The Wounded Knee Massacre [ushistory.org] 40e. The Wounded Knee Massacre Congressional Medals of Honor were awarded to many of the cavalrymen who fought at Wounded Knee. Despite the current view that the battle was a massacre of innocents, the Medals still stand. Some native American and other groups and individuals continue to lobby Congress to rescind these "Medals of dis-Honor." The armed resistance was over. The remaining Sioux were forced into reservation life at gunpoint. Many Sioux sought spiritual guidance. Thus began a religious awakening among the tribes of North America. Arrival of the "Ghost Dance" Called the "Ghost Dance" by the white soldiers who observed the new practice, it spread rapidly across the continent. Instead of bringing the answer to their prayers, however, the "Ghost Dance" movement resulted in yet another human travesty. It all began in 1888 with a Paiute holy man called Wovoka. During a total eclipse of the sun, Wovoka received a message from the Creator. Soon an Indian messiah would come and the world would be free of the white man. The Indians could return to their lands and the buffalo would once again roam the Great Plains.

Wovoka even knew that all this would happen in the spring of 1891. He and his followers meditated, had visions, chanted, and performed what became known as the Ghost Dance. Soon the movement began to spread. Before long, the Ghost Dance had adherents in tribes throughout the South and West. Although Wovoka preached nonviolence, whites feared that the movement would spark a great Indian rebellion. Ghost Dance followers seemed more defiant than other Native Americans, and the rituals seemed to work its participants into a frenzy. All this was disconcerting to the soldiers and settlers throughout the South and West. Tragedy struck when the Ghost Dance movement reached the Lakota Sioux. Local residents of South Dakota demanded that the Sioux end the ritual of the Ghost Dance. When they were ignored, the United States Army was called for assistance. Fearing aggression, a group of 300 Sioux did leave the reservation. Army regulars believed them to be a hostile force preparing for attack. When the two sides came into contact, the Sioux reluctantly agreed to be tranported to Wounded Knee Creek on Pine Ridge Reservation.

A Final Tragedy On the morning of December 29, 1890, the army demanded the surrender of all Sioux weapons. Amid the tension, a shot rang out, possibly from a deaf brave who misunderstood his chief's orders to surrender. The Seventh Cavalry — the reconstructed regiment lost by George Armstrong Custer — opened fire on the Sioux. The local chief, Big Foot, was shot in cold blood as he recuperated from pneumonia in his tent. Others were cut down as they tried to run away. When the smoke cleared almost all of the 300 men, women, and children were dead. Some died instantly, others froze to death in the snow. This massacre marked the last showdown between Native Americans and the United States Army. It was nearly 400 years after Christopher Columbus first contacted the first Americans. The 1890 United States census declared the frontier officially closed. Wounded Knee - Native American History - HISTORY.com Nearly half of the Sioux killed at the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre were women and children. Wounded Knee: Conflict breaks out On December 29, the U.S.

Army’s 7th Cavalry surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers under Big Foot, a Lakota Sioux chief, near Wounded Knee Creek and demanded they surrender their weapons. As that was happening, a fight broke out between an Indian and a U.S. soldier and a shot was fired, although it’s unclear from which side. A brutal massacre followed, in which it’s estimated 150 Indians were killed (some historians put this number at twice as high), nearly half of them women and children. The cavalry lost 25 men. The conflict at Wounded Knee was originally referred to as a battle, but in reality it was a tragic and avoidable massacre. Surrounded by heavily armed troops, it’s unlikely that Big Foot’s band would have intentionally started a fight. Some historians speculate that the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry were deliberately taking revenge for the regiment’s defeat at Little Bighorn in 1876. Whatever the motives, the massacre ended the Ghost Dance movement and was the last major confrontation in America’s deadly war against the Plains Indians.

Wounded Knee: American Indian activists organize The American Indian Movement (AIM) was founded in 1968 in an effort to stop police harassment of Indians in the Minneapolis area. Borrowing some tactics from the anti-war student demonstrators of the era, AIM soon gained national notoriety for its flamboyant protests. However, many mainstream Indian leaders denounced the youth-dominated group as too radical. In 1972, a faction of AIM members led by Dennis Banks and Leonard Peltier sought to close the divide by making alliances with traditional tribal elders on reservations. They had their greatest success on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota , after a group of young whites murdered a Sioux named Yellow Thunder. Although Yellow Thunder’s attackers only received six-year prison sentences, this was widely seen as a victory by the local Sioux accustomed to unfair treatment by the often racist Anglo judicial system. AIM’s highly visible publicity campaign on the case was given considerable credit for the verdict, winning the organization a great deal of respect on the reservation. Wounded Knee: Siege begins AIM’s growing prestige and influence, however, threatened the conservative Sioux tribal chairman, Dick Wilson.

