Curse of the Boulder Valley

The Curse of Boulder Valley is reported^[1] to be a sentiment expressed as certainty by Chief Niwot, leader of the Southern Arapaho, to Caucsian prospectors come to the Boulder Valley in search of gold. Encamped at what they considered to be a sacred site, Valmont Butte, some 4 miles to the north east of what is now central Boulder, Colorado, Niwot and his closest elder braves, Bear Head and Many Whips, rode out to the site where the new arrivals had decided to camp, near the place where Boulder Creek releases from the Front Range onto the Great Plains, that place where the City of Boulder, Colorado now shines forth. Momentous and ephemeral as the actual event was, it cannot be disputed that the sentiment behind Chief Niwot's ominous proclamation of the Curse was a portentous aspect of the settling of not only the Boulder Valley, but of the entire West itself.

Europeans come to Boulder Valley

In Fall of 1858, led by Captain Thomas Aikins, a group of gold prospectors, part of the hordes who for years followed the 49ers who had invaded California and were now seeking similar fortune in the Rockies, came from Fort St. Vrain, 30 miles east. As they made camp at the site where now Boulder Creek rushes down from Nederland to meet Sunshine Creek and flow onto the Great Plains, Niwot and his braves met them.

They had ridden from Valmont Butte to greet them in peace... and to admonish them to leave.

Chief Niwot, it is said, as eloquent and capable as he was with the English language learned from his brother-in-law, his sister's husband, the trapper John Poisal^[2][3], told the European erstwhile settlers the area was cursed. He is said to have told them the Curse of Boulder Valley is: “People seeing the beauty of this valley will want to stay, and their staying will be the undoing of the beauty.”^[4] And as the conversation heightened, he proceeded to threaten them with a visitation by War Party if they did not leave.

Battle Looms and a Dream brings initial peace

Aikins and his men refused to leave and prepared to do battle against the Arapaho. At some point, Bear Head and Many Whips headed back to the Arapaho encampment to raise a War Party while the Chief lingered.

While they were away, Aikins and his group took steps to avoid hostilities by focusing personal attention on Chief Niwot, plying him with canned beans and salt pork, and getting him drunk. As a result, when Bear Head and Many Whips and the War Party returned, Niwot was advocating peace with the gold seeking Caucasians, yet tension reigned.

After three tense days, the threat of battle remained in the air. Then, abruptly, Niwot rode into Aikins’ camp once more. He had come to tell them one of his Arapaho shamans had received a dream from the Great Spirit the night before. In the dream, a flood covered the earth and swallowed the Arapaho people, while the whites survived. Niwot interpreted this to mean that gold seekers would flood his homeland, and he could do nothing to stop it. Peace with the whites, Niwot realized, was the only way his people would avoid being swept away by the flood.

Starting then, Niwot and his fellow chief Little Raven, who had recently welcomed white settlers to the Denver gold camps, maintained their stance of peaceful coexistence with the newly arrived Europeans... at least for the time being.

References

1. ^ OUR PEOPLE: Southern Arapahos Are Part of Boulder's Spirit, by Judy Mattivi Morley, Ph.D. (Originally appeared in Boulder Magazine, 2005.) Now at:[1]
2. ^ Morley, ibid.
3. ^ City of Lafayette, CO, Official Site -
4. ^ Morley, ibid.