A Cheyenne Woman Becomes A Warrior After The Sand Creek Massacre

By Shanna Lewis
November 23, 2015
Photo: Mochi's War(Photo: Courtesy of State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory)
This photograph, taken in about 1875, is said to be of Medicine Water and Mochi when they arrived at Fort Marion, the prison where they were held for a number of years.

The Sand Creek Massacre took place on Nov. 29, 1864, when hundreds of cavalrymen attacked unsuspecting Cheyenne and Arapaho camped along Sand Creek in eastern Colorado.  Last year, on the 150th anniversary of the attack, Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper offered an official apology for the atrocity.

They killed some 200 people, mostly women, children and elderly men. A young Cheyenne woman named Mochi survived, but the events of the day set her on a path to avenge the deaths of her family and people. A recent book by authors Chris Enss and Howard Kazanjian, "Mochi’s War: The Tragedy of Sand Creek," tells her story. 

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