When Wilson learned of a planned AIM protest against his administration at Pine Ridge, he retreated to tribal headquarters where he was under the protection of federal marshals and Bureau of Indian Affairs police. Rather than confront the police in Pine Ridge, some 200 AIM members and their supporters decided to occupy the symbolically significant hamlet of Wounded Knee, site of the 1890 massacre. Wilson, with the backing of the federal government, responded by besieging Wounded Knee. During the 71 days of the siege, which began on February 27, 1973, federal officers and AIM members exchanged gunfire almost nightly. Hundreds of arrests were made, and two Native Americans were killed and a federal marshal was permanently paralyzed by a bullet wound. The leaders of AIM finally surrendered on May 8 after a negotiated settlement was reached. In a subsequent trial, the judge ordered their acquittal because of evidence that the FBI had manipulated key witnesses. AIM emerged victorious and succeeded in shining a national spotlight on the problems of modern Native Americans. Wounded Knee: Trouble continues at Pine Ridge The troubles at Wounded Knee were not over after the siege.

A virtual civil war broke out between the opposing Indian factions on the Pine Ridge reservation, and a series of beatings, shootings and murders left more than 100 Indians dead. When two FBI agents were killed in a 1975 gunfight, the agency raided the reservation and arrested AIM leader Leonard Peltier for the crime. The FBI crackdown coupled with AIM’s own excesses ended its influence at Pine Ridge. In 1977, Peltier was convicted of killing the two FBI agents and sentenced to life in prison. To this day, Peltier’s supporters continue to maintain his innocence and seek a presidential pardon for him. Tags Wounded Knee Massacre Wounded Knee Massacre The Wounded Knee Massacre is considered the last major conflict between the U.S. Army and Native Americans. It was a one-sided battle where an overwhelming force of U.S. soldiers killed over 200 men, women, and children of the Lakota Indians. When and where did it take place? The battle took place on December 29, 1890 near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota .

Leading up to the Massacre The arrival of European settlers had destroyed much of the culture of Native American tribes such as the Lakota Sioux. The great bison herds, which the tribes had previously hunted for food, had been hunted to near extinction by white men. Also, treaties that the tribes had established with the U.S. government had been broken and land guaranteed them by law had been taken. Ghost Dance Native Americans who wished to return to a life without foreigners formed a religious movement called the Ghost Dance. They believed that by practicing the Ghost Dance the white invaders would leave the land and things would return to the old ways. Sitting Bull Is Killed Some of the settlers were worried that the Ghost Dance would lead to violence. They decided to put a stop to the dance by arresting the Native American leader Sitting Bull . When the arrest when wrong, Sitting Bull was killed and several of his people fled to the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation. Spotted Elk and His People are Surrounded Sitting Bull's people joined up with a group led by Chief Spotted Elk. Spotted Elk's people decided to journey to Pine Ridge and meet up with Chief Red Cloud. While on their journey, they were surrounded by a large contingent of U.S.

soldiers led by Colonel James Forsyth. Forsyth told Chief Spotted Elk to set up camp near the Wounded Knee River. The Massacre Colonel Forsyth had around 500 soldiers. There were around 350 people with Chief Spotted Elk including many women and children. Forsyth wanted to disarm the Indians and take their rifles. He had his soldiers surround the Indian camp and then ordered the Indians to give up their weapons. No one is quite sure what happened next. Many of the Indians gave up their weapons as asked. One account of events says that a deaf warrior named Black Coyote refused to give up his rifle. He could not hear the demands of the soldiers and struggled when they tried to forcibly take his gun. In the struggle, the gun when off. The other soldiers panicked and began to fire. The Indians then fought back. With the superior numbers and fire power of the soldiers, hundreds of Indians were gunned down and killed. Aftermath Historians estimate that somewhere between 150 and 300 Indians were killed. Around half were likely women and children. Chief Spotted Elk died in the battle as well. Around 25 soldiers were killed.

