Brooke Neely, Visiting Fellow, University of Colorado
Proposal Type: Roundtable
Seeking: Additional Presenters, Specific Expertise, General Feedback and Interest
Abstract: November 29, 2014 marked the sesquicentennial of the Sand Creek Massacre. One hundred and fifty years earlier, United States volunteer cavalry killed roughly 200 Cheyenne and Arapaho people—mostly women, children, and the elderly—who were camped peacefully along the banks of Sand Creek in southeastern Colorado Territory. Deemed a massacre by a congressional investigation at the time, this violent event and efforts to commemorate it raise questions about how we as a society grapple with traumatic, unjust moments in history. A number of organizations (Cheyenne and Arapaho descendent committees, the National Park Service, the Colorado state history museum, the United Methodist Church, the University of Denver, Northwestern University, and others) have worked to tell the story of the Sand Creek Massacre, but this effort proves challenging because the massacre has been hotly contested since it happened and because its consequences continue to be felt, especially among the Native American descendants of the massacre survivors. My research explores the areas of tension and difficulty for museums and other cultural organizations when they work to interpret violent, unjust, and contested historical episodes such as Sand Creek. Issues arise over who has the authority to tell this history, over the language we use to discuss it, and over the ways we might work to repair the damage that was done. These issues have much to do with the ways public history sites are increasingly working to make their spaces more inclusive and democratic.
Seeking: With this topic proposal, I am hoping to find people who are doing related research (e.g. on interpreting historical injustice and/or on community advising/co-curating) who would be interested in participating in a roundtable or a working group of some kind.
I would be grateful for substantive feedback from people with expertise in the interpretation of historical injustice and trauma. I would also welcome feedback from people with expertise on the use of community advisory groups in developing exhibits, memorials and other programming. In the case of Sand Creek, non-tribal organizations have collaborated (to greater and lesser degrees) with Cheyenne and Arapaho descendants. A number of challenges arise for these groups as they have tried to build trusting relationships. I am interested to learn more about other cases of tribal consultation (or co-curating) as well as non-tribal community collaborations.
If you have a direct offer of assistance, sensitive criticism, or wish to share contact information for other people the proposer should reach out to, please get in contact directly: Brooke Neely,brooke.neely[at]centerwest.org
If you have general ideas or feedback to share please feel free to use the comments feature below.
All feedback, and offers of assistance, should be submitted by July 3, 2015.
Related Topics: Consulting, Memory, Museums/Exhibits
Hi Brooke, this is probably a silly question, but have you reached out to the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal members who participated in those conversations about memorializing and interpreting that site? I’m sure NCPH attendees would love to hear from tribal representatives who drove a lot of those conversations. And have you invited Ari Kelman to participate with you on this session?
Brooke,
Another contact would be David Grua, author of _Surviving Wounded Knee: Lakota Memory and the Politics of Memory_ (2015).
-Melinda Jette