Chief Niwot facts for kids

Chief Niwot (whose name in the Arapaho tongue was Nowoo3, meaning "Left Hand") was a very important leader of the Southern Arapaho people. He lived from about 1825 to 1864. Chief Niwot and his tribe often spent their winters in the beautiful Boulder Valley, which is now the city of Boulder, Colorado.

Even though gold seekers were entering Arapaho land, Chief Niwot welcomed them during the Colorado Gold Rush. Sadly, Chief Niwot and many of his people were killed in the Sand Creek Massacre in 1864. This terrible event led to many years of conflict, known as the Indian Wars, in the American West. Today, many places in Boulder County are named after Chief Niwot and the Arapaho Tribe. These include the town of Niwot, Colorado, Left Hand Creek, Left Hand Canyon, Niwot Mountain, Niwot High School, Niwot Elementary, Niwot Ridge, and the Left Hand Brewing Company. A main street in Boulder is also called Arapahoe Avenue.

Chief Niwot: A Leader of the Arapaho People

Living in Boulder Valley

For many years, Southern Arapaho hunting groups traveled as far north as Boulder Creek. The tribe saw Valmont Butte, located east of present-day Boulder, as a special and sacred place. They held important ceremonies there. In the fall of 1858, Chief Niwot was leading one of these hunting groups when they met the first gold seekers entering Boulder Valley.

The gold seekers were led by Captain Thomas Aikens and came from Fort St. Vrain, about 30 kilometers (19 miles) to the east. Chief Niwot and his helpers, including Bear Head and Many Whips, were camped near Valmont Butte. They quickly rode to meet the newcomers. They greeted them peacefully but also told them to leave.

Another story about this meeting was told in 1946 by Eliza Buford Rothrock. Her husband, John Rothrock, was with Captain Aikens. He said their group camped on October 17, 1858, at a place called "Red Rocks" on Boulder Creek. This area is now Settler's Park. According to John Rothrock, Chief Niwot was not friendly at first. But the settlers gave him gifts and food. They also told him he was a great and important chief. So, Chief Niwot said they could be like brothers and stay. Bear Head, however, did not agree. He did not want the settlers to build cabins on Boulder Creek.

Later, Bear Head had a dream. In his dream, a big flood washed away the Native people, but the white man's cabin remained. Bear Head believed this dream was a sign from the Great Spirit. He thought it meant the white men should not be bothered.

In her book, "Chief Left Hand," Margaret Coel suggests that Chief Niwot was very smart. She thinks the story of him being easily convinced by gifts is probably not true. Chief Niwot strongly objected to the settlers building cabins. But Aikens promised that the gold seekers would only stay for the winter and not settle permanently. Chief Niwot and Bear Head later returned to Aikens' camp together. They shared Bear Head's dream about the flood. A few months later, Aikens broke his promise and formed the Boulder City Town Company.

Peace and Conflict with Settlers

It is said that at this meeting, Chief Niwot spoke his famous "Curse of the Boulder Valley." He believed the curse was the valley's amazing beauty. He said, "People seeing the beauty of this valley will want to stay, and their staying will be the undoing of the beauty."

When Niwot first warned the gold seekers, they refused to leave. Instead, they tried to flatter him. They offered him unusual foods like canned beans and salt pork. Meanwhile, Bear Head and Many Whips went back to the Arapaho camp to gather a war party. But when they returned, Niwot had already made a difficult peace with the gold seekers.

After three tense days, with the threat of a battle in the air, Niwot rode into Aikins' camp again. He told Captain Aikins that one of the Arapaho holy men had a dream from the Great Spirit. In the dream, a huge flood covered the earth and swept away the Arapahos, but the white people survived. Niwot understood this to mean that gold seekers would flood his homeland, and he could not stop it. Niwot realized that peace with the white people was the only way his tribe could avoid being swept away.

After this, Niwot and his neighboring chief, Little Raven, chose to live peacefully with the white settlers. Little Raven had also welcomed white settlers to the Denver gold camp. The Arapaho chiefs were so welcoming that the new settlers named the first county in the area after the tribe. They also named streets in both Denver and Boulder after them.

