Purchase at:  https://www.films.com/ecTitleDetail.aspx?TitleID=13926&r=SR

“I have written, directed and produced a documentary film titled, “The Sand Creek Massacre,” a dark day in American and Colorado history. It has won many awards. It has been screened and aired in nearly every major city in the country. It has been cataloged into the Smithsonian. It has been screened in elementary, middle school, college, universities, before veterans groups, Indian groups, organizations, corporations, and a host of local community groups interested in helping people learn, through the film, about racism and hate so that they can elevate their understanding about these two devastating beliefs to improve community relations with everyone. You can see more information about it at http://www.sandcreekmassacre.net. You can also watch a modified version of the film below:

I would like to invite you to create venues so that I can come show the film and answer questions about the subject matter of the film. I made the film to give the Cheyenne and Arapaho people a voice. They tell the Sand Creek Massacre story in the film. It is very revealing and very compelling, Please contact me so that we can work out screenings of the film.”

Contact Information: dvasicek@earthlink.net – 303-903-2103 – SKYPE donaldlvasicek

“On the day of the attack. He asked me many questions about the chiefs who were there, and if I could recognize them if I saw them. I told him it was possible I might recollect the principal chiefs. They were terribly mutilated, lying there in the water and sand; most of them in the bed of the creek, dead and dying, making many struggles. They were so badly mutilated and covered with sand and water that it was very hard for me to tell one from another. However, I recognized some of them – among them the chief One Eye, who was employed by our government at $125 a month and rations to remain in the village as a spy. There was another called War Bonnet, who was here two years ago with me. There was another by the name of Standing-in-the-Water, and I supposed Black Kettle was among them, but it was not Black Kettle. There was one there of his size and dimensions in every way, but so tremendously mutilated that I was mistaken in him. I went out with Lieutenant Colonel Bowen, to see how many I could recognize.”

Photo by Navajo Filmmaker Shonie de la Rosa. – Click on Photo to see all of it.

On November 29, 1864, about 700 Colorado 1st & 3rd Regiment troops and troops from New Mexico, slaughtered over 400 (Sand Creek Massacre Descendant and Southern Cheynne Chief Laird (Whistling Eagle) Cometsevah gave filmmaker, Donald L. Vasicek this figure, basing it on what has been passed through Chief Cometsevah’s family from his great-great grandfather who survived the Sand Creek Massacre)men, women, and children in the southeastern Colorado Territory. This act became known as the Sand Creek Massacre.

Lt,. Captain Silas S. Soule wrote a letter dated December 19, 1864 from Ft. Lyon, C. T., to Major Ed Wynkoop, his commanding officer. It reads in part what he witnessed at Sand Creek, “…hundreds of women and children were coming towards us and getting on their knees for mercy. Anthony shouted, ‘Kill the sons of bitches’ ”

The letter goes on to say in part, “…the massacre lasted six to eight hours…I tell you Ned it was hard to see little children on their knees have their brains beat out by men professing to be civilized. Some tried to escape on the Prairie, but most of them were run down by horsemen …They were all horribly mutilated. One women was cut open and child taken out of her, and scalped…”

In a letter dated, December 19, 1863, Fort Lyon, C.T.,Lt. Joseph Cramer wrote to Major Ed Wynkoop, his commanding officer a letter about what he witnessed at Sand Creek. It reads, in part, “…“Dear Major, This is the
first opportunity I have had of writing you since the great Indian Massacre, and for a start, I will acknowledge I am ashamed to own I was in it with my Co. Col. Chivington came here with the gallant third, known as Chivington Brigade, like a thief in the dark…marched all night up Sand, to the big bend in Sandy…and came to Black Kettle’s village of 103 lodges, containing not over 500 all told, 350 of which were women and children…We lost 40 men wounded, and 10 killed. Not over 250 Indians mostly women and children, and I think not over 200 killed, and not over 75 bucks. With proper management they could all have been killed and not lost over 10 men. After the fight there was a sight I hope I may never see again…Bucks, women and children, were scalped, fingers cut off to get the rings…a squaw ripped open and a child taken from her, little children shot, while begging for their lives (and
all the indignities shown their bodies that ever was heard of)(women shot while on their knees, with their arms around soldiers a begging for their lives)…Most of the Indians yielded 4 or 5 scalps…”

The letter continues in part, “…Black Kettle said when he saw us coming, that he was glad, for it was Major Wynkoop coming to make peace. Left Hand stood with his hands folded across his breast, until he was shot saying, ‘Soldiers no hurt me – soldiers my friends.’

