The full accounting would require acknowledging not only what happened at Sand Creek and the Washita but the systemic failures that produced them — the political culture, the economic interests, the ideological commitments that made Sand Creek and the Washita not anomalies but examples of a pattern.

Black Kettle made peace as often as he could.

He extended trust as many times as he had to.

He was rewarded with massacre, and then with massacre again.

His story is not a tragedy of his making.

It is a tragedy of American making, and the obligation to understand it honestly is part of what his legacy demands.

— EXTENDED SECTIONS —

Colonel Chivington and the Making of Sand Creek