Native Americans in Boulder County
from The Caribou Open Space
Archaeological Survey,
Cultural Resources Inventory, Volume I,
by
Medicine Bow Consultants, December 1999
and Exploring Boulder County
Boulder County Parks and Open Space, 1988
Captain Thomas Aikins and his party of about 20 gold-seekers from
Nebraska, arrived at the foot of the Flatirons in October 1858. They were
not the first to inhabit this treeless valley, however. Long before the
Louisiana Purchase in 1803, of which Colorado was a part, Apaches wandered
Boulder County's plains. By the early 1800s, Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes
inhabited eastern Boulder County. They had been granted the rights to hunt
and fish in this area in 1851 by the Fort Laramie Treaty Council.
According to the account given by Captain Aikins, the Arapaho chief,
Left Hand (Chief Niwot), and his band were encamped a little way to the
the north. Hearing of the arrival of the white men, he hastened to their
camp at Red Rocks (in Boulder Canyon), full of apprehension, as if
conscious of the impending fate of his tribe, and, assuming an air of
authority commanded: "Go away; you come to kill our game, to burn our
wood, and to destroy our grass." Doubtless the chief fully intended
to drive the white men off, but was caught by their guile. The crafty gold
seekers affected to do obeisance to "big Indian." While being
fed and flattered, in a gush of gratitude, the chief promised that Indian
and white man should live together in peace. Another chief, Bear Head,
seeing Left Hand's mistake, was unwilling to abide by the agreement and
soon after went to the Red Rock encampment, and began his complaint by a
superstitious allusion to the comet then visible, November 1858. "Do
you 'member," asked he. "when the stars fell?" He was
answered that it was in 1832. "That was right," said Bear Head,
"it was that year white man first came." "And," he
continued, referring to the comet then visible, "Do you know what
that star with a pointer means? The pointer points back to when the stars
fell as thick as the tears of our women shall fall when you come to drive
us away."
"After talking awhile in this strain, Bear Head turned and gave
the gold seekers just three days in which to leave the country. In the
Indian encampment, pending the time set, the orator, Manywhips, harangued
each night, concluding every sentence with the words, "Something must
be done!" to which all the squaws made mournful response, in their
style of savage chorus. On the morning of the third day, when the sun was
well up, the chief alone approached the well-fortified log house of the
white men, and, bowing low, feigning humility and distress, he was invited
in. It was found that he came to relate a dream; how he dreamed that he
stood on a hill, and saw the Boulder Creek swell to a flood; how his
people were swallowed up by the rush of waters, while the white people
were saved. It was supposed that this story, the invention of savage
imaginations, was made up as an excuse for declining to fight for the
possession of the country, as the Indians had threatened to do."
"The Savage did not give immediate possession to the civilized
race, a few Arapahos hanging around the newly started town of Boulder
until the autumn of 1860, with larger numbers camping out in the valleys
not far away. Honorable Alp. Wright, now of Boulder, who worked a gulch
claim at the mouth of the (Boulder) canyon, near where the Boyd
Smelting Works now stand, early in the season of 1859, speaks of the
Arapahos being numerous, armed and saucy. He was especially annoyed by a
habit they had of standing round while his party were frying bacon, and,
with the worm on the end of their ramrods, hooking slices from the
frying-pan. However, they committed no more serious depredations than
petty pilfering. But in the fall of that year, the old man Barker was shot
on Gold Hill by an Indian, supposed to be one of a passing band of Utes.
This caused great excitement, and was the sensational event of the first
year of Boulder County settlement. Captain A. R. Heath, the builder of the
Graham mill, led 29 volunteers, who chased the Indians over the range, by
way of the South Boulder Pass, pressing them so hard that they shot some
of the stock stolen from the settlers, rather than that it should fall
into the hands of their pursuers."
"But little is related of the Arapahos about Boulder, or the
adjacent valley's, after their great antelope hunt in the fall of 1860.
There were about 400 of the Indian riders, who formed themselves into a
circle, inclosing a large tract, on which were thousands of antelope,
which were kept within the circle while being chase round and round by
Indians riding relays of ponies. Before night, the antelope became so
tired that they would lie down and suffer slaughter. The number secured in
this great hunt is stated at 500. This was for winter meat, gathered in a
hollow near Valmont, where Charley Pancost's Lake now is, and the last
Arapaho antelope harvest gathered in the Boulder Valley." (Bixby:
1880)
When Captain Aikins and his party broke away from their main party to
journey to the area of Boulder Creek, this was the beginning of the end of
American Indian residents of the Boulder area. According to settlers, the
last Arapaho activity was the "great antelope hunt in the fall of
1860." Settlers in their hunt for gold and other mineral wealth
swarmed into the nearby mountains thereby forcing the Arapaho and other
tribes from the area into more isolated regions of the country.
Eventually, battles were fought and lost, treaties were signed and
Indian tribes were forced into reservations. In 1867, the Arapaho and
Cheyenne were permanently removed from their lands. Today, the descendants
of the Arapaho and Cheyenne live on reservations in Wyoming and Oklahoma.
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