grandson the first treatment to meet with atomic bomb survivors. it was president truman who gave the order to drop the bombs in 1945. we will see film footage of atomic bomb tests in the new mexico desert and hear eyewitness accounts from scientists and survivors. hiroshima and nagasaki, next saturday here on c-span 3 american history tv. what's recently, american history tv was at the organization of american historians organization in st. louis, missouri. we spoke with professors about their research. this was 20 minutes. >> alexa roberts history of professor at penn state. and author of a misplaced massacre struggling over the

memory of san creek. what was the massacre? prof. kelman: november 1864 the third colorado regiment, federal soldiers, and part of the first colorado regiment attacked a peaceful encampment of arapaho'ss. the native people were camped along the banks of small creeks, sand creek. and became one of the flashpoints in the wars, and also an important emblem of how the civil war played out in indian country. >> how many victims? >> that is disputed. 100 --- 150 225.

the overwhelming majority of people killed were women children, or the elderly. this was a camp under peace chiefs, made up of people who believed they had forged an uneasy truce with authorities and colorado territory earlier in 1864. >> alexa, the 150th anniversary of the massacre was last year. can you talk a little bit about the connection of the massacre to the civil war? >> honestly, ari will be the best answer that. prof. kelman: the way in which the civil war is remembered and popular memory is as a war of liberation. i have a seventh grader who learned in elementary school that president lincoln died so

the knotted states might live. a raise -- so the united states might live. a resurrection story. there is truth to this popular conception of what the civil war meant. there is another way of thinking about the war. the civil war fought over the opportunity to shape an american empire in the trans-mississippi west. and the san creek story is a way to open up that discussion. what the park service has been doing for a couple of decades is trying to encourage visitors to the san creek national historic site to understand this episode as having been a flashpoint in the civil war in indian country. a moment in which white settlers in colorado territory clashed with native peoples.

in this instance, peaceful peoples who believed they were at peace with authorities in colorado territory but unfortunately federal soldiers seized this opportunity for what became a wholesale slaughter. >> and they did what? prof. frost: 1864, first and third colorado regiments descended on sam creek. it is a complicated story about why this happened but making it as brief as i can, the commanding officer of the third colorado regiment, john shedding 10 abolitionist, he was a nationalist. he saw the project of preserving the union and the united states expanding in the american west as intertwined. he saw liberty and empire as

moving in lockstep in the american west. he wanted to move colorado territory towards status as a state. and he was an agent of an emerging american empire, and the slaughter at sand creek was part of a series of bloody engagements that in some ways flow to sam creek and from san creek during the civil war. engagements come after the war was over became one element of reconstruction in the wars exploded. >> alexa, sand creek has been a national park since when? >> it was authorized in the year 2000 and establish in 2007.

>> wasn't president clinton who sign legislation? >> yes. >> talk about the history behind the creation of the historic site? prof:. roberts: it began in 1998 with the passage of legislation which congress directed the national park service to study the location of the massacre side and make recommendations as to whether or not it was significant to warrant inclusion in the national park system. that was an 18 month process of trying to locate the massacre side. the location had not been precise. there was an interdisciplinary effort to try and more precisely locate the massacre site and prepare a report for congress suggesting the massacre site had been located and agreed upon by

all parties, and following the report to congress saying indeed this is a nationally significant site in 2000 congress passed an additional act directing the park service to begin the process of land acquisition and establishing the national historic site, protecting enough to tell the story to the public. there was one additional piece of legislation several years later that included a portion of the property as tribal trust land, slightly complicated. there were three elements in the process of creating the national historic site. >> are there any other national park service sites that commemorate a massacre? prof. roberts: there are no other sites that are called a massacre. there are other sites in the system that commemorate elements of indian wars, and engagements

that people would consider to be massacres. they are not called massacre sites. sand creek is the only designated as a massacre. the historical record was unequivocally clear that is what it was. the reason why it needed to be preserved and commemorated, this long history had gone relatively unrecognized and can't commemorated for such a long time. >> the title of your book, a misplaced massacre, struggling over the memory of sand creek. can you explain what you mean? prof. kelman: i'm using those words in a variety of different ways. misplaced, there was a long time in which people weren't sure where the massacre had taken place. i would take a step back from that and note that indigenous people were quite certain they

knew where this had happened. they had intact oral histories and written records that pointed to by this location was. for the purposes of park service and the united states congress there needed to be an additional survey with layers of certainteed attached. having said this, the second way i intended the title to be read, the massacre for much of american history has been misplaced in memory. it has been understood as having been part of the plains indian wars. actually it was part of the civil war as well. the civil war was the war of liberty and also of empire. a war that was spot over what would happen to the american west, what shape an american empire would take, and that sand creek was a byproduct of those struggles. what i believe the park service

has tried to do to find the appropriate place for this massacre on the landscape of southeastern colorado and an american memory. >> how you tell the story of sand creek? prof. roberts: right now the national historic site is developing. we are to complete our first management plan for the site. we have not developed an interpretive plan now. what we do tell at the site is granted -- grounded in congress' direction to us. it tells us that this was a massacre that has had 150 years of impact on the cheyenne arapahoe people and part of our job is to foster an understanding of what happened and what the consequences have

been. foster an appreciation for the cultural values attached to such a sacred place and manage in such a way as to prevent such atrocities from ever occurring again. these are big directives. telling the story, much of it told for the descendents themselves, who are present in the management of the site and the telling of the story. the rest of it we tell through a close examination of the primary documentation, hearings held following the massacre, and eyewitness i accounts. there is a huge body of documentation. it is grounded in historical documents as well as tribal memory. >> can you describe the relationship with the descendents? prof. roberts: it is very close. we have been working together since 1998.

