerns about how statehood would affect national politics.
Settlers moving West had used various tactics since Colonial times to advance despite the presence of Native Americans, whether through legal moves such as treaties or by instigating conflicts, Andrews said.
“Colorado, when it achieved statehood, was a reflection of the extent to which American settlers had gained power over native peoples, especially on the plains,” Andrews said.
Subsequently, the rest of Colorado came under scrutiny. Less than a year after statehood, newspaper headlines began “trumpeting the Utes must go,” Andrews said. Under terms of , they lived on approximately one-third of western Colorado in exchange for giving up a huge expanse of mineral-rich land.
“Settlers and the state government start coming up with pretexts for making life kind of impossible for the northern Ute bands in particular,” Andrews said.
who founded the agricultural community Union Colony in present-day Greeley and the Greeley Tribune newspaper, became the Indian agent in northwest Colorado in 1878. He clashed with the Northern Utes when he pushed them to be farmers and withheld rations when they resisted, according to History Colorado.
when federal troops summoned by Meeker entered the area overseen by the White River Indian Agency in Rio Blanco County. The site was near the present-day town of Meeker, named for the Indian agent.
in Utah in 1881. During that period, settlers flooded into the Utes’ former homelands, Andrews said.
to serve the three Ute bands in the southern part of the state. They were confined to a reservation along the Colorado-New Mexico border.
authorized the federal government to divide Indian reservations into 160-acre private lots for individual tribal members. Mercier said the law was intended to remove the Utes from their traditional way of life that included hunting and gathering.
The Weenuche band of the Utes agreed the land should be owned communally in what Mercier said was an act of resistance. The reservation split into two, with the Weenuche band moving to the west and forming the Ute Mountain Ute reservation. The Southern Ute reservation, to the east, is home to
Williams refers to the inflow of non-Indians into Indian territory as an invasion.
“In almost every single conflict, there was an attack on Indian people or their nation, their village. The survivors retaliate. And then it escalates,” Williams said.
Williams worked with several other researchers on a series of reports under the banner of , which concentrated on the displacement and genocide of Native Americans in the state.
“I’m not saying our people were the most peaceful people. They were really revengeful when somebody did something to them. They didn’t forget,” he added.
Williams believes the goal behind the Sand Creek massacre, was to get Indians out of the way and secure statehood.
“It was genocidal in that it was an attempt to eliminate a portion of a population,” Andrews said of the massacre. “It was an attempt to make it impossible for that population to reproduce itself. I think the perpetrators were quite transparent about that.”
Victims were mutilated and scalped. Soldiers took body parts as trophies and paraded them through the streets of Denver.
Witnesses to the atrocities included and who ordered their men to stand down. Both testified against Chivington during congressional investigations
Less than three months after testifying, Soule was gunned down on a street in Denver.
Sand Creek happened just two months after Cheyenne and Arapaho leaders seeking peace met at a military post on the outskirts of Denver, with territorial Gov. John Evans and Chivington.
The brutal onslaught also followed proclamations by Evans. The first required “friendly Indians” to go to certain camps. The second issued Aug. 11, 1864, authorized “all citizens of Colorado,” to kill “hostile Indians” who didn’t follow the first decree and take their property.
In 2021, Gov. Jared Polis rescinded the 157-year-old proclamations after Williams discovered that the proclamations were still on the books. Former Rep. Adrienne Benavidez,a Commerce City Democrat who’s now a state senator, supported the effort to repeal the policies.
Unvarnished truths
Boulder County has been working for a while on going from “land acknowledgements,” or publicly recognizing that specific areas were originally the home of Native American people, to meaningful work, said County Commissioner Marta Loachamin of Longmont.
A proposal under discussion with the Cheyenne and Arapaho people of Oklahoma includes leasing land on county open space for the tribes to steward the land. That could include restoring bison to the area.
“We have agricultural leases with many different tenants doing different types of projects and work, research, etc. … It seemed like an opportunity,” Loachamin said
In 2025, Wilde, a member of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma, is charged with advancing the work with tribes whose homelands were in Boulder County, officials said.
on plans for managing a site with a connection to Sand Creek. Boulder County residents who mobilized into Company D of the Third Colorado Cavalry at along Boulder Creek, took part in the 1864 massacre.
