he arrived in Denver by stagecoach on May 16. While he was governor, he helped establish the legal system, educational institutions, economy and infrastructure of the Colorado Territory. He also promoted Colorado's statehood, but its citizens overwhelming voted against it in September 1864 because the men of the state would be subject to military service for the Civil War and because the territory did not have the population to support running the Colorado without the support of the federal government. He was also the territory's superintendent of Indian Affairs, but did not consider how greatly Native Americans' lives were impacted by the way in which settlers thwarted their access to resources that they needed to survive. Evans strategy was to create treaties that allocated land for white settlers from Native American tribes. He believed that constructing railroads from the east and through Colorado was important for the territory's growth. He worked with survey crews to define the best routes. He worked on a enforcing a treaty where Native Americans were assigned to reservations. Native American tribes—the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Ute people and Sioux—were indigenous to Colorado and hunted throughout the area. Hostilities grew as settlers came to Colorado and there was concern that the Native American people would join the Confederate army during the Civil War. He lobbied for railroads for Colorado in Washington, D.C. and he was instrumental in having the Union Pacific Railroad create a link to Denver, having a railroad line connect to San Francisco, and another line from Denver to Galveston, Texas on the Gulf of Mexico. Sand Creek Massacre Citizens of Denver feared that tribes were gathering to over-run Denver. Evans issued a proclamation in August 1864 that authorized "all citizens of Colorado... to go in pursuit of all hostile Indians [and] kill and destroy all enemies of the country." Because of the lack of the ability to defend Denver because of the men fighting in the civil war, Evans ordered that so-called "friendly" "Indians" should present themselves to various forts for their "safety and protection," and those who did not were "hostile" and should be "pursued and destroyed." Chief Black Kettle had told Native Americans that it was important that they make peace with the settlers or they would be crushed. He met with Lincoln and was very proud to have been given a large American flag in the fall of 1864. Only a