Wounded Knee Massacre

On December 29, 1890, 500 troops of the U.S. 7th Cavalry, supported by four Hotchkiss guns (a lightweight artillery piece designed for travel with cavalry and used as a replacement for the aging twelve-pound mountain howitzer), surrounded an encampment of Miniconjou Sioux (Lakota) and Hunkpapa Sioux (Lakota). The Army had orders to escort the Sioux to the railroad for transport to Omaha, Nebraska. One day prior, the Sioux had given up their protracted flight from the troops and willingly agreed to turn themselves in at the Pine Ridge Agency in South Dakota. They were the very last of the Sioux to do so. They were met by the 7th Cavalry, who intended to use a display of force coupled with firm negotiations to gain compliance from them.

The commander of the 7th had been ordered to disarm the Lakota before proceeding. During the process of disarmament, a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote refused the order to give up his rifle because he didn't understand. . This set off a chain reaction of events that led to a scene of sheer chaos and mayhem with fighting between both sides in all directions.

By the time it was over, more than 200 men, women, and children of the Lakota Sioux lay dead. Twenty-five troopers also died during the massacre, some believed to have been the victims of "friendly fire" as the shooting took place at point blank range in chaotic conditions. Around 150 Lakota are believed to have fled the chaos, with an unknown number later dying from hypothermia.

The site has been designated a National Historic Landmark.

Lakota prelude

In February 1890, the United States government broke a Lakota treaty by adjusting the Great Sioux Reservation of South Dakota, an area that formerly encompassed the majority of the state, into five relatively smaller reservations. This was done to accommodate homesteaders from the east. It also carried out the government’s policy of "breaking up tribal relationships" and "conforming Indians to the white man’s ways, peaceably if they will, or forcibly if they must." Once on the half-sized reservations, tribes were separated into family units on 320-acre (1.3 km²) plots, forced to farm, raise livestock, and send their children to boarding schools that forbade inclusion of traditional Native American culture and language.

To support the Sioux during the period of transition, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was responsible for supplying the Sioux with food (they were traditionally a hunter-gatherer society) and hiring white farmers to teach them agriculture, they were also supposed to provide supplies for the Sioux too. The farming plan failed to take into account the difficulty Sioux farmers would have in trying to cultivate crops in the semi-arid region of South Dakota. By the end of the 1890 growing season, a time of intense heat and low rainfall, it was clear that the land was unable to produce substantial agricultural yields. This was also when government officials’ patience with supporting the so-called “lazy Indians" ran out. Rations to the Sioux were cut in half. As American bison had been nearly eradicated from the Plains a few years earlier, the Sioux began to starve. Tribal members turned to spiritual revival and many performed the Ghost Dance religious ceremony. Supervising agents of the BIA were alarmed at the activity. They requested and were granted thousands more troops deployed to the reservation.

The Lakota were overwhelmed by the flood of settlers onto their lands. A gold rush in the 1870s brought hordes of prospectors and settlers. Many whites wanted to claim the Black Hills, which formed part of the assigned land given to the Lakota by the Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868), but the Lakota were not interested in selling territory which they considered sacred.

In 1876, frustrated by the refusal of the Lakota to give up the Black Hills, the government ordered the Lakota confined to their reservation; Indians found off the reservation were to be returned by force. By 1889, the situation on the reservations was getting desperate. The U.S. failed to honor its promise after reducing their land area to increase the amount of food and other necessities for the Lakota.

Ghost Dance

Main article: Ghost Dance

The Ghost Dance was a form of circle or spirit dancing, which according to anthropologist James Mooney had existed for centuries. It is a religious ceremony by which participants believe that their dead relatives will come back, and the world will be restored. In some aspects that included the removal of all white people. Paiute prophet Wovoka reported in 1888 that the Great Spirit had spoken to him in a vision, asking him to take the message to all Indian tribes that performing the Ghost Dance would bring about a renewal of the earth, the return of the buffalo, and their deceased loved ones would live again. Wovoka preached peace, saying that God asked Indians not to fight each other or the white man. ("You must not fight. Do right always.") Tribal leaders met with Wovoka and took the message home. Many people began to hold Ghost Dances according to Wovoka's advice, and the movement spread to the Plains and beyond. All other tribes adopted Wovoka's advice against violence except for the Sioux. They were still quite bitter over the broken land treaty in February of 1890 and the reduction in rations from the deal (ref. "Lakota prelude"). This left the Sioux with a deep hatred for the white man (Utley, p. 72).

