The Sand Creek Massacre Foundation strongly urges state representatives to oppose the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation’s (ACHP) proposed drastic revisions to the regulations implementing Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act. These proposed changes will erase 60 years of historic preservation policy and threaten the survival of the most significant sites, places, and landscapes that have long endured as icons of the nation’s shared history. 

The ACHP’s proposal would virtually eliminate the ability of individuals, communities, local and state governments and Tribes to participate in the identification and protection of the historic sites and places that define their cultural identities; places such as the site of the Sand Creek Massacre, where the United States Army slaughtered 230 peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho people in 1864.

Without the currently robust “Section 106 process”, sacred places like the Sand Creek Massacre Site may not survive unilateral federal agency decisions about the impacts of potentially damaging undertakings. Had the Sand Creek Massacre Site not been identified through a collaborative federal/state/tribal process, the site may never have been preserved, its significance as one of the most sacred places in the Cheyenne and Arapaho worlds would not be understood, and its memory would be largely forgotten by the American people. The truth of that atrocity and its significance in American history would never be acknowledged nor serve as a source of healing, education and reflection on our contemporary world.  

While the Sand Creek Massacre Site is now preserved as a national historic site, many other similarly sacred, nationally significant and irreplaceable sites and places will be endangered under the ACHP’s gutted regulatory changes. As we speak, the West Texas site of the 1918 Porvenier Massacre is facing destruction by the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection, to be replaced by the border wall.  Under the ACHP’s proposed regulations, there may be no opportunity for descendants of massacre victims to participate in a collaborative process leading to measures to avoid or minimize harm to the historic site.

Without the opportunity for the participation of citizens at the local, state and Tribal levels in the identification of sites like those of the Sand Creek Massacre and consultation with federal agencies about how to minimize or avoid harm to them. Innumerable archaeological sites, sacred places, cultural landscapes and other memorials of America’s story will be damaged or destroyed without recourse.

Of most concern to the Sand Creek Massacre Foundation is the ACHP’s proposed elimination of Tribal involvement in the Section 106 process. This egregious proposal violates the deeply ingrained tenets of the government-to-government relationship with American Indian Tribes and blatantly undermines federal trust and resources stewardship responsibilities.

We urge you to oppose this draconian assault on the National Historic Preservation Act, especially (and ironically) during celebrations of the nation’s 250th anniversary. Protect the National Historic Preservation Act, and the hard-won regulations that carry out its purposes. Without our history, we are not American.

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