David F. Halaas

Colorado State Historian, 1991–2001

David F. Halaas was the Colorado State Historian from 1991 to 2001 and is the co-author of Halfbreed: The Remarkable True Story of George Bent.

David F. Halaas

Written by David F. Halaas

  • Image of a hand-drawn map on white paper. The map indicates North at the top of the page and South at the bottom; in thin cursive handwriting, the Sand Creek snakes its way from the left of the map, down to the south. There are "X" marks alongside the creek, with names that suggest who was positioned in the area. "Chivington Trail" is legible along a path leading from the south up north to the area where others were situated along the creek.

    “All the Camp was Weeping”

    Scholars have long relied on George Bent’s eyewitness accounts of the Sand Creek Massacre from his position within the Cheyenne and Arapaho encampment that day to better understand how such a horrific atrocity could have happened here in Colorado.