CU Boulder Celebrates 150 Years of Native Genocide

CU Boulder Chancellor Justin Schwartz sent out a mass email and announcement on Jan 12 at 7:15 a.m. containing an invitation for students to attend his “State of the Campus Address” as well as a video welcoming students back, bringing to attention CU’s 150th year anniversary. Some students believe this celebration of 150 years is a celebration of Native genocide, given the early CU founders’ relations with the infamous Sand Creek Massacre and Mexican-American War, and the school itself and the colony of Boulder being on unceded land of the Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Ute Nations. This celebration, a part of the “Colorado 150” celebration, is an extension of the “America 250” celebration, a commemoration of the 1776 establishment of illegal occupation.

Native students feel this​​​​​​​ celebration is just another way of “advancing colonial ambitions,” as stated by an anonymous member of CU’s Oyate Native Student Group. This student, who wished to remain anonymous after a recent investigation exposed CU for harboring a neo-nazi student, stated the university’s relations with the tribal nations it is occupying are “rancid at best,” despite their stated goal to work “collaboratively with tribal nations.”

The anonymous student also spoke on CU’s founding, 150 years ago, when the eighth Lieutenant Governor of Colorado, David H. Nichols, rode into a peaceful camp of Southern Cheyenne and Arapahos and helped to murder around 150 innocent people. Prior to this, he had previously served in the Mexican-American War, helping to annex over half of Mexico’s land. After Nichols’ genocidal mission to drive out the Indians, he returned to Boulder and settled, where he allegedly helped accrue $15,000 to help establish CU Boulder in one night, on a ride from Denver to Boulder on horseback. While there are doubts about the story’s truth, according to a report by CU history professor Patty Limerick written in 1987, there is no doubt that Nichols had a major role in establishing CU through genocide. The current Cheyenne Arapaho Hall at CU Boulder was named after Nichols in 1961, but student protestors fought to have it changed in 1989.

As part of its website displaying events for the 150th celebration, CU features a timeline honoring notable figures involved in CU, including “El Diario” co-founder and former United Mexican American Students (UMAS) member Juan Espinosa and Florence Hernández Ramos, a contributor for “El Diario” and founder of the KUVO jazz radio station in Denver, despite CU’s recent campus banishment of current-day “El Diario” writers involved in reporting on a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) protest.