Clinton signs Sand Creek Massacre bill

DENVER - A bill memorializing the scores of American Indians killed in a massacre by Colorado militia forces in southeastern Colorado 136 years ago has been signed into law by President Clinton.

The bill by Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., allows the National Park Service to negotiate with landowners to acquire land within a 12,480-acre boundary identified as the Sand Creek Massacre site. More than 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians, mostly women, children and elderly men, were killed by soldiers while camped under a flag of truce.

''After years of denial and dishonor, America has found the courage to face the flaws of our past and honor those killed at Sand Creek,'' Campbell said Thursday. ''We, as a nation, do not tolerate intolerance, and while creating a national historic site where so much innocent blood was shed cannot undo the past, it can serve as a living symbol of healing.''

Clinton signed the legislation Tuesday.

Campbell, a member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe, said he and other supporters of the bill had ancestors killed in the massacre.

The legislation calls for 12,480 acres to be set aside along Sand Creek in Kiowa County, 160 miles southeast of Denver on the eastern plains.

Col. John M. Chivington, the ''Fighting Parson,'' led an early morning attack on a village of the two tribes, camped at a spot designated by the Army. Afterward, militia members paraded through the streets of Denver, displaying mutilated remains of the victims.