About 130 years after the Sand Creek Massacre, the 1990’s, Florence Blunt (1894-1969)was going through two stored trunks of a family member who was a rancher who was in the habit of taking supplies to Fort Lyon before and after the Sand Creek Massacre. She found Captain Silas S. Soule and Lt. Joseph Cramer’s letters. The lady’s daughter, Linda Rebek of Evergreen, Colorado, retains possession of the letters. She is seeking someone to appraise the letters to see what they are worth. The American Indian Genocide Museum needs help in locating an appraiser and funding to pay for the appraiser and acquisition of the letters to place in the museum.“

“We’ve used a passive approach to the telling of the brutality at Sand Creek for the purpose of showing the ignorance of utilizing killing as a means to solve problems. Violence always leaves an impact, but the graphicness of the murders, the rapes, the mutilations, even after people were dead, leaves a remarkable imprint on students, parents, and educators. They see an historic reality that motivates them to do more to circumvent violence in the present as a means to solve problems. And that includes fourth graders who viewed the film in an elementary school in Centennial, Colorado who shared their thoughts with me after the screening.”

-Donald L. Vasicek
Award-Winning Writer/Filmmaker/Consultant

“We Cannot Be Who We Are Not” “Always keep in mind that the main issue which has led to so many other issues is land. The earth has always been the Cheyenne/Arapaho’s power. As their lands dwindled because of European immigration, their power dwindled.  Today, most older, and many younger Native Americans are living without that power. Instead, they are living on reservations that yield little, ifany resources. This has reduced Native Americans
to a cross between their native heritage and the incursion of others into their space. Many know little about moving forward, because the past is where all of their power resides, and, it is gone.

Native Americans are born to roam the earth.  Many of their ancestors went where the buffalo went. The buffalo were the source of their existence. In the beginning, the Cheyenne and Arapaho people had 51 million acres of land. They were free. They lived with the elements and they prospered. Today, most conceive themselves as prisoners of a society that has little bearing to who they really are, what they inherited from their ancestors, not too unlike each one of us.  How can we be who we are not? The answer is, we cannot be who we are not, and until we discover who we are, then live that way, is when we experience the ultimate peace of who we are. It is my belief that most Native Americans are not who the society they live in forces
them to be, in order to survive.

So, if you surround yourself with this attitude, with this approach, with this theme, then, everything else you are being asked about which to understand, will fall into place.”

-Donald L. Vasicek

“Award-Winning Sand Creek Massacre Film Archived”

August 27, 2008 — CENTENNIAL, CO — Golden Drover Award winner for Best Native American Film in the Trail Dance Film Festival, “The Sand Creek Massacre”, has been archived in The Billie Jean Baguley Library in the Heard Museum in Phoenix.

Award-winning Writer/Filmmaker/Consultant, Donald L. Vasicek,
said, “By having the film archived in these prestigious institutions,
my goal of informing, educating and creating awareness for the
Cheyenne and Arapaho people via their oral histories in the film,
helps all American native people. The Cheyenne and Arapaho
people, vowed, after the Sand Creek Massacre, that they would live
on this earth forever. The film keeps their dream alive regardless
of the genocide that has stalked all American native people from
the inception of European people’s arrival on their lands to the present.
The film is a permanent recording of their ancestors and who they are as
a people.”

Vasicek continues his efforts to record the Cheyenne and Arapaho
history. He has placed, “Ghosts of Sand Creek”, a two-hour, six
episode series, into development. Vasicek said, “Ghosts of Sand
Creek” will dimensionalize the Cheyenne and Arapaho people’s
story. It will show the white man’s continuing invasion of their human
rights.

“I read recently where actor Brad Pitt raised $500,000 for
people in Darfur. He should now raise money for American native
people so that they can also eat. Walk down the main street
in Lame Deer, Montana, on the Northern Cheyenne’s reservation.
Cruise the Northern Arapaho Wind River Reservation in Wyoming.
American natives on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota
need groceries, socks, underwear, shirts, shoes, trousers, fuel to
keep warm, etc. And they have to go across the border into
Nebraska to buy liquor. You will experience, as I have, many times
over, the abject poverty American natives experience. This is
genocide at its finest in all centuries.”

Vasicek said, “America’s native people need America’s help. Be part
of ‘Ghosts of Sand Creek’.” Go to donvasicek.com for details.

Contact:

Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net

“Sand Creek Massacre filmmaker radio interview blasts Bush ”

May 13, 2007 — CENTENNIAL, CO — Award-winning filmmaker, Donald L.
Vasicek’s interview about his award-winning film, “The Sand Creek
Massacre”, will be aired in two parts on CFWE Radio in Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada.

The CFWE.ca website broadcasts on a five second
delay from the main feed at http://ammsa.com/cfwe/.

Part 1 will air on:

May 13 at 10:45 a.m.
May 14 at 1:45 p.m.,
May 15 at 2:00 p.m.

Part 2 will air on:

May 20 at 10:45 a.m.
May 21 at 1:45 p.m.
May 22 at 2:00 p.m.

The interview gives a detailed view into the Sand Creek Massacre
from the filmmaker’s point of view. It also sears President Bush about
“his ignorance”.

“To utilize killing as a means for solving cultural differences is
genocide,
and killing is murder, not a solution,” Vasicek says.

Vasicek’s SandCreekMassacre.net web site provides detailed information
about the Sand Creek Massacre including witness accounts, still
images, videos, etc.

###

Contact:

Donald L. Vasicek
Olympus Films+, LLC
http://www.donvasicek.com
dvasicek@earthlink.net