He had survived one massacre.

He would not survive the second.

On the morning of November 29, 1864, soldiers under Colonel John Chivington attacked the Cheyenne camp at Sand Creek in the Colorado Territory.

Black Kettle, the Cheyenne peace chief, stood outside his lodge and raised the American flag — the very flag that a Colorado governor had given him as a symbol of protection.

He raised it because he believed what American officials had told him: that flying this flag would keep his people safe.

The soldiers attacked anyway.

Approximately 150 to 200 Cheyenne people were killed at Sand Creek, most of them women, children, and the elderly.

The attacking force mutilated the dead.

When the soldiers returned to Denver, they paraded scalps and body parts through the city as trophies.

Black Kettle survived.

His wife was shot nine times and left for dead but also survived.

He would spend the next four years continuing to seek peace, even as other Cheyenne leaders chose war.

He would sign another treaty.

He would move his band to a reservation in Indian Territory.

He would do everything the American government asked.

On November 27, 1868 — four years and two days after Sand Creek — Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer led the Seventh Cavalry in a surprise dawn attack on Black Kettle’s village on the Washita River in present-day Oklahoma.

This time, Black Kettle did not survive.

He was killed while trying to escape across the river.