The Center of Southwest Studies Studies at Fort Lewis College continues its summer lecture series based on the theme, “A Year in the Life of the West.” The presentation, An American Tragedy: The Sand Creek Massacre of 1864, will feature the Center’s director, Shelby Tisdale, in the Center’s Lyceum Room #120.

Chaotic, horrific, and bloody, the events of November 29, 1864 changed the course of history. The massacre of almost 200 Cheyenne and Arapaho people at Sand Creek in southeast Colorado led to the last phase of the broader conflict between Native Americans and a rapidly expanding nation.

Dr. Shelby Tisdale will describe this tragic event, what led up to it, and what occurred afterwards. She will also discuss the creation of the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site and the repatriation of two Cheyenne or Arapaho individuals from the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History.

Ms. Tisdale has over thirty-five years of combined experience in museums, university teaching, and anthropological, tribal museum and cultural resource management consulting. She has published forty articles and book chapters relating to American Indian art and culture, repatriation, and women in the West. Her latest book, Pablita Velarde: In Her Own Words (Little Standing Spruce Publishing, 2012), is a full-length biography of this famous American Indian painter. This lecture is free and open to the public.