The Story Behind the Name: Neva Road

We regularly celebrate our town's namesake, Chief Niwot (Left-Hand in Arapaho), for his peace-oriented beliefs and actions. In fact, the stories of his leadership and subsequent betrayal by Col. John Chivington and his troops at Sand Creek have been documented in many books, including Boulder author Margaret Coel's "Chief Left Hand." Chief Niwot banded together with other tribal leaders in a commitment to finding peaceful relationships with white settlers. They included Niwot's brother, Neva, Black Kettle, White Antelope, Little Raven and others.

There is much less written about Chief Niwot's brother, Neva, who was also instrumental in Boulder Valley peace efforts. He was Chief Left-Hand's right hand man, an advisor and frequent stand-in. Neva's legacy is honored by the naming of Neva Road, with segments between Franklin and 83rd Streets in Niwot, and between Highway 36 and 45th Street near Lake Valley. Neva is also the namesake of Mount Neva in the Indian Peaks Wilderness.

Niwot and Neva were not unfamiliar with white men. Their sister had married a trapper, and the brothers learned English from him. This, along with their diplomatic skills, made them ideal emissaries for the Southern Arapaho people. Chief Niwot was fluent in Sioux and Cheyenne along with English, invaluable skills as white settlers started to make their way to the same land in the 1840s and 1850s. Neva also understood English, although he could not speak it to the extent Niwot could. These languages distinguished Niwot and Neva as some of the few Plains tribal members who did not rely on the traditional, complicated sign language for intertribal communication. These language abilities allowed Niwot and Neva to successfully communicate and trade with whites on behalf of their people.

Despite breaching the borders of Arapaho territory, early prospectors were welcomed by Chief Niwot and Neva in Boulder Valley. Chief Niwot is said to have first stated at this initial meeting his legendary Curse of the Boulder Valley. The legend is that according to Chief Niwot, the curse was the breathtaking landscape: "People seeing the beauty of this valley will want to stay, and their staying will be the undoing of the beauty." Still, Niwot and Neva were known to socialize with whites; they knew that whites would continue to come, and their survival depended on how they co-existed.

There are documented encounters between whites and Chief Niwot-all mention his commitment to peace and allowing whites to stay on Arapaho land. While other tribes and Chiefs raided settlers' homes, these peaceful tribes made trips to Washington, D.C., and Denver to communicate with the government and negotiate.

As conflict continued to grow between other Indigenous peoples and whites, tribes were labeled as violent by Governor John Evans, without distinguishing between peaceful and non-peaceful tribes. Governor Evans desired to hold title to the resource-rich Denver-Boulder area. The government trust officials deliberately encouraged a caravan to leave without Chief Niwot (although Neva was included), given his linguistic abilities. Without this asset, the execution of their treaty resulted in transferring the title of the area away from Indian Trust and set in motion a series of events that culminated in hundreds slaughtered and mutilated at the Massacre at Sand Creek on November 29, 1864. Kathy Koehler, historian and President of the Niwot Historical Society, diagnosed the situation, saying, "Neva went to negotiate a treaty but didn't have the skills. He may have revealed too much." Neva is pictured in a photograph taken Sept. 28, 1864 at the Camp Weld Council, but Chief Niwot is not in the photo.

After the slaughter, two U.S. Congressional committees and one military committee were formed to investigate the massacre. The committees found guilt on the part of the U.S. Government in 1865. Subsequently, Governor Evans resigned. He had decorated the Colorado Volunteers and their leader, Colonel John Chivington, for their "valor in subduing the savages." Chivington gained infamy as the individual responsible for one of the most heinous war crimes in American military history.

Many differentiating opinions exist about whether Chief Niwot died at Sand Creek (his body was never found) or succumbed ater to injuries incurred there. Neva, however, did not end up at the Massacre site, and instead settled in Oklahoma. Numerous publications agree that he lost his desire to advocate for peace given the betrayal of his people and his brother.

Sources:

Coel, M. (1981). Chief Left Hand. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

Dolittle, J. (1865). Report of the United States joint special committee, appointed under joint resolution of March 3, 1865: with an appendix.

Grinnell,G. (1915). The Fighting Cherokees. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Hobert, I. (1914). The Indians of the Pike's Peak region: including an account of the battle of Sand Creek and of occurrences in El Paso County, Colorado, during the war with the Cheyennes and Arapahoes. New York: Knickerbocker Press.

"Massacre of the Cheyenne Indians," Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, Senate Report 142, 38th Congress, 2nd session, 3 (Washington, DC: US Congress, Senate, 1865).

Mueller, M. (2010). Boulder: Chief Niwot's curse and the paradox of paradise. Huffington Post. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/boulder-chief-niwots-curs_b_481776

National Park Service, Sand Creek Massacre, National Historic Site Colorado. https://www.nps.gov/sand/learn/index.htm

Soule, S. (1864). Personal communication to Ned Wynkoop. https://www.kclonewolf.com/History/SandCreek/sc-documents/sc-soule-to-wynkoop-12-14-64.html.