U.S officers at scene of wounded knee, Buffalo Bill, Capt. Baldwin, Gen. Nelson A. Miles, Capt. Moss, and others, on horseback

Although Ghost Dancing was a spiritual ceremony, some agents for other tribes misinterpreted it as a war dance. For the Sioux, it was related to antagonism to the whites and a doctrine precipitating war, a distance from the pacifistic teachings of the Pauite prophet Wovoka (Utley, p. 73). In any case, fearing that the Ghost Dance philosophy signaled an Indian uprising, many agents outlawed it.

In October 1890, believing that a renewal of the earth would take place in the coming spring, the Lakota of Pine Ridge and Rosebud defied their agents and continued to hold dance rituals. Lakota delegations to Wovoka's Paiute reserve had reinterpreted Wovoka's message to suggest that the whites would disappear (they would be exterminated by the Messiah - Utley, p. 73) and that the renewed earth would be for Indians alone (Mooney, p. 820). Lakota Ghost Dancers wore Ghost Shirts, specially consecrated garments which they believed rendered them impervious to harm from rifle bullets when in battle against the whites (Utley, p. 86). Devotees were dancing to pitches of excitement that frightened the government employees. "[T]he Sioux apostles had perverted Wovoka's doctrine into a militant crusade against the white man." (Utley, p. 87) White settlers became panicked. Pine Ridge agent Daniel F. Royer called for military help to restore order with the Indians and calm white settlers.

Big Foot

On December 15, Chief Sitting Bull was killed at his cabin on the Standing Rock Reservation by Indian police who were trying to arrest him on government orders. After his death, refugees from Sitting Bull’s tribe fled in fear. They joined Sitting Bull's half brother, Big Foot, at a reservation at Cheyenne River. Unaware that Big Foot had renounced the Ghost Dance, General Nelson A. Miles ordered him to move his people to a nearby fort. On December 28, 1890, Big Foot became seriously ill with pneumonia. His tribe then set off to seek shelter with Red Cloud at Pine Ridge reservation. Big Foot’s band was intercepted by Major Samuel Whitside and his battalion of the Seventh Cavalry Regiment and were escorted five miles (8 km) westward to Wounded Knee Creek. There, Colonel James W. Forsyth arrived to take command and ordered his guards to place four Hotchkiss guns in position around the camp. The soldiers numbered around 500. There were 350 Native Americans; all but 120 were women and children.

The Massacre

U.S. troops surrounding the Lacota at Wounded Knee, Photograph shows the Lacota encampment in the foreground with a short line of U.S. troops in the background.

Birds-eye view of canyon at Wounded Knee, Dead horses and Lacota bodies are visible.

On December 29, Lakota Ghost Dancers were on their way through the badlands toward Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. James W. Forsyth and 7th Cavalry Regiment intercepted the dancers and ordered them to hand over their weapons. A search was ordered. Soldiers barged into the teepee camp, frightening the Indian woman and children and overturning bedding in their quest of weapons, and, possibly, for souvenirs. They returned with 38 old firearms and some axes. It became clear that some of the Indians were hiding weapons under their blankets. A US soldier ordered a deaf man to hand over his weapon. Confused because he could not hear, the man dropped the gun at his feet causing it to discharge. Someone called for the Cavalry to fire.

At first, the struggle was fought at close range; fully half the Indian men were killed or wounded before they had a chance to get off any shots. Some of the Indians grabbed rifles they had been hiding for self-defense and opened fire on the soldiers. With no cover, and with many of the Sioux unarmed, this phase of the fighting lasted a few minutes at most. While the Indian warriors and soldiers were shooting it out at close range, other soldiers used the Hotchkiss guns against the tipi camp full of women and children. The Indian women fled. The officers had lost all control of their men. Some of the soldiers fanned out to run across the battlefield and finish off wounded Indians. Others leaped onto their horses and pursued the Lakota, in some cases for miles across the prairies. By the end of the fighting, which lasted less than an hour, at least 150 Lakota had been killed and 50 wounded. Army casualties numbered 25 dead and 39 wounded.