Interesting Facts about the Wounded Knee Massacre Chief Spotted Elk was also known as Chief Big Foot. Today, the Wounded Knee Battlefield is a U.S. National Historic Landmark. In 1973, a group of Native American protesters called the American Indian Movement occupied the small town of Wounded Knee. They held the town for 71 days calling for the United States to uphold broken treaties. Twenty U.S. soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor for their part in the fight. Today, Native American groups have called for these medals to be withdrawn. Activities Take a ten question quiz about this page. Listen to a recorded reading of this page: Your browser does not support the audio element. For more Native American history: Culture and Overview Battle of Wounded Knee | United States history [1890] | Britannica.com Battle of Wounded Knee THIS IS A DIRECTORY PAGE. Britannica does not currently have an article on this topic. Learn about this topic in these articles: in Sioux: The Battle of the Little Bighorn and the cessation of war ...killed as Lakota policemen attempted to take him into custody. When the revitalized U.S.

7th Cavalry—Custer’s former regiment—massacred more than 200 Sioux men, women, and children at Wounded Knee Creek later that year, the Sioux ceased military resistance. in Wounded Knee On Dec. 29, 1890, more than 200 Sioux men, women, and children were massacred by U.S. troops in what has been called the Battle of Wounded Knee, an episode that concluded the conquest of the North American Indian. Reaching out for some hope of salvation from hard conditions, such as semistarvation caused by reduction in the size of their reservation in the late 1880s, the Teton Sioux responded... in Native American: The conquest of the western United States ...killed on December 15, 1890, while being taken into custody. Just 14 days later the U.S. 7th Cavalry—Custer’s regiment reconstituted—encircled and shelled a peaceful Sioux encampment at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, an action many have argued was taken in revenge of the Little Bighorn battle.

More than 200 men, women, children, and elders who were waiting to return to their homes were... 6/12/2006 • American History The intermittent war between the United States and the Plains Indians that stretched across some three decades after the Civil War came to an end on December 29, 1890, at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The events leading up to its final act — the Wounded Knee Massacre — had been building since the late 1880s, when the son of a Paiute shaman named Wovoka had first introduced a series of new beliefs and practices to the Indian reservations of the West. Fundamentally peaceful, Wovoka’s movement envisioned the coming of a new world populated solely by Indians living on the Great Plains where buffalo were again plentiful. Generation upon generation of Indians slain in combat would be reborn into this new world, and all — the living and the formerly dead — would live in bliss, peace and plenty. U.S.

Indian authorities claimed that in the hands of the defeated and embittered leaders of the Teton Sioux — men like Short Bull, Kicking Bear and eventually Sitting Bull himself — Wovoka’s peaceful religion had taken on the militant overtones of a millennial uprising. Wovoka had created a ceremony called the Ghost Dance to invoke the spirits of the dead and facilitate their resurrection. The Sioux apostles of the Ghost Dance purportedly preached that it would bring about a day of deliverance — a day when they were strong enough again to wage all-out war against the whites. They had fashioned ‘ghost shirts, which they claimed white bullets could not penetrate. In any case, Ghost Dancing had quickly become the rage of the Western reservations such as Pine Ridge and Rosebud. Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy, an anxious Pine Ridge Reservation agent, Daniel F. Royer, telegraphed Washington in November 1890. We need protection and we need it now. The leaders should be arrested and confined at some military post until the matter is quieted, and this should be done at once. The Indian Bureau in Washington quickly branded the Ghost Dancers fomenters of disturbances and ordered the Army to arrest them.

On November 20, cavalry and infantry reinforcements arrived at the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations, but their arrival did not intimidate the Sioux followers of Short Bull and Kicking Bear. Quite the contrary, it seemed to galvanize their resolve. A former Indian agent, Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy, advised Washington to call off the troops: I should let the dance continue. The coming of the troops has frightened the Indians. If the Seventh-Day Adventists prepare their ascension robes for the second coming of the savior, the United States Army is not put in motion to prevent them. Why should the Indians not have the same privilege? If the troops remain, trouble is sure to come. About 3,000 Indians had assembled on a plateau at the northwest corner of Pine Ridge in a nearly impregnable area that came to be called the Stronghold. Brigadier General John R. Brooke, commander of the Pine Ridge area, quickly dispatched emissaries to talk with the hostiles. Brooke’s commanding officer, hard-nosed Civil War veteran and Indian fighter Maj. Gen. Nelson A. Miles, did not approve of such parleys.

