William Wells Bent (1809-1869), Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, 2016.

Photo date unknown. William Wells Bent was primarily a trader and rancher who secured trade partners on the high plains by creating an adobe fort, called Bent's Fort, along the Santa Fe Trail. He negotiated peace among many plains tribes as well as between the Native American and the US governments. Furs, horses and other goods were traded with travelers, fur-trappers as well as local Meixcan and Native American people along the trail. Bent married into the Cheyenne Nation to secure peacful allies and trading partners. With his wife, Owl Woman, daughter of a Cheyenne chief and medicine man, he had four children. He was accepted into the tribe and, as is custom for successful men, also took Owl Woman's sisters as secondary wives. Three of his sons witnessed or fought at the Sand Creek Massacre.