Specific details of what triggered the fight are debated. According to historian Robert Utley, a medicine man called Yellow Bird began to perform the Ghost Dance, reiterating his assertion to the Lakota that the ghost shirts were bulletproof. As tension mounted, Black Coyote refused to give up his rifle. He was deaf and had not understood the order. Another Indian said: "Black Coyote is deaf." (He did not speak English). When the soldier refused to heed his warning, he said "Stop! He cannot hear your orders!" At that moment, two soldiers seized Black Coyote from behind, and in the struggle (it is believed but not necessarily accurate that), his rifle discharged. At the same moment, Yellow Bird threw some dust into the air, and approximately five young Lakota men with concealed weapons threw aside their blankets and pointed their rifles at Troop K of the 7th. The Lakota opened fire on the soldiers and did damage; however, a massive volley was returned back at the tribe.

According to Commanding General Nelson A. Miles, a "scuffle occurred between one warrior who had [a] rifle in his hand and two soldiers. The rifle was discharged and a massacre occurred, not only the warriors but the sick Chief Big Foot, and a large number of women and children who tried to escape by running and scattering over the prairie were hunted down and killed."

The military hired civilians to bury the dead Lakota after an intervening snowstorm had abated. Arriving at the battleground, the burial party found the deceased frozen in contorted positions by the freezing weather. They were gathered up and placed in a common grave. It was reported that four infants were found still alive, wrapped in their deceased mothers' shawls. In all, 84 men, 44 women, and 18 children reportedly died on the field, while at least seven Lakota were mortally wounded.

Aftermath

Mass grave for the dead Lakota after massacre of Wounded Knee.

Wounded Knee grave, 2003

General Nelson Miles denounced Colonel Forsyth and relieved him of command. An exhaustive Army Court of Inquiry convened by Miles criticized Forsyth for his tactical dispositions but otherwise exonerated him of responsibility. The Court of Inquiry, however, was not conducted as a formal court-martial. Without the legal boundaries of that format, several of the witnesses minimized their statements to protect themselves or peers. The Secretary of War concurred with the decision and reinstated Forsyth to command of the 7th Cavalry. Testimony indicated that for the most part troops attempted to avoid non-combatant casualties. Nevertheless, Miles ignored the results of the Court of Inquiry and continued to criticize Forsyth, whom he believed had deliberately disobeyed orders. Miles promoted the conclusion that Wounded Knee as a deliberate massacre rather than a tragedy caused by poor decisions.

The American public's reaction to the battle at the time was generally favorable. The Army awarded twenty Medals of Honor, then its highest award, for the action. When the awards were reviewed a decade later, Miles supported them.

In the 21st century, Native American activists have urged the medals be withdrawn, as they say they were "Medals of Dis-Honor". [1]

Historian Will G. Robinson noted that in contrast, only three Medals of Honor were awarded to men among the 64,000 South Dakotans who fought for four years of the Second World War. This criticism fails to take into account the different times and standards. The significance of the medal was raised to a higher standard and awarded less frequently.

Many non-Lakota living near the reservations interpreted the battle as the defeat of a murderous cult; others confused Ghost Dancers with Native Americans in general. In an editorial response to the event, the young newspaper editor L. Frank Baum, later the author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, wrote in the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer on January 3, 1891:

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 untameable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.

More than 80 years after the massacre, beginning on February 27, 1973, Wounded Knee was the site of a 71-day standoff between federal authorities and militants of the American Indian Movement.

Skirmish at Drexel Mission

Wounded Knee hill

Historically, Wounded Knee is generally considered to be the end of the collective multi-century series of conflicts between colonial and U.S. forces and American Indians, known collectively as the Indian Wars. It led to a dramatic decline in the Ghost Dance movement; however, it was not the last armed conflict between Native Americans and the United States.

A related skirmish took place at Drexel Mission the day after the Battle of Wounded Knee. One soldier died and six were wounded from K Troop, 7th Cavalry. Lakota casualties were not recorded. After news of Wounded Knee reached them, Lakota Ghost Dancers from bands which had surrendered, fled, burning several buildings at the mission as they left. They ambushed a squadron of the 7th Cavalry that responded to the incident and pinned it down until a relief force from the 9th Cavalry arrived. The 9th had been trailing the Lakota from the White River. Lieutenant James D. Mann, who had been a key participant in the outbreak of firing at Wounded Knee, died of his wounds 17 days later at Ft. Riley, Kansas, on January 15, 1891. The Drexel Mission skirmish is often overlooked.