He saw in them evidence of indecision, and, furthermore, believed the Indians would interpret talk as a sign of weakness. Miles decided to prosecute the campaign against the Ghost Dancers personally and transferred his headquarters to Rapid City, S.D. While Miles was preparing this move, Sitting Bull — the most influential of all Sioux leaders — began actively celebrating the Ghost Dance and its doctrine at the Standing Rock Reservation that straddled the North and South Dakota border. The agent in charge there, James McLaughlin, weighed his options. He did not want to repeat the hysterical mistake of his colleague at Pine Ridge by telegraphing for soldiers. He decided instead to use reservation policemen — Indians — to effect the quiet arrest and removal of the old chief. Unfortunately, General Miles would not accept it. For Miles, the arrest of Sitting Bull would be a momentous act in a great drama. It should not be left to Indians, and it should not be done secretively; if anything, it called for showmanship. Miles contacted the greatest showman the West had ever known: William Buffalo Bill Cody.

As everybody in the country probably knew — Buffalo Bill had seen to that himself — he and Sitting Bull were friends, or, at least, Sitting Bull held Cody in high regard. Sitting Bull, after all, had been a star attraction in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. If any white man could convince Sitting Bull to step down, it would be Buffalo Bill. Agent McLaughlin was aghast at the notion of carting in the likes of Buffalo Bill Cody to carry out what should be done quietly and without publicity. He was convinced that Buffalo Bill’s presence would only inflame tempers and transform the proceedings into a circus or something worse. Accordingly, when Cody arrived at Standing Rock on November 27, McLaughlin saw to it that the celebrity was glad-handed and subtly shanghaied by the commanding officer of nearby Fort Yates, Lt. Col. William F. Drum. Drum entertained Cody all night at the officers’ club while McLaughlin worked feverishly behind Miles’ back to have the showman’s authority rescinded. It was a desperate plan, and McLaughlin had missed one crucial fact: The man capable of drinking Buffalo Bill Cody under the table had yet to be born.

Come morning, Cody was bright eyed and ready to set out for Sitting Bull’s camp. McLaughlin hastily arranged for additional delays — just long enough for the arrival of orders canceling Cody’s mission. The old entertainer seethed but boarded the next train back to Chicago. He had not set eyes on Sitting Bull. But the situation at Pine Ridge Reservation was heating up. Word reached McLaughlin that Short Bull and Kicking Bear had formally invited Sitting Bull to leave Standing Rock and join them and their people at the Stronghold on the reservation. The time had come to act. McLaughlin dispatched 43 reservation policemen on December 15 to arrest Sitting Bull before he set out for Pine Ridge. Officers surrounded the old chief’s cabin as Lieutenant Bull Head, Sergeant Red Tomahawk and Sergeant Shave Head entered it. The chief awoke from slumber, and, seeing the men, asked, What do you want here? You are my prisoner, said Bull Head. You must go to the agency. Sitting Bull asked for a moment to put his clothes on. By the time the reservation police officers emerged with their prisoner, a crowd had gathered. A warrior named Catch-the-Bear called out, Let us protect our chief!

and he leveled his rifle at Bull Head. He fired, hitting him in the side. The wounded policeman spun around with the force of the impact. His own weapon discharged, perhaps accidentally, perhaps intentionally. A round hit Sitting Bull, point blank, in the chest. Then policeman Red Tomahawk stepped into the fray and shot Sitting Bull in the back of the head. McLaughlin had hoped to avoid a circus. As the reservation police officers scuffled with Sitting Bull’s followers, the slain chief’s horse — which Buffalo Bill had presented to him back when he was part of the Wild West Show — was apparently stimulated by the familiar noise of a crowd, and performed his repertoire of circus tricks. Miles had not intended that Sitting Bull be killed, but it had happened, and the general accepted it as he would any casualty in the fog of war. Just now he had yet another Ghost Dancer to arrest, and that’s where he focused his attention. Chief Big Foot was leader of the Miniconjou Sioux, who lived on the Cheyenne River. Unknown to Miles, Big Foot had recently renounced the Ghost Dance religion, convinced that it offered nothing more than desperation and futility.

