Talk:Grattan massacre

Actual location

I've been to the location of the Blue Water Creek battle, it is on private land and not marked, found it with GPS co-ordinates. It is near Ash Hollow, but not at Ash Hollow, maybe 30 miles away. Unless I'm confused about what is considered "Ash Hollow". If any one local or more knowledgeable can clarify that part of the article. Also of significance the Oregon Trail runs by there. Stbalbach 13:16, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Copyright violation?

http://www.mormontrail.net/mormonnews_detail.php?ID=46 Stbalbach 14:20, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I re-wrote the entire article to fix copyright problems. Stbalbach 16:20, 10 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Article in serious historical error

This article reads as if Harney's attack on Little Thunder's band at Blue Water Creek, a.k.a. the "Battle" of Ash Hollow, is properly referred to as the Grattan Massacre, but it's not. The Grattan Massacre is the 8/19/1854 incident in which Brevet 2nd Lieut. John Grattan was killed along with his entire detachment. The press used the incident to whip up anti-Indian sentiment nationwide. Harney's assault occured over a year later, on 9/3/1855, and is referred to as the Battle of Ash Hollow, a separate incident entirely, which deserves a separate article.

Thanks for the clarification. Keeping as one article, the events are so closely linked there is not reason to have seperate articles, created a number of redirects so it all goes to the same place. Still some confusion on proper name, Battle of Ash Hollow or Battle of Bluewater Creek. My National Geographic map shows it as "Bluewater Creek battlefield". --Stbalbach 19:17, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Moved Section

The Battle of Ash Hollow section which was formerly part of this article has been moved to a separate article Battle of Ash Hollow. The Category links on this article are still labeled as Battle of Bluewater Creek. Eventually those will need to be changed also

This article seems seriously biased. Since there were no white survivors, we have only the Indian version of events. This is presented as fact. It seems to me unlikely that a detachment of twenty seven armed soldiers, bent on violence, (which is implied in the article), should have been wiped out by Indians who had only peaceful intentions.

I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion. Remember, there were 1200 sioux warriors at this camp, vs. 30 soldiers... how do you imagine they would have not been killed to the last man? The claim that the Army was the aggressor party is supported by the evidence. Conquering Bear's attempts to compensate the cow's owner prior to LT Grattan's platoon being sent to capture High Forehead shows that they attempted to resolve the issue peacefully. LT Grattan's state of mind and predisposition towards violence was attested to by a US army office stationed at Laramie, whom the article quotes. In addition, you are incorrect that no Whites survived to give their version of events. There were two eyewitness: the trader Bordeau (who, despite his friendship with the indians, seems reliable as he left the camp to summon armed Whites from the trading post to help) and the soldier who survived but later died of his wounds (since he was not buried with the others it's a safe assumption that he made it back to Laramie and was able to give his account)

"otherwise known as the Battle of Fort Laramie"

I deleted this assertion in the introduction. I've read fairly widely about the Indian Wars and never heard it called that. A google search on the phrase only turns up this Wiki article. Absolutely nothing on Google Books Search. 71.129.81.136 15:07, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Massacre or Fight?

The source: Paul Norman Beck (2004). The First Sioux War: The Grattan Fight and Blue Water Creek, 1854-1856. University Press of America. ISBN 0761828850. calls it the "Grattan Fight"; "Massacre" obviously has some negative connotations.

I'd like to see the sources for "Massacre" or switch the article name to "Grattan Fight"

Punch "Grattan Massacre" into a Google Book or Scholar search and you'll see hundreds of references. It's always been known as that and it maintains the weight of frequency. Beck himself calls it a massacre in-text, as indeed it was: every man Grattan had was wiped out. The circumstances of the incident, including Grattan's social ineptitude which contributed to his demise, are properly explained in the article.71.136.180.190 (talk) 19:48, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Grattan Fight on Google gets 245,000 hits; Grattan Massacre gets 78,000 - besides the irrelevance of google hits as a determinant for wk, 'Massacre' carries the the old and passé US 19th cent POV - the title of article should be changed to Grattan Fight.Tttom1 (talk) 02:27, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

"Grattan Fight" (you're supposed to use quote marks) gets 8930 results; "Grattan Massacre" gets 16600. And there's a wider disparity on Google Books and Google Scholar, which are a weightier reflection of reliable sources. 108.249.90.70 (talk) 10:23, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

I agree that this was in no way a "massacre" by that time's standards. The soldiers started shooting first and were attacked and killed afterwards, clearly making it a fight. While I do think the term "Grattan Massacre" should still be present in the article, since that's the historical name for it, it should also be mentioned that that wording was chosen by the press for propaganda purposes. When we speak about massacres the US army has commited, it's always about incidents where large amounts of women and children or men who had not posed a threat were murdered, not about soldiers killing warriors who had just attacked them. Billy7 (talk) 05:02, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

When is POV not POV?

When any article discusses American relations with the Indians, of course! Basically a group of armed, high-handed soldiers arrive in a camp and behave like stereotypical 19th-century whites, by being wholly unreasonable on racial grounds: I want my money, "no take a horse" says the chief, "no I want money" says the white man. Predictable, racist and provocative. Viz a viz, the Indians were trying to amenable? But this is not good enough for the soldiers (why not?), hence when the leader of the Indians is gunned down in the back and the all the whites get killed it's wrote up as a massacre. Seems pretty conclusive where the high-handed blame lies. Nevertheless 150 years of racism and bigotry can't be brushed aside. So the title remains a "massacre"; implying an unfair fight. But this is just one many of one-sided "incidents" that have plagued the America's history until the closing of the West in 1890. However when the Indians get butchered it's a battle but when it happens to Europeans it is renamed a massacre. How is that not POV in this article?

There are many incidents where soldiers killed indians and it's named as a massacre, such as wounded knee. In this case the incident has historically been known as "the Grattan massacre" so that's the actual name of the topic, POV or not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.15.0.104 (talk) 11:11, 21 August 2016 (UTC)

Are you seriously comparing an actual massacre, where US soldiers murdered mostly women and children, to a fight where Indians killed enemy soldiers who just shot one of them? This was clearly a battle, not a "massacre". It may have been called that historically, but it should be obvious that this term was used only for propaganda purposes. Billy7 (talk) 04:50, 29 December 2019 (UTC)

Spelling of Bordeau/Bordeaux

Beck has the trader's name spelled as "Bordeau"; the Hunton Diary as "Bordeaux".Parkwells (talk) 02:30, 8 December 2010 (UTC)