Popular culture

In the late 20th century, much of American history was reconsidered, especially treatment of Native Americans. Indian activists raised criticism of this and other killings. Many consider the incident one of the most grievous atrocities in United States history. The 1970 book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by historian Dee Brown raised awareness of the massacre and became a bestseller.

In 1972, Johnny Cash wrote and released a song titled "Big Foot" which related the tragedy at Wounded Knee. Like many of Cash's songs about Native Americans, it describes their poor treatment and victimization by whites.

In 1973, the American rock band Redbone, formed by two Native Americans, released the politically oriented song "We were all wounded at Wounded Knee". The song ends with the subtly altered sentence, "We were all wounded by Wounded Knee". The song reached the number one chart position across Europe. In the U.S., the song was initially withheld from release and then banned by several radio stations.

"Wounded Knee" is a track from Nik Kershaw's 1989 album The Works.

The 1992 video game Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time included a Wild West level named "Bury My Shell at Wounded Knee".

In 1992, the film Thunderheart starring Val Kilmer and Graham Greene was released. It combined a modern era crime-story with spiritual allusions to both the massacre in 1890 and a fictional version of the Wounded Knee incident in 1973 on the Sioux reservation.

Also in 1992 the Battle of Wounded Knee Creek was commemorated in the popular protest song "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee", written by Buffy Sainte-Marie.

In 1995 the Indigo Girls released a cover of this song on their 1200 Curfews (Live) CD.

In 1996 a trilogy of inter-linked dramas on man's inhumanity to man, The Four Seasons Of Wounded Knee by English playwright Ralph Morse was premiered. The first play Ghost Dance was related to the massacre.

In 1997, rock band Toad the Wet Sprocket had success "Crazy Life", a song about Indian rights and Leonard Peltier.

Petri Hiltunen's 2000 graphic novel Aavetanssi (Ghost Dance in Finnish) depicted the massacre from a Native American point of view.

2001 - Five Iron Frenzy, "The Day We Killed" , song on Electric Boogaloo. The song makes references to the massacre at Wounded Knee.

Primus recorded a Percussion Instrumental called "Wounded Knee" which appears on the album Pork Soda.

Scottish songwriter Alan Cassidy makes reference to Wounded Knee in "The Red The White and The Blue".

The 2004 film Hidalgo has a brief passage about the 1870s Battle of Wounded Knee Creek.

The 2005 film Into the West had a re-enactment of the battle. It was produced by Steven Spielberg for Turner Network Television.

2005 - Marty Stuart produced Badlands; Ballads of the Lakota, with original songs about the Lakota and a cover of the Cash song "Bigfoot."

May 2007 - HBO Films released the film adaptation of the Dee Brown bestseller Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee on HBO.

2008 - the British rock band Uriah Heep released Wake the Sleeper, including "What Kind of God", inspired by the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Further reading

• Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West, Owl Books (1970). ISBN 0-8050-6669-1.
• Coleman, William S.E. Voices of Wounded Knee, University of Nebraska Press (2000). ISBN 0-8032-1506-1.
• Smith, Rex Alan. Moon of Popping Trees, University of Nebraska Press (1981). ISBN 0-8032-9120-5.
• Utley, Robert M. Last Days of the Sioux Nation, Yale University Press (1963).
• Utley, Robert M. The Indian Frontier 1846-1890, University of New Mexico Press (2003). ISBN 0-8263-2998-5.
• Utley, Robert M. Frontier Regulars The United States Army and the Indian 1866-1891, MacMillan Publishing (1973).
• Yenne, Bill. Indian Wars: The Campaign for the American West, Westholme (2005). ISBN 1-59416-016-3.
• Champlin, Tim. A Trail To Wounded Knee : A Western Story, Five Star (2001). ISBN 0-7826-2401-0

External links

• The Wounded Knee Museum in Wall, South Dakota
• Read a review of HBO's Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee
• Bureau of American Ethnology report on the Ghost Dance Religion
• Editorials by L. Frank Baum
• History of the Ghost Dance Religion
• PBS biography of Jack Wilson
• Walter Mason camp collection includes photographs from the Battle of Wounded Knee Creek
• The Lost Bird of Wounded Knee (1890-1920)
• US Army Casuality list of Wounded Knee
• The effect of the massacre, a photo essay of life in villages near Wounded Knee today