Phillip Whiteman Jr.

Hot Springs State Park in Thermopolis, Wyo. (Melissa Kopka Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Protect our sacred waters from Wyoming’s commercialization (Opinion)

July 10, 2025 at 6:01 a.m.

"We fear Wyoming's plans for Hot Springs State Park will turn our sacred springs into a playground for the rich, inaccessible to the many tribal members who hold these waters...

EADS, CO - NOVEMBER 14: A controversial monument sits in a memorial setting along The Bluff Trail Interpretive Walk above the site of the Sand Creek Massacre at the National Historic Site on November 14, 2022 near Eads, Colorado. The granite monument is controversial even today because it describes what happened at Sand Creek as a battle rather than a massacre. The monument was placed there in the 1950’s. On the morning of November 29, 1864, U.S. Volunteer Cavalry launched a surprise attack on a peaceful encampment of Cheyenne and Arapaho along the banks of the Big Sandy Creek in an effort to remove the tribes from the area. Black Kettle, one of several Peace Chiefs in the village, raised an American and white flag of truce above his Tipi to no avail. The attack resulted the death of about 200 Cheyenne and Arapaho, many of whom were horribly mutilated. In 1865, the United State Government accepted responsibility for and condemned the massacre as part of the Treaty of the Little Arkansas, but charges were never brought against those responsible. Although permanently affected by the massacre, the Cheyenne and Arapaho hold strongly to their culture, language and traditions today. Recently, the National Park Service has purchased an additional 3,478 acres of land to expand the Sand Creek Massacre historic site in southeastern Colorado — more than doubling the size of the existing preserve. The site was established to preserve the location of the massacre and the shortgrass prairie land on Colorado’s Eastern Plains. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)

Opinion: The U.S. government’s genocide against Native Americans should be taught in Colorado schools

March 23, 2025 at 5:01 a.m.

"I am not aware of any substantive argument that can be brought, especially by Indigenous groups and tribes, against such a simple amendment that recognizes Genocide Against Native Americans." --...

Opinion: From Colorado lands smeared with my ancestors blood to a Wyoming sacred hot springs stolen from us, the dispossession continues

September 3, 2024 at 4:18 p.m.

My journey through the Arapaho and Cheyenne homelands -- from Sand Creek, to Hot Springs State Park, to Little Big Horn -- marked a trail of dispossession of our peoples.

Some of the shortgrass prairie grasslands that will be part of the expanded site on October 5, 2022 at the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site near Eads, Colorado. Colorado's Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site will more than double in size to cover more than 6,500 acres of shortgrass prairie-a broadening federal project in tandem in tandem with tribal leaders from the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes. The historic site marks one of the bloodiest assaults on native people in American history. The Northern and Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes consider this land near the southeastern Colorado town of Eads sacred. The expanded site, to be managed by the National Park Service, is intended to improve recreational opportunities on public lands, better interpret history and protect watersheds and wildlife.(Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)

Opinion: Look to Indigenous wisdom for America’s next 250 years

August 24, 2023 at 10:35 a.m.

It is not just about changing the names of places and apologies. We need a shift in all of our thinking to Indigenous ways that look at both history and...

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