Wounded Knee: Battle or Massacre?

Fear and Paranoia Lead to Tragedy

The Battle of Little Bighorn was a major victory for the Lakota (Sioux) and Cheyenne, but it eventually brought tragedy for all Plains Indians.

Soon the full force of the US Army was brought to bear, and all Plains Indians were herded onto bleak reservations.

Indians were forced to give up their way of life and become dependent on the government.

Often, reservations were far from native lands, and they were not allowed to hunt or conduct rituals.

They were supposed to become farmers, but the land was not suitable, they were not farmers, and promised supplies and assistance never arrived.

Often reservation agents and traders were corrupt, stealing money and supplies, demanding bribes, selling inferior goods, or price-gouging.

Indians became depressed; their health suffered, and alcoholism became a major blight.

By the late 1880s, it looked to Indians and Non-Indians as if the entire race would

disappear.

In 1889, a Paiute medicine man named Wovoka (Jack Wilson to whites) became very ill and nearly died.

While ill, he had a vision of God during a solar eclipse.

God told him that he must teach his people that they must love each other, live in peace with the white people, and must work hard and not lie or steal. Wovoka was given a dance by God that had to be performed for five consecutive days. Wovoka called it the Dance of the Spirits. Whites called it the Ghost Dance.

The Ghost Dance religion promised an apocalypse in the coming years during which time the earth would be destroyed, only to be recreated with the Indians as the inheritors of the new earth. According to the prophecy, the recent times of suffering for Indians had been brought about by their sins, but now they had withstood enough under the whites. With the earth destroyed, white people would be obliterated, buried under the new soil of the spring that would cover the land and restore the prairie. The buffalo, horses and antelope would return, and deceased ancestors would rise to once again roam the earth, now free of violence, starvation, and disease. The natural world would be restored, and the land once again would be free and open to the Indian peoples, without the borders and boundaries of the white man. The new doctrine taught that salvation would be achieved when the Indians purged themselves of the evil ways learned from the white man, especially the drinking of alcohol. Believers were encouraged to engage in frequent ceremonial cleansing, meditation, prayer, chanting, and most importantly, dancing the Ghost Dance.

The whole world is coming,A nation is coming, a nation is coming,The eagle has brought the message to the tribe.The Father says so, the Father says so.Over the whole earth they are coming,The buffalo are coming, the buffalo are coming,The crow has brought the message to the tribe,The Father says so, the Father says so.

Ghost Dance Songs

Participants’ faces were often painted to reflect personal visions.

No white-made clothes could be worn by dancers.

Many wore “Ghost shirts” or “Spirit shirts” believed to make the wearer impervious to bullets.

Locals were generally not concerned or frightened by the Ghost Dance, but bigger city newspapers from all over the country tried to outdo each other in raising the alarm, to sell papers by fear.

The Press Fans the Flames

This entire issue was based on conversations with a lady who was passing through by stage and who had no first hand knowledge, but was merely repeating what she had heard.

1889 Wovoka, a prophet and visionary of the Paiute, has his great vision.

1890 April/May: A delegation of Lakota representatives returns from meeting Wovoka and begins to teach the Spirit Dance.

August/September: Newspaper reporters begin coverage of the “Ghost Dance”, presenting it as a focal point for an Indian uprising.

October: The Spirit Dance is introduced at Standing Rock Agency. November: President Benjamin Harrison orders the military to take control of the Lakota reservations. December 15: The Agent at Standing Rock Agency, James McLaughlin, sends Indian police to arrest Sitting Bull. Sitting Bull is killed.

Chronology

December 16: Big Foot, leader of a Minneconjou band on the Cheyenne River Reservation, is ordered arrested as a troublemaker. December 21: Big Foot learns of the death of Sitting Bull.December 23: Big Foot’s band begins a flight to Pine Ridge Agency.

December 28: The band is intercepted by Maj. Samuel Whiteside and the 7th Cavalry. The band is escorted to a camp site on Wounded Knee Creek. December 29: Forsyth decides to disarm the Lakota. A shot is fired, and the massacre begins. Up to 300 Lakota men, women, and children are killed. 1891January 1: A burial party returns to the site of the massacre. They bury 146 Lakota bodies in a mass grave.

But the land was already claimed by a people when the cowboy came and when the soldiers came.

The story of the American Indian is in a lot of ways a story of tragedy, like that day at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.

Big Foot was an Indian chief Of the Minneconjou band, A band of Minneconjou Sioux From South Dakota land. Big Foot said to Custer, "Stay away from Crazy Horse." But Custer crossed into Sioux land, And he never came back across. Then Big Foot led his people To a place called Wounded Knee, And they found themselves surrounded By the 7th Cavalry.

Big chief Big Foot, Rise up from your bed,Minneconjou babies cry

For their mothers lying dead. Big Foot was down with a fever

When he reached Wounded Knee;And his people all were prisoners

Of the 7th Cavalry. Two hundred women and children

And another hundred menRaised up a white flag of peace,

But peace did not begin. An accidental gunshot

And Big Foot was first to die;And over the noise of the riflesYou could hear the babies cry.

Big chief Big Foot,It's good that you can't seeRevenge is being wroughtBy Custer's 7th Cavalry.

Then smoke hung over the canyonOn that cold December day.

All was death and dyingAround where Big Foot lay. Farther on up the canyon

Some had tried to run and hide; But death showed no favorites, Women, men, and children died. One side called it a "massacre,"

The other a "victory," But the white flag is still waving

Today at Wounded Knee. Big chief Big Foot,

Your Minneconjou band Is more than remembered here

In South Dakota land.

“Big Foot” by Johnny Cash

Five days after the slaughter of the innocents an editorial in the Aberdeen (S.D.) Saturday Pioneer reflected the popular opinion of the wasicu (white

people) of that day. It read, “The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the

total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to

protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable

creatures from the face of the earth.”

Ten years after he wrote that editorial calling for genocide against the Lakota people, L. Frank Baum wrote that wonderful children’s book, “The Wizard

of Oz.”

Twenty-three soldiers from the Seventh Calvary were later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration awarded by the US government, for their actions at Wounded Knee.

                      CONGRESS ADJOURNS; Century Afterward, Apology For Wounded Knee MassacreAPPublished: October 29, 1990Descendants of the Indians killed and hurt in the Wounded Knee massacre 100 years ago have received their long-awaited apology from the Government.The House, on a voice vote, gave final Congressional approval Thursday to a resolution expressing "deep regret" for the event that marked the end of the Indian wars. The Senate approved the measure last week.Depending on the historical account, about 150 to 400 Sioux Indians were killed by the 7th Cavalry on Dec. 29, 1890, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwestern South Dakota.The resolution does not provide any reparations to the descendants or declare the remote site a national monument, as the Wounded Knee Survivors Association had requested.