“I do believe government has a responsibility to understand and to determine how to act accordingly in regards to people being removed from their land and land being stolen and taken,” Loachamin said.
Denver City Councilwoman Stacie Gilmore supports the creation of an embassy in Colorado for Native Americans who view the state as their homeland. She noted that the proposed site on First Creek at DIA Open Space is near a corner of the home to a bison herd.
Gilmore has traveled with Williams and other advocates of the embassy to neighboring states to talk about the project. While promoting the embassy has been “an honor and a joy,” Gilmore said she understands Indian tribes’ lack of enthusiasm to mark the state’s 150th anniversary.
So does Nathan Richie. He is director of the Golden History Museum and Park and is co-chairman of the , created by the to develop and promote plans for activities around the anniversaries.
“We know for certain that this is not a cause for celebration for most Native Americans. The creation of the United States and the state of Colorado came at great cost of their land and culture and people, and so it is not something that they want to celebrate at all,” Richie said.
However, he said, the sesquicentennial is an opportunity to share the history of how Colorado came to be. Richie said when the commission was formed in 2022, the goal was to ensure there was broad representation on the panel. Positions were created for representatives of the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain tribes.
The legislation was updated in 2024 to expand the commission. Richie said members wanted to create seats for members of tribes that don’t have reservations in Colorado, but have historic ties to the state.
Williams said he raised the lack of representation with commission members. He spoke during one of the listening sessions held to gather input from Indian people.
“They had very unvarnished truths to share,” Richie said of the sessions held around the state.
People made clear that the story of Colorado becoming a state should include talk of the Sand Creek massacre and other atrocities, treaties reneged on and the treatment of children at Indian boarding schools.
When people question commemorating an event with such a checkered past, Richie answers that two or more different things can be true at the same time.
“It is true that something like Colorado can be created because of great harm to native people and destruction of land and culture and gigantic loss,” Richie said. “It also can be true that people love the state and are proud of the achievements of individuals who have called Colorado home and wish to make the state that we live in a better place for themselves and for the future.
“It doesn’t diminish us to talk about bad things in our history. It actually makes us much stronger and wiser, I think, as a culture,” Richie said.
Here is a list of Native American tribes with ties to what is now the state of Colorado, based on information from History Colorado, which acknowledges that there may be tribes connected to the state that are not on the list:
- Apache Tribe of Oklahoma
- Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma
- Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe
- Comanche Nation
- Crow Creek Sioux Tribe
- Crow Tribe
- Eastern Shoshone Tribe (Wind River Reservation)
- Fort Sill Apache Tribe
- Jicarilla Apache Nation
- Kewa Pueblo (formerly the Pueblo of Santo Domingo)
- Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma
- Mescalero Apache Tribe
- Navajo Nation
- Northern Arapaho Tribe
- Northern Cheyenne Tribe
- Oglala Sioux Tribe
- Ohkay Owingeh (Pueblo of San Juan)
- Osage Nation
- Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah
- Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma
- Pueblo de Cochiti
- Pueblo of Acoma
- Pueblo of Isleta
- Pueblo of Jemez
- Pueblo of Laguna
- Nambé Pueblo (sometimes listed as Pueblo of Nambé)
- Pueblo of Picuris
- Pueblo of Pojoaque
- Pueblo of San Felipe
- Pueblo of San Ildefonso
- Pueblo of Sandia
- Pueblo of Santa Ana
- Pueblo of Santa Clara
- Pueblo of Taos
- Pueblo of Tesuque
- Pueblo of Zia
- Rosebud Sioux Tribe
- San Juan Southern Paiute Tribe
- Shoshone-Bannock Tribes
- Southern Ute Indian Tribe
- Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
- Three Affiliated Tribes-The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation
- Ute Indian Tribe (Uintah & Ouray Reservation)
- Ute Mountain Ute Tribe
- Wichita & Affiliated Tribes
- Ysleta del Sur Pueblo
- Zuni Tribe of the Zuni Reservation