Miles was also unaware that Chief Red Cloud, a Pine Ridge leader friendly to white authorities, had asked Big Foot to visit the reservation and use his influence to persuade the Stronghold party to surrender. All Miles knew — or thought he knew — was that Big Foot was on his way to the Stronghold, and it was up to the Army to prevent him from joining Short Bull, Kicking Bear and the others. Miles dispatched troops across the prairies and badlands to intercept any and all Miniconjous, especially Big Foot. On December 28, 1890, a squadron of the 7th Cavalry located the chief and about 350 Miniconjous camped near a stream called Wounded Knee Creek. Big Foot was in his wagon, huddled against the bitter winter. He was feverish, sick with pneumonia. During the night of the 28th, additional soldiers moved into the area, so that by daybreak on the 29th, 500 soldiers, all under the command of Colonel James W. Forsyth, surrounded Big Foot’s camp. Four Hotchkiss guns, small cannons capable of rapid fire, were aimed at the camp from the hills around it.

The mission was to disarm the Indians and march them to the railroad, where a waiting train would remove them from the zone of military operations. As the Indians set up their tepees on the night of the 28th, they saw the Hotchkiss guns on the ridge above them. That evening I noticed that they were erecting cannons up [there], one of the Indians recalled, also hauling up quite a lot of ammunition. The guns were ominously trained on the Indian camp. A bugle call woke up the Indians the next morning. The sky was clear and very blue as the soldiers entered the camp. Surrounded by bluecoats on horses, the Indians were ordered to assemble front and center. The soldiers demanded their weapons. Outraged, medicine man Yellow Bird began dancing, urging his people to don their sacred shirts. The bullets will not hurt you, he told them. Next, Black Coyote, whom another Miniconjou called a crazy man, a young man of very bad influence and in fact a nobody, raised his Winchester above his head as the troopers approached him to collect it. He began shouting that he had paid much money for the rifle, that it belonged to him and that nobody was going to take it.

The soldiers, annoyed, crowded in on him and then began spinning him around and generally roughing him up. A shot rang out. Instantly, troopers began firing indiscriminately at the Indians. There were only about a hundred warriors, Black Elk reported. And there were nearly five hundred soldiers. The warriors rushed to where they had piled their guns and knives. Hand-to-hand fights broke out, and some of the Indians started to run. Then the Indians heard the awful roar of the Hotchkiss guns. Shells rained down, almost a round a second, mowing down men, women and children — each shell carrying a two-pound charge, each exploding into thousands of fragments. The smoke was thick as fog; the Indians were running blind. Louise Weasel Bear said, We tried to run, but they shot us like we were buffalo. Yellow Bird’s son, just 4 years old at the time, saw his father shot through the head: My father ran and fell down and the blood came out of his mouth. Those who fled the camp were chased down by soldiers.

Rough Feathers’ wife remembered: I saw some of the other Indians running up the coulee so I ran with them, but the soldiers kept shooting at us and the bullets flew all around us. My father, my grandfather, my older brother and my younger brother were all killed. My son who was two years old was shot in the mouth that later caused his death. Black Elk added: Dead and wounded women and children and little babies were scattered all along there where they had been trying to run away. The soldiers had followed them along the gulch, as they ran, and murdered them in there. In one of the gulches, two little boys who had found guns were lying in ambush, and they had been killing soldiers all by themselves. An hour later the guns stopped. The place was silent. Trails of blood trickled along the ground heading out of camp toward the gulches. Hundreds of Indians lay dead or dying on the frosted earth alongside a score of soldiers, hit mostly by the fire of their own Hotchkisses. Clouds filled the sky, and soon a heavy snow began to fall.

Three days later, New Year’s Day 1891, after the blizzard had passed, a burial party was sent to pull the frozen Indians from beneath the blanket of snow and dump them in a long ditch, piled one upon another like so much cordwood, until the pit was full. Many of the corpses were naked because soldiers had stripped the ghost shirts from the dead to take home as souvenirs. General Miles scrambled to distance himself from what public outrage there was over the massacre at Wounded Knee. He relieved Forsyth of command and convened a court of inquiry, which exonerated the colonel. Miles protested, but his immediate superior, General John M. Schofield, together with Secretary of War Redfield Proctor, eventually reinstated Forsyth’s command. In the meantime, the massacre at Wounded Knee caused hostile and friendly Sioux factions to unite. Even though Chief Red Cloud protested and repudiated his people’s participation, on December 30, Sioux under Kicking Bear attacked the 7th Cavalry near the Pine Ridge Agency along White Clