The Rev. Jo Ann Williams
Retired minister, Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference
Cheyenne
My folks, my grandparents were retired, and we lived way out in the country. We didn¡¯t have transportation. The highway was about half a mile away. My grandmother decided to send me to Poncho Boarding School. I was in the first grade, probably 6 years old. At first it was exciting, but when I got there, it was altogether different. My grandfather left me there. I raised all kinds of cane. He just kept on walking; he didn¡¯t even turn back. They took me back to what they called the infirmary. Day and night I cried. I even got a fever. They gave me some medicine. After I realized that was the way it was going to be, I got myself together and started to go to school like all the others.
We had some children younger than me, and their little feet would just be dangling from the bench. They would stay in the building all day because they weren¡¯t old enough to go to school. It was really a traumatic experience. We went to school in August, and we didn¡¯t come home till Christmas. Jesus¡¦it was the loneliness. You didn¡¯t have anybody who seemed like they cared. It was all of us in this two-story building. So many grades in the first floor and so many in the second floor. The housemother lived on the first floor. There was no closeness there unless you knew somebody from your vicinity, an older student who kind of took a liking to you. It was very sad.
My grandparents were Christian, and they spoke to each other in the Cheyenne language. My grandfather read the Bible in the Cheyenne language and would interpret. I knew enough to get out of the camp if I were in danger, but other than that, I couldn¡¯t carry on a conversation.
My great great grandfather¡¯s name was Bushy Head. He was massacred in Sand Creek . They told Cheyenne Chief Black Kettle, ¡°We¡¯re going to give you a white flag. You put it up in front of your camp and our soldiers will know not to do anything there. They already had the American flag there. Colonel Chivington and his men charged and massacred them. There were mostly women and children and old men in that camp. They were annihilated. Some of the women miscarried their babies. A lot of the children were killed. And that was the Sand Creek Massacre led by John Chivington [an elder in the Methodist Church]. He wanted to go on that last raid to kill Indians, and he got the opportunity. ¡¦[Chivington¡¯s people] really mutilated [many of the Indians] and took [parts of their bodies] to Denver [to display].
When I first went into Methodism, they¡¯d say, ¡°Well, here comes Jo Ann Chivington!¡± But, you know, if you believe in God and his word, he will forgive us like we forgive others and remove our sins as far as the east is from the west. I forgave him. But he¡¯s not forgiven in the tribe or the federal government. We do have a lot of Indian Methodists, but it¡¯s very nominal in Cheyenne and Arapaho because it was a Methodist itinerating pastor [who led the Sand Creek Massacre].