But in response to pressure from a student-led Native American alliance, Northwestern officials say they plan to form a commission to research Evans' connection to the one of the worst massacres of Native Americans in the country's history.
In 1864, Evans was territorial governor of Colorado when a militia of about 700 men attacked a temporary village of Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho people at Sand Creek. According to the National Park Service, the soldiers killed 165 to 200 Native Americans, about two-thirds of them women, children and elderly.
Known as the Sand Creek Massacre, it is considered one of the worst acts of genocide in the country's history and led to Evans' removal from his governorship after a congressional investigation.
According to the Native American and Indigenous Student Alliance at Northwestern, the university has ignored that part of Evans' history. Evans continued as a major benefactor and member of Northwestern's board long after details of the massacre came to light.
"Many institutions that have been around as long as Northwestern have issues like these," said Heather Menefee, 19, a Northwestern sophomore and the student alliance's co-president. "But it was surprising to me that you could go on the Northwestern website and look at the official biography of John Evans, and it didn't even mention his involvement in Sand Creek. It seemed like the university was erasing it."
While Evans was not directly involved in the massacre, many believe his actions as governor created an environment hostile to Native Americans, and his effort to cover up what happened that day was met with fiery criticism.
In a "Report of the Committee on the Conduct of War" published in the Chicago Tribune in 1865, Evans' testimony before the congressional panel is described as "characterized by such prevarication and shuffling as has been shown by no witness they have examined … for the evident purpose of avoiding the admission that he was fully aware that the Indians massacred so brutally at Sand Creek were then, and had been, actuated by the most friendly feelings toward the whites."
Northwestern spokesman Alan Cubbage said administrators have had "a fairly constructive conversation" with the students, who put together a petition asking the university to investigate Evans' past and wrote a scathing guest column about the situation that was published in the campus newspaper Jan. 23.
"The provost has asked several of our very renowned faculty members in the history department and other departments to offer advice about what sort of people should be on a study committee," Cubbage said. "We're looking at a committee that would look into the historical aspects of John Evans and his role in the Sand Creek Massacre."
Cubbage said the committee would include scholars from other universities.
Given the country's history, many universities have had to confront historical connections to slavery or to crimes against Native Americans. In 2003, for example, Brown University launched a Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice to investigate the university's relationship to slavery and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Gary Alan Fine is the director of graduate studies in Northwestern's sociology department and also carries the title of John Evans Professor of Sociology. After receiving the professorship in 2004, Fine researched Evans and quickly learned of his connection to the Sand Creek Massacre.
He brought up the subject of Evans' questionable past during his inaugural lecture at the university and said he is pleased to see students pressing for a deeper investigation.
"I think the challenge for administrators now that they're taking it seriously is how much they want to embrace this," Fine said. "The model at Brown, which I think was enormously successful, is they made it a campuswide effort. They brought in all the interested parties — students and faculty and administrators and alumni and members of the African-American community — and used it as a teaching opportunity for Brown and also an opportunity to be part of a national dialogue."
Adam Mendel, 22, a Northwestern senior and co-president of the Native American and Indigenous Student Alliance, said his group is calling on the university to recognize Evans' responsibility for the massacre, establish a Native American studies program and create a scholarship fund for Arapaho and Cheyenne students.
Because Evans didn't give the order for the massacre — documents from the time show he was not even in Colorado when it happened — some question the extent of his culpability. Others point out that along with helping create and fund Northwestern University, Evans was a noted abolitionist who was appointed to the territorial governorship of Colorado by Abraham Lincoln.
But Mendel said his research paints a picture of Evans as a man eager to rid Colorado of Native Americans. A proclamation Evans sent out not long before the massacre authorized all residents of Colorado to "kill and destroy, as enemies of the country, wherever they may be found, all such hostile Indians."
"His proclamation speaks toward his policy toward the Native Americans in the area," Mendel said. "He had a hostile policy toward them, encouraged people to hunt and kill them. He didn't specifically order the attack, but he instituted policies that led to the attack. He was particularly out there, even for this time period. He was investigated by Congress and removed from office. Colorado's admission to the union was delayed for a few years because of this event."
Bethany Hughes, 31, a Northwestern doctoral student and member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, is working on a research project about the massacre. She said that in addition to being territorial governor, Evans was a railroad magnate with a vested interest in making sure rail lines were built across Colorado and farther west.
She said that even after losing his governorship, Evans thrived thanks to his railroad operations — and Northwestern continued to receive money from him.
"It is a complex situation," Hughes said. "There have been great, positive outcomes of John Evans' actions — we have the university, we support scholarship and research and creativity and art. You can trace that all back to John Evans. But you can also trace back to John Evans the impact on a more specific community, the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes. To dismiss or not deal with this conflict and tension in John Evans' nature has been troublesome for Northwestern."
Cubbage said the university's provost and vice president for academic affairs will meet with some faculty members next week to discuss forming a commission to study Evans. He applauded the students for seeking an accurate historical investigation, given the wide-ranging information that is out there relating to Sand Creek.
"I think this was the worst act of genocide in the American context," Fine said. "Yes, there's a need for justice. Yes, there's a need for memory. A lot of things have been written about Sand Creek by amateur historians. Let's see what we can sort out through having enough resources to look at the appropriate archives and make a scholarly determination of what really happened."