Spanish explorer who found evidence of French influence in present-day Colorado during an expedition north of New Mexico between 1664 and 1680.
Who is Juan de Archuleta?
100
Spanish governor and frontier commander who, in 1779, ambushed the Comanches in the foothills south of modern-day Pueblo, Colorado and eventually forced them to make
peace in 1786.
Who is Juan Bautista de Anza?
100
Missouri trader who initiated American trade with Mexico in Santa Fe in the fall and winter of 1821-22 opening up the Santa Fe Trail which cut through the Southeast corner of the future state.
Who is William Becknell?
100
Led the 1820 American expedition to what would become Colorado and labeled the high plains of the eastern part of the state—the Great American Desert.
Who is Stephen H. Long?
100
Colonel of the Third Regiment of Colorado Volunteers who refused to make peace with the Cheyenne, instead attacking and killing at least 163 of them on November 29, 1864.
Who is John M. Chivington?
200
New Mexico governor whose 1694 junket into Colorado indicated Spain’s ongoing interest in the land north of Santa Fe and Taos.
Who is Don Diego de Vargas?
200
Franciscan priest who captained an expedition of ten men through western Colorado in search of a route to California in 1776.
Who is Silvestre Vélez de Escanlante?
200
The Bent brother who married Owl Woman of the Cheyenne, which helped keep Bent’s Fort supplied with an amazing number of buffalo hides.
Who is William Bent?
200
Leader of the first United States-sponsored expedition to explore the southern portion of the Louisiana Purchase he attempted but failed to climb “Grand Mountain” in Colorado.
Who is Zebulon Pike?
200
Cheyenne leader who flew an American flag and a white flag of peace at Sand Creek in November 1864 only to have to flee for his life upon the arrival of the Colorado Third.
Who is Black Kettle?
300
New Mexico governor who unsuccessfully tried to protect the settled Carlana Apaches of the Arkansas Valley from Comanche raids in 1719.
Who is Antonio Valverde Cosío?
300
French trader who crossed the Great Plains to reach Taos in 1739 and establish an intermittent trade connection between New France and New Spain in northern New Mexico.
Who is Pierre Mallet?
300
American supplier of the fur trade in the Taos/Santa Fe area who originally came from St. Louis but became a Mexican citizen in the 1820s in order to better facilitate his commercial dealings.
Who is Ceran St. Vrain?
300
A seasoned mountain man who worked briefly for William Bent and helped guide the 1842 John C. Frémont exploratory expedition of the West.
Who is Christopher "Kit" Carson?
300
Family of four, including two young children, killed at their ranch southeast of Denver by a raiding band of Arapahos in June 1864.
Who is the Hungate family?
400
Founded the new Spanish province of San Luis along the Arkansas River in southern Colorado in 1706 when he discovered several villages of friendly agricultural Apaches.
Who is Juan de Ulibarrí?
400
Spanish trader who ventured through the San Juan Mountains and along the Gunnison River in search of minerals and trade in 1765.
Who is Juan María de Rivera?
400
The Bent brother who became the American governor of New Mexico Territory and was murdered by an uprising among the Pueblo peoples of Taos.
Who is Charles Bent?
400
Leader of the American army that traveled the Santa Fe Trail through Colorado in 1846 as the United States went to war with the Republic of Mexico.
Who is Stephen Watts Kearny?
400
Captain in the Colorado Third Regiment who refused to take part in the massacre and atrocities at Sand Creek and was later shot with impunity for his criticism of the campaign.
Who is Silas Soule?
500
Spanish military commander whose 1720 expedition to pacify the Plains Indians of northeastern Colorado ended in disaster when the Pawnees attacked and killed him and most of his men on the Platte River in western Nebraska.
Who is Pedro de Villasur?
500
Comanche chief who raided Spanish settlements in southern Colorado in the 1770s.
Who is Cuerno Verde?
500
American trader who spent part of a year in Colorado prior to arriving in Santa Fe in June 1805 only to be held by Spanish authorities who did not allow him to return to Missouri.
Who is James Purcell?
500
Lead surveyor of the early 1870s surveying project of Rocky Mountain Colorado which resulted in the book: Geological and Geographical Atlas of Colorado and Portions
of Adjacent Territory.
Who is Ferdinand V. Hayden?
500
Cheyenne leader who supported the Treaty of Fort Wise limiting Indian hunting grounds on Colorado’s eastern plains but could not prevent the massacre at Sand Creek in which he was killed.