step at a time. understanding the problem of the piece of paper which is a problem of balance was the key for the wright brothers starting on the course that led to them flying. >> monday night on "the communicators" on c-span2. >> this month, c-span radio takes you to the movies. hear the supreme court oral cases that four played a part in movies. the watergate case from "all the and thet's men" landmark civil rights case invalidating intermarriage. hear the supreme court arguments that played a part in famous movies.

listen to c-span movies at 90.1 fm at the washington area, c-span.org, or download be c-span radio app. >> recently, american history tv was at the organization of american historians annual meeting at st. louis, missouri. we spoke with professors and graduate students about research. this interview is 20 minutes. >> alexa roberts, history of professor at penn state. and author of "a misplaced massacre, struggling over the memory of sand 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 arapahos.

in southeasstern colorado. the native people were camped along the banks of small creeks, sand creek. and became one of the flashpoints in the plains indian wars, and also an important emblem of how the civil war played out in indian country. >> how many victims? >> that is somewhat disputed. somewhere between 150, 225. what is not disputed is 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 in colorado territory earlier in 1864.

in the fall of 1864. >> alexa, the 150th anniversary of the massacre was last year. in 2014. can you talk a little bit about the connection of the massacre to the civil war? alexa: oh gosh. honestly, ari will be the best answer that question. 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. last year he learned in elementary school that president lincoln died so the united states might live. a resurrection story.

there is a great deal of truth to this popular conception of what the civil war meant. there is another way of thinking about the war. and that is to understand the civil war as an opportunity to shape an american empire in the trans-mississippi west. and the sand 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 sand 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, again, peaceful native peoples, individuals 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 seized the opportunity to do 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 regiment was a colonel named john sheivingten, 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. and he wanted to move colorado territory towards status as a state. to enter the union.

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 flowed to sam creek and from san creek during the civil war. engagements involving federal soldiers and native peoples and after the war was over, became one element of reconstruction in the wars exploded. >> alexa, sand creek has been a national park since when? alexa: it was authorized in the year 2000, and establish in 2007. >> and it is a national park site. wasn't it president clinton who signed the legislation? alexa: 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. and that was an 18 month process of trying to locate the massacre side. it was not -- the location had not been precise. and so there was an interdisciplinary effort to try and more precisely locate the massacre site and prepare a report for congress, suggesting that the massacre site had been located, the length and extent had been 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. to protect it. there was one additional piece of legislation several years later that included a portion of the property as tribal trust land, which is slightly complicated. there were three elements in the process of creating the national historic site. and where we are today. >> are there any other national park service sites that commemorate a massacre? prof. roberts: there are no other sites in the national park system that are called a massacre. there are other sites in the system that commemorate elements of indian wars, and engagements that tribal people would consider to be massacres. they are not called massacre sites. sand creek is the only designated as a massacre.

>> so why was the decision made? prof. roberts: 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 not 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. the site was misplaced, as alexa mentioned earlier, there was a long period of 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 also 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 certainty attached.

having said this, the second way i intended the title to be read, and that is that 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. but that actually it was part of the united states 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 in the trans-mississippi west, 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 both on the landscape of southeastern colorado and an american memory. >> alexa, how you tell the story of sand creek?

prof. roberts: well, right now the national historic site is in a developing period. 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 grounded in congress' direction to us. in the legislation. it tells us that this was a massacre that has had 150 years of impact on the cheyenne and arapahoe people and part of our job is to foster an understanding of what happened and what the consequences have been. and to foster an appreciation for the cultural values attached to such a sacred place and manage it in such a way as to prevent such atrocities from ever occurring again. these are big directives for us in telling the story, much of it

told through 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, the hearings that were held following the massacre, and eyewitness accounts. there is a huge body of documentation. and so it is grounded in historical documents as well as tribal memory. >> can you describe the working relationship with the descendents? prof. roberts: it is very close. we have been working together since 1998. since this legislation, 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.

and so 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, like, a memorial, a sacred place? prof. roberts: absolutely. prof. kelman: both of those and other things as well. i think that the, one of the extraordinary elements of the sand creek 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 and the park service now as well identify this event as having present-day repercussions. it echoes into the 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. it is a place where native people have chosen on their own terms to interact with federal authorities, and to again shape a discussion that involves the federal government. it is a place where native people have chosen to put a tribal cemetery 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, they preserve tribal memory, and they engage in activities around memorialization.

it serves the tribes in a variety of ways. >> do the tribes have an oral tradition around the massacre? 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 as ari says 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? so there are the descendents, there is the national park service. are there 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 so 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 of whom are 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 that the park service has led. again, as alexa said earlier, very much with the descendents always as part of that conversation. in some ways leading the way. >> is the site considered a civil war battlefield? prof. roberts: it is pretty only recognized 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 recently 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. and we really 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. >> when the interpretation plan is in place, how do you envision even in a broad way how visitors to the site who are not descendents will interact with the site? prof. roberts: well, there is two ways. when visitors visit the site it is -- the site encompasses, right now what we manage is 2400 acres. it is a natural landscape that is filled with stories with cultural meaning.

and so 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. but what they really experience is a connection with the landscape. they are there 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 -- accompanies the site. it will give visitors an descendents and the public to study the aspects of the

consequences of sand creek as much as they would like to. and create as much as they would like to, a repository for documents 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, 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. and it is a story of redemption, of 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 memory.

having said that, 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, indigenous people that during the period of reconstruction would be conquered and dispossessed of their land, taken from them. sand creek is an 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. >> go ahead.

roberts: part of the importance for the descendents and the credible people as a place thatat it is a brings american consciousness to the fact that cheyenne and arapahoe people have endured about 150 years of consequences from the event that are not over. the people are very much present today. sa role of standard creek -- nd creek has become a significant part of that are today. them to bring for children and educate their future generations and also bring awareness to the american public that this was a way of life, there was a shyam and life prior tof the atricure -- cheyenne and

arapahoe way of life prior to the massacre and a way of life that survived the massacre. >> what would you say is the most significant consequence of the massacre? roberts: oh, gosh. i guess it is going back to what i just said, that the impact of the massacre was that so many chiefs -- this was a feast chief meant.e chief and cap -- encampment. there was so much knowledge and leadership that was eradicated in one day that the impacts were multigenerational. amounts of a tremendous of traditional knowledge, language, ceremonies, and so forth.

and finally, the economic consequences that have plagued tribal nations -- missions across the country since that time is something that has impacted generations but yet has also given a sense of strength, perseverance and rebuilding that knowledge. it is a really important component of having a place of commemoration, a place to come and connect with that history and bring back forward. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. with live coverage of the u.s. house on c-span and the senate on c-span2, here on c-span three week that coverage by showing you the most relevant hearings and public affairs. theon the weekends it is home to american history tv with programs that tell the nation's

story including unique stories. anniversary,'s american artifacts, history bookshelf, where the best-known american history writers, the presidency, looking at legacies, lectures in history, with top professors, and our new series, reel america, featuring archival and educational films. c-span3, created by the cable tv industry and funded by your local provider. watch us in like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. >> we will feature book tv programming on c-span two at 8:00 eastern. at the end of the summer, look for two special programs, on

september 5 we are live from the nation's capital for the 15th annual national book festival, followed on sunday with our live in depth program with former second lady and senior fellow at the american enterprise institute lynne cheney. the tv on c-span2, television for serious readers. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2015] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> we will look back at the atomic bombings and the end of the war in the pacific. announcer: 70 years ago, the first atomic tom was tested near los alamos, new mexico, and a few weeks later, it was dropped on hiroshima, japan and nagasaki, japan. el america, a library of congress and los alamos