Timeline: Camp Weld, Sand Creek Massacre and Burnham Yard
This timeline is a guide to the events that connect Camp Weld to the Sand Creek Massacre. It is organized in three parts — the years before Sand Creek, the year 1864, and everything that came after — with each chapter opening to a numbered sequence of events.
It traces the promises, betrayals and violence that led to the September 28, 1864, peace council at Camp Weld, the massacre at Big Sandy Creek on November 29, 1864, and the decades in which Colorado and Denver honored, defended and memorialized what happened — even as Cheyenne and Arapaho survivors and descendants kept the truth alive.
Part One · 1858–1863
Before Sand Creek
Gold discoveries brought tens of thousands of newcomers onto Cheyenne and Arapaho homelands guaranteed by the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie. Within three years Denver had a territorial government and a military camp on its southwestern edge.
Gold, Treaty Lands and a New Territory
The 1858 gold rush placed a settler city in the middle of treaty-guaranteed Cheyenne and Arapaho territory, and Colorado Territory was organized around it.
Camp Weld and the Colorado Volunteers
A roughly 30-acre military camp was built about two miles from Denver's center. Its first fame came from the Civil War, but it also became the base for the units that would fight on the plains.
Part Two · January – November 29, 1864
1864
In a single year, unprovoked attacks by troops quartered at Camp Weld, a governor's proclamations, a newspaper campaign and a 100-day regiment raised in Denver carried the territory from starvation on the plains to the massacre at Big Sandy Creek.
Colorado's Escalation of Violence
Cheyenne and Arapaho bands sought to keep the peace through a winter of starvation. Unprovoked attacks by Colorado detachments out of Camp Weld, amplified by the Denver press, turned skirmishes into a territorial war.
Proclamations and the Third Colorado Cavalry
Gov. John Evans directed “friendly” bands to military posts, then authorized citizens to kill Native people on sight and keep their property. A 100-day regiment was raised in Denver to carry the policy out.
Peace Overtures and the Camp Weld Council
Cheyenne and Arapaho chiefs traveled to Denver seeking peace. At Camp Weld the territorial governor refused a treaty and the military commander sent them to Fort Lyon — leaving the leaders believing they had been promised protection.
The Sand Creek Massacre
On November 29, 1864, over the protests of dissenting officers, the regiment raised in Denver attacked the surrendered camp on Big Sandy Creek.
Part Three · December 1864 – today
After Sand Creek
Denver welcomed the regiment home as heroes and displayed trophies taken from the dead. Federal investigations followed, then treaties, removal, monuments, street-name fights — and, more than 160 years later, a redevelopment plan covering the ground the camp stood on.
Heroes' Welcome and Investigations
The “Bloody Third” marched through Denver to cheers while whistleblowers reported what had happened to federal officials, triggering congressional and military inquiries.
Treaties, Removal and the Camp Weld Ground
The United States acknowledged the massacre in treaty language, then removed the Cheyenne and Arapaho from Colorado entirely. The camp's ground passed into private hands within months.
Denver Defends and Memorializes Sand Creek
For more than a century, Denver honored the men of Sand Creek in reunions, monuments, street-name proposals and staged battles, while the massacre's survivors and descendants kept the truth alive.
Reckoning and the Ground Today
University studies, the removal of the Capitol statue, tribal consultation at comparable sites — and a stadium proposal on ground that intersects the camp's historic footprint.