However, this initial peace did not last. As more white settlers moved onto Arapaho land, many new towns appeared along the Front Range. A Native American uprising in 1862 in the northern plains made frontier settlements like Boulder nervous. They became suspicious of the Arapahos, whom they had first considered friends.

By 1864, a very important year for the Front Range, the tension between white settlers and Arapaho warriors was very high. Attacks by other tribes on wagon trains and distant settlements increased. This led to a terrible event on June 11, when a family was attacked on their ranch about 25 kilometers (16 miles) southeast of Denver.

The governor of the territory, John Evans, believed all Native tribes were equally responsible. He decided to solve the "Indian problem" once and for all. He ordered the peaceful Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes to camp near Fort Lyons, on Sand Creek in a remote part of eastern Colorado. The governor then created the Third Colorado Cavalry. This group was led by Colonel John Chivington, and their job was to patrol the plains for hostile Native Americans. Chief Niwot, along with Chiefs Little Raven and Black Kettle, followed the order. They camped peacefully at Sand Creek and continued to refuse to fight their white neighbors.

The Tragic Sand Creek Massacre

After months of patrolling, Colonel Chivington and the Third Colorado Cavalry could not find any hostile Native tribes on the prairie. Feeling frustrated, they headed for Sand Creek. Major Edward Wynkoop, the commander of Fort Lyons, had stated that the Native people at Sand Creek had not been raiding. Despite this, Colonel Chivington and his men attacked at dawn on November 29, 1864. They completely surprised the sleeping Native families.

Chief Black Kettle was sure there was a mistake. He quickly raised both a U.S. flag and a white flag of surrender. As bullets and even cannon fire rained down on the scattering Arapaho and Cheyenne, Chief Niwot reportedly stood in the middle of the battle. He stood with his arms folded, refusing to fight the white men he still believed were his friends.

Chief Niwot was badly wounded and died a few days later. Of the ten Arapaho lodges (groups of families) camped at Sand Creek, only about four or five people out of 50 or 60 escaped with their lives. We don't have exact numbers for how many Native people were killed at the Sand Creek Massacre. However, most historians believe the number was around 180. Sadly, most of those who died were women, children, and elderly people.

The Sand Creek Massacre was such a terrible event that President Abraham Lincoln, even though the country was in the middle of the Civil War, asked for a government investigation into the tragedy. Congress decided the event was a "massacre" rather than a "battle." Chivington was officially criticized for his actions. Governor Evans was removed from his job, and Colorado was placed under a special rule called martial law.

The massacre of Chief Niwot and his people at Sand Creek was a major event. It led to three decades of "Indian Wars" in the West.

Fighting between white settlers and the Arapaho continued. The Medicine Lodge Treaty, signed in 1867, moved the Southern Arapaho to The Cheyenne and Arapaho Indian Reservation in Oklahoma. But resistance continued until 1869. That year, General Eugene Carr, helped by William "Buffalo Bill" Cody, finally defeated the Cheyenne and Arapaho at the Battle of Summit Springs. This ended their presence in Colorado. The Northern Arapaho continued to resist white settlement for seven more years until 1876. They fought General George Armstrong Custer at the Little Bighorn. Finally, they were moved to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.

Was Chief Niwot Really Gone?

Over the years, stories came out of Oklahoma that Chief Niwot had not died at Sand Creek. Some said he was alive and well on the reservation. Since he made it off the battlefield alive after the Sand Creek Massacre, official records never fully confirmed his death. Photos of an Arapaho named Niwot appeared in the late 1800s. These photos made the rumors of Chief Niwot's survival even stronger. A magazine in 1907 even reported that "old Chief Left Hand" and 100 of his Arapaho people had become Baptists that January. The magazine quoted him remembering his more warlike days.

However, historians now agree that the famous Chief Niwot did not go with his people to Oklahoma. A younger warrior named Niwot, who might have been a distant relative, did become a leader of the Arapahos in Oklahoma. But it is now believed that news reports confused him with the legendary chief who first welcomed white settlers to the Boulder Valley. There are no known photographs of the original Chief Niwot. However, there is a bronze sculpture that looks like him in front of the Boulder Courthouse in downtown Boulder, Colorado.