and then left her without killing her. I saw one squaw cut open, with an unborn child lying by her side.”
Major Anthony testified:
“There was one little child, probably three years old, just big enough to walk through the sand. The Indians had gone ahead, and this little child was behind, following after them. The little fellow was perfectly naked, travelling in the sand. I saw one man get off his horse at a distance of about seventy-five yards and draw up his rifle and fire. He missed the child. Another man came up and said, ‘Let me try the son of a b—. I can hit him.’ He got down off his horse, kneeled down, and fired at the little child, but he missed him. A third man came up, and made a similar remark, and fired, and the little fellow dropped.”
The Indians were not able to make much resistance, as only a part of them were armed, the United States officers having required them to give up their guns. Luckily they had kept a few.
When this Colorado regiment of demons returned to Denver they were greeted with an ovation. The Denver News said: “All acquitted themselves well. Colorado soldiers have again covered themselves with glory;” and at a theatrical performance given in the city, these scalps taken from Indians were held up and exhibited to the audience, which applauded rapturously.
After listening, day after day, to such testimonies as these I have quoted, and others so much worse that I may not write and The Tribune could not print the words needful to tell them, the committee reported: “It is difficult to believe that beings in the form of men, and disgracing the uniform of United States soldiers and officers, could commit or countenance the commission of such acts of cruelty and barbarity;” and of Colonel Chivington: “He deliberately planned and executed a foul and dastardly massacre, which would have disgraced the veriest savage among those who were the victims of his cruelty.”
This was just fifteen years ago, no more. Shall we apply the same rule of judgment to the white men of Colorado that the Government is now applying to the Utes? There are 130,000 inhabitants of Colorado; hundreds of them had a hand in this massacre, and thousands in cool blood applauded it when it was done. There are 4000 Utes in Colorado. Twelve of them, desperate, guilty men, have committed murder and rape, and three or four hundred of them did, in the convenient phrase of our diplomacy, “go to war against the Government;” i. e., they attempted, by force of arms, to restrain the entrance upon their own lands--
