Historic bond paves the way for Cultural Embassy

DENVER—In a landmark vote with national implications, Denver residents have approved a $20 million bond measure to create an American Indian Cultural Embassy — the first of its kind in the United States devoted to restoring relationships between ten Native Nations and their ancestral Colorado homelands.

The measure, part of the city’s broader Vibrant Denver Bond initiative, applies specifically to ten Tribal Nations with legal, treaty, and congressional title to land in present-day Colorado: the Southern Ute, Ute Mountain Ute, Ute Indian Tribe of Utah, Kiowa, Comanche, Apache of Oklahoma, Eastern Shoshone, Northern Cheyenne, Northern Arapaho, and the Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma.

While these ten tribes form the legal foundation for the embassy, its vision has galvanized Native and non-Native allies across the Front Range — including Lakota citizens whose ancestors regularly hunted and wintered in Colorado. “The Lakota have a special relationship with the land,” said Rick Williams, president of People of the Sacred Land and a member of the Oglala Lakota and Cheyenne Nations. “Lakota used to come to Colorado every year, and they would hunt. There are reports that Chief Old Smoke had a camp on Cherry Creek and would winter here and then go back to the Black Hills in the spring.”

For the city of Denver, the bond’s passage represents the first formal commitment in its 160-year history to rebuild ties with Native Nations forcibly removed from the region. The idea for an embassy grew from the Truth, Restoration, and Education Commission (TREC) — a privately funded, Native-led inquiry into Colorado’s colonial history, organized by People of the Sacred Land, Rick Willams director.

“We did a report,” Williams said. “It’s shocking to understand the real history of Colorado. The 1864 proclamations by Territorial Governor John Evans basically legalized genocide.”

Williams, who spearheaded the commission’s research, discovered that Evans’s wartime orders — one declaring war on all “hostile Indians,” the other authorizing Colorado citizens to kill Native people and seize their property — were never officially rescinded until 2021. “Up until three years ago, it was still legal to kill Indians and take their property in Colorado,” he said. “Once we got those rescinded, I was furious. I wanted to know more about the history of Colorado.”

The TREC report chronicles how those proclamations led directly to the Sand Creek Massacre, the destruction of Cheyenne and Arapaho villages, and the systematic removal of tribes from the Front Range and eastern plains. Between 1848 and 1878, 204 settlers were killed in Colorado; during the same period, 710 Native people were killed, and more than 200 military expeditions were launched to remove them. “Today we call that genocide,” Williams said.

Unable to persuade state officials to establish a formal truth and reconciliation process, Williams raised private funds to launch one independently. “I called it the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but a friend told me you can’t call it reconciliation when there was never any conciliation,” Williams recalled. “He was right. I changed it to Truth, Restoration, and Education Commission.”

The commission’s final report — hundreds of pages of legal, historical, and economic analysis — documents 170 years of forced relocation, land theft, and human-rights violations. It concludes that deliberate genocide and illegal dispossession created the economic foundation of Colorado’s modern prosperity.

The report also recommends concrete restoration measures, including repatriating land to tribes, co-management of sacred sites, curriculum reform, and the establishment of a permanent cultural embassy in Denver to represent the ten historic tribal nations.

Councilwoman Stacie Gilmore, who represents Denver’s far-northeast district, read the TREC report and was “shocked” by its findings. “She quickly and quietly took aggressive action to begin a process of restoration and conciliation,” Williams said. “I’ve called her an angel. I believe there was divine intervention in making this dream come true.”

Gilmore introduced the proposal to her colleagues during planning for the city’s Vibrant Denver bond package. Mayor Mike Johnston later endorsed the idea, adding the $20 million allocation that voters approved this fall.

“This may be the first time in modern history that Native Nations removed from their homelands will have an official embassy that could help them develop a meaningful relationship with their homelands,” Williams said in his announcement to supporters.

The embassy will differ from a traditional diplomatic mission. Instead of representing sovereign nations abroad, it will serve as a permanent cultural and diplomatic space within Colorado for those tribal governments whose ancestral territories lie within the state’s borders.

“These people who have been gone for so long almost don’t know what their homeland was like — and now they are going to find out,” Williams said. “Almost every nation we’ve talked to has been really excited about it.” One tribe, he added, has already expressed interest in re-establishing a reservation in Colorado.

At a Fall Gathering Celebration scheduled for November 9 at The Commons on Champa, People of the Sacred Land and Councilwoman Gilmore will host a community event to mark the victory and discuss next steps. “A vision is a dream, an idea is a developing thought, and the work is the reality,” Williams wrote. “Today, we have a vision and a dream come true. We must be nimble, creative, critical thinkers to develop the ideas that will lead to plans and work to make our dream a reality.”

Williams estimates a three-year timeline for development. The tribes themselves will guide the planning, design, and governance of the new institution.

“Our hope,” he said, “is that this embassy becomes a living bridge — a place of truth, restoration, and education that helps Native nations reconnect with their homeland, and helps Colorado understand the truth about its own history.”

The embassy’s creation stems from more than historical correction; it’s also a moral reckoning. The TREC report argues that Colorado’s wealth was built on the exploitation of tribal lands, labor, and resources. It calls for “restorative justice” through land return, economic restitution, and educational reform.

“Americans cannot naively espouse ideals that our own historic actions refute,” the report quotes former Sen. Bill Bradley. “Failure to come to terms with having broken treaties and destroyed hundreds of thousands of people undermines our moral authority. How liberating it would be to escape the hypocrisy and become a society that lives by its professed ideals.”

Williams said that ideal is now within reach. “For the first time in 160 years of existence, Denver has committed to Native Nations and to the local American Indian community to create a new relationship that will change the future history of American Indians in Denver and Colorado,” he said. “We’ve taken the first step in a journey that can last forever.”

(James Giago Davies is an enrolled member of OST. Contact him at skindiesel@msn.com)

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