since the first act was passed in 1998. it has developed over the years. it didn't start out necessarily as close as it is now but the representatives designated by the tribes have been consistent through the years in the park service representatives have been there working through this process for 15 years now. it has become a close relationship and the tribes are involved in pretty much everything that the park does. >> is the site considered by the descendents a memorial, a sacred place? prof. roberts: absolutely. prof. kelman: both of those and other things as well. one of the extraordinary elements of the story, one of the reasons why the relationship between the park service and the descendents has been so complicated, and grown close over time, is that the

descendents identified this event as having present-day repercussions. it echoes into the presence -- present. it is very much living history for the descendents and for the affected tribes. this site is a place in which native peoples have claimed the opportunity to take part in a national conversation. where native people have chosen on their own terms to interact with federal authorities, and to shape a discussion that involves the federal government. it is a place where native people have chosen to put a tribal ceremony where they are repatriating the remains of their ancestors who were slaughtered at sand creek. and it is a place where the

sand creek descendents choose to gather annually, and a number of different events. they honor their ancestors preserve tribal memory, engage in activities around the moralization. it serves the tribes in a variety of ways. >> to the tribes have an oral tradition? prof. roberts: a deep oral tradition that goes back many generations. we just came from a session where we were discussing the documentation of those stories and how much of that history is an integral part of people's identities and family stories today, and those stories continue to be documented. >> what interest groups are connected to this site? the descendents, the national park service, any other groups of people involved in the story?

prof. kelman: the original act creating the site identifies 4 different sovereign native nations. the federal government of the united states, the state government of colorado, the local government of the county and it was a remarkably complex series of relationships that had to be forged across a variety of different levels of government. other interest groups include local landowners who have a vested interest, most involved in ranching or agriculture, who have a vested interest in seeing the land in that part of colorado protected, preserved, but also used. and so, balancing these interests has been an extraordinarily complicated process the park service has led.

again, very much with the descendents always as part of that conversation. always leading the way. >> is the site considered a civil war battlefield? prof. roberts: it is pretty only recognize civil war battlefield in the state of colorado. >> how'd you see that as part of your interpretive plan? prof. roberts: the national park service commissioned a film on that subject. the role of sand creek in the civil war, recognizing sand creek as a civil war site is something that has been obscured. it is not something widely known. we wanted to tell that story. we completed a 50 minute film on that subject. that will be available to the public and shown at the park. twice when the interpretation plan is in place, how do you envision in a broadway how visitors to the site who are not descendents will interact with the site? prof. roberts: there is two

ways. when visitors visit the site it is -- the site encompasses 2400 acres. it is a natural landscape that is filled with stories with cultural meaning. when visitors visit the site now they see a little bit of interpretive exhibits that tell stories. they meet uniformed rangers who can tell part of the stories. they are there standing at the xbox, and from -- standing at the spot. it is extremely powerful. the landscape speaks for itself. they are not getting a lot of verbal interpretation onside as they are experiencing the landscape. our intention is to develop a research center that companies the site -- companies the site.

it will give visitors an descendents and the public to study the aspects of the consequences of this and create as much as they would like to, a repository for documents corrected -- collected all over the country, allow people to study as much as they want to. >> what would you say is the legacy of the massacre for our understanding of the civil war as well as for the history of the west stand the history -- west, and the history of native americans? prof. kelman: in national memory the civil war occupies a sanctified space. it is the hallowed ground of american memory in many ways. it is a story of redemption, catharsis through suffering of the united states emerging

whole, tested by a moment of extraordinary violence. at the cost of hundreds of thousands of citizen soldiers. and again, this story of redemption plays a particularly important place in american ministry -- memory. there is a way in which the civil war was a war of empire fought over whether the institution of slavery would be allowed to spread into the american west. but that civil war story ignores the fact that there were indigenous people living in this territory, people that during the period of reconstruction would be conquered and dispossessed of their land, taken from them. sand creek is an animal medic -- emblematic chapter in that story which in some ways as it is being recounted at this national historic site, asks visitors to

rethink their understanding of american exceptionalism and of this critical moment in the nation's past, to weave the stories of indigenous people into what really is a kind of second origin story, a second creation narrative of the american nation. >> part of the importance of having it preserved is that it is a place that brings american consciousness to the fact that the cheyenne arapahoe people have endured 150 years of consequences that are not over. the people are very present today. the role of