An Uprising of the Indians

Then, when the people were heartening themselves for another struggle, as a runner gathers himself for a race, news came which caused the faces of all to turn ashen and made even the bravest shudder with fear.

The first report of this latest calamity was that a wagon train had been waylaid, and all in charge of it tomahawked by the Indians.

From the time the city was first settled, our people feared that the savages might rise against the whites. When the war between the states first broke out the more timid ones declared that the time had come when the Indians would seize their chance to make trouble for us. Yet when we heard the news that this wagon train had been seized and all the people with it killed, we refused to believe the horrible rumor, because we were afraid to admit our secret dread was at last to be realized.

Each day came reports of fresh troubles, of stages waylaid, of passengers killed and scalped, of wagon trains looted, of the massacres of settlers living at a distance from a town; in short, it was as if suddenly we came to realize that to fire and flood and the loss of the gold were to be added the efforts of the savages to wipe us out of existence.

Who can blame us if now and then in our despair we admitted to ourselves that it was useless to struggle longer?

Yet we did struggle on, and while still showing marks of the ravages of the torrent which had leaped down Cherry Creek like a devouring monster, we turned to face the new foe, ready to defend our homes, our loved ones, and the fair city which was our pride, against those merciless fiends who were seeking to drive out the white man from their lost hunting grounds.

I shall recount at no greater length than this what we suffered from the Indians during the dreadful time that succeeded the flood, and for many years after, because my plan is to tell only the story of my own life.

More than that I shall leave for those who write history, and, making a trade at such work, can the better gather facts, putting matters in a proper light, whereas if one of us who helped build up Denver should try to tell the story of what was done by the Indians and how we defended ourselves, it would be ever to claim that the white man was in the right and the Indian always in the wrong.

At this later day, however, it is possible for me to realize that the savages had fair grounds of complaint against us, and in many cases were provoked into taking to the warpath.