Witness at Sand Creek: Book Reading and Signing

Witness at Sand Creek: The Life and Letters of Silas Soule
In Witness at Sand Creek, Rev. Dr. Nancy Niero brings to light the extraordinary moral courage of Captain Silas Soule, a Union officer who, in 1864, refused to obey orders to fire on peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho families during what became known as the Sand Creek Massacre. Instead, he chose to bear witness, documenting the atrocities in letters that became key testimony in a Congressional investigation. His refusal to stay silent cost him his life – he was assassinated just months later. Framed by Niero’s decades of research, ministry, and justice work, this collection invites readers to reflect on the cost of conscience and the enduring power of truth-telling.
Rev. Dr. Nancy Niero graduated with her Doctor of Ministry degree in May 2023 from Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, OK. Her thesis explored could white silence in United Church of Christ churches in the UCC Rocky Mountain Conference be dismantled using storytelling of white 19th century ancestors of faith and resistance who stood up, showed up, and spoke up with people of color. She received her master’s in divinity degree from Iliff School of Theology in Denver, CO in 2009. She is ordained in the United Church of Christ. Dr. Niero has a 15-year career in hospice and hospital chaplaincy-bereavement and has created grief work as an important companion with racial justice work.
She is the author of Witness: The Life and Letters of Silas Soule, and delights in visiting with book study groups on Zoom around the country. Witness was selected for the annual Pages for Progress book cohort by the United Methodist Church General Board of Church and Society in October 2025. Dr. Niero lectured on “The Sand Creek Massacre: Truth-Telling as a Path to Healing” for the General Board of Church and Society in November 2025 as part of their annual Called Seminar lecture series. Witness was selected by Colorado Public Radio for their Books We Love: 2025 Collection. She has recently finished writing Good Trouble: Racial Justice Coaching for Clergy in the 21st Century and is doing in-person coaching in the Pacific Northwest.
She has been greatly influenced by Rev. Dr. James Cone, Dr. Vincent Harding, Joy Harjo (Muskogee), Dr. Soong-Chan Rah, Clint Smith, Dr. Regina Stoltzfus Shands, and Rev. Dr. Emilie Townes. Prior to her call to ministry, she was a historic preservationist, and a journalist. She lives on the ancestral land of the Squaxin Island people, People of the Water, who lived along the shores and watersheds of the seven southernmost inlets of the Salish Sea, near what is known today as the Puget Sound in Washington.