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A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling Over the Memory of Sand Creek by Ari Kelman describes the Sand Creek massacre from the aftermath of the massacre to the creation of the Sand Creak Massacre National Historical Site. Kelman uses traditional methods using archival records, like newspapers and letters to name a few, but his main methodology is the use of oral histories. He writes, “As I began doing this research for this book, I realized that I would have to move beyond archival records and consult oral histories as well. As a result, I conducted well over a hundred interviews that eventually produced in excess of 3,500 pages of transcribed text.” (p. x) One of the main goals of the book is to recount the massacre through memory, “You hold in your hands the result of my efforts: a sturdy of the collision of history and memory, of past and present, at Sand Creek.” (p. x) I would like to build off Robert Huitrado insight, “I found Professor Kelman’s use of multiple angles out of the ordinary.”, due to Kelman’s approach of understanding this approach through memory. The reason the massacre is hotly contested is through the different ways participants remember this event. Memory was central to Native Americans, more importantly than written accounts. Kelman writes, “…the descendants viewed oral histories as crucial to their cultural sovereignty. For Larid Cometsevah, oral histories were the best way to transmit Cheyenne history.” (p. 111)
Chapter Two I found very interesting from a public history perspective with the creation of monuments. Kelman discusses how memory also has an impact on how monuments are created. He states, “The upsurge in memorialization was akin to what students of collective memory call ‘the invention of tradition,’ the way that societies create historical narratives or rituals to suit contemporary political or cultural conditions, Invented traditions are often crafted to maintain power relations and uphold the status quo.” (p. 73) During the beginning of the twentieth century when many Civil War monuments were created, the Americans viewed the war through nostalgia remembering the brave sacrifices of the military. The monuments captured this view and as Kelman states, “…inspired onlookers to venerate a shared iteration…” (p. 73) The collective memory of the early twentieth century helped dictate how the Civil War monuments would be depicted. As we know through time, views change often with more information of an event and also the cultural politics of the current day. This reminds me of how cultural politics were used in previous articles in Beyond the Founders. During the mid-twentieth century the Native Americans voices permeated Sand Creak as a massacre versus a battle. A reaction to the Native American voice was a creation of a second monument providing how the memory of the event can be viewed as a battle or massacre. “Bearing a bronze plaque headed by the mixed message “Sand Creak: ‘Battle’ or ‘Massacre,’ the state column suggested that by 1950, cultural politics had already begun complicating efforts to memorialize the violence.” A Misplaced Massacre: Struggling Over the Memory of Sand Creek seeks to discover the memory and how it can impact and change the view of history.