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500 years of Indians in Colorado

Tribal voices share in details of historical society's exhibit

Mary Voelz Chandler, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 18, 2007 at midnight

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Planning an exhibition on the story of American Indians in Colorado is nothing new for the Colorado Historical Society. Asking American Indians to help tell the story is.

That's how curators approached planning for the permanent exhibition "Tribal Paths: Colorado's American Indians, 1500 to Today." The exhibit covers themes from the past 500 years: hunting, trade encampments, war, broken treaties, land grabs, boarding schools and cultural pride involving the 47 federally recognized tribes represented in the Centennial State.

To tell that story, historical society chief historian Modupe G. Labode and Bridget M. Ambler, curator of material culture, assembled an advisory council to help represent the more than 44,000 American Indians who live in Colorado.

"There are so many people and so many stories," said Labode. "It was important to refine the themes and get a focus." And, said Ambler: "to reach out to the community."

Advisory council member Karen Wilde Rogers, of Aurora, is of Muscogee (Creek)/Pawnee heritage. She said formation of the council showed "the historical society has grown a lot."

"The most important thing for people who are going to be looking at this exhibit is to know that we're still around," said Rogers, who formerly worked for the Colorado Commission on Indian Affairs.

Visitors can enter the 3,000-square-foot exhibition space for "Tribal Paths" directly, or through "Ancient Voices: Stories of Colorado's Distant Path." That installation, which debuted two years ago, chronicles the state's earliest inhabitants back through 15,000 years ago: the Paleo-Indians, the Apishapa and the ancient Puebloans.

Historical society chief historian Modupe G. Labode and Bridget M. Ambler, curator of material culture, have used about 200 objects, 75 props and 155 photographs to recount 500 years of history through four themes:

• Hides for Horses: American Indian Trade Networks, 1500-1800: "With trade and horses, American Indians did not live lives of isolation," said Modupe. Curators have assembled the accoutrements (including a silver bridle) horsemen employed, as well as a section on a trade encampment operated by Comanches.

Usually, those who traded out of their tepees specialized in a distinct type of wares, Modupe said. But the displays here show a host of items, including blankets, deer hides, Venetian glass beads and firearms.

A horse effigy from the Plains tribe shows the animal's status. "In a warrior society, when they did well, they celebrated not only their own victory, but the horse's as well," Modupe said.

• Encounters: Cooperation and Conflict, 1800 to 1880: Beginning with the 1858 Gold Rush here, historians estimate that 100,000 people swept through the state in a year. A reproduction of an early drawing of the settlement that became Denver shows cabins and tepees, a sign of trade and coexistence.

The tension, though, began to build. Curators include objects that refer to the negotiation of treaties (peace medals, for instance) as well as the conflicts.

Included is a display devoted to the Sand Creek Massacre of Nov. 29, 1864, when 200 Cheyenne died after being told they would be safe on their reservation. The story is told through a case that includes objects recovered from the massacre site shortly after the event - from a Bible to a powder flask.

• Far From Home: Removal, Reservations and Assimilation, 1880 to 1960: This addresses the era in which it was assumed that assimilation was how to bring the American Indian into Colorado society.

Two boarding schools for Indian children and young adults founded in the 1880s were closed in the early years of the twentieth century when parents no longer wanted to send their kin to schools in Grand Junction and Fort Lewis. They were patterned after the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, whose superintendent, Capt. Richard Pratt, is noted for his quote:

"Kill the Indian in him and save the man."

The role of the reservation in American Indian life is detailed, as is the relocation of many people into Denver beginning in the 1950s.

• New Footprints: Identity and Sovereignty in the Modern West, 1960 to Present. The closing section includes displays that range from the conflict over using tribal names and images as team mascots (such as the Lamar Savages), to the role that American Indians play today in the U.S. military and in society, to the legal challenges that have replaced armed conflict.

The exhibition concludes on a contemporary note, with a film of the Ute Bear Dance, as well as a look at American Indians in Colorado today. This optimistic ending is a bookend to the historic photographs in the orientation, but it also serves to address the issue of respect for the tribes' status as sovereign nations.

"We're used to being the keeper of other people's stories," said Ambler of the curatorial role. "Here, the biggest thing is that we've incorporated the native voice."

Tribal Paths: Colorado's American Indians, 1500 to Today

• What: New permanent exhibition on the history of American Indians in Colorado during the past five centuries

• When and where: Opens Friday, but a free community celebration is planned for 10 a.m. to noon Saturday; Colorado History Museum, 1300 Broadway

• Of note: Programs for families are planned from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Jan. 27 (American Indian dancing) and Feb. 24 (Plains Indian dancing).

• Exhibit cost: Included with admission; $7 adults, $6 students and seniors, $5 youths (6-12), free for those 5 and under.

• Information: 303-866-3682;

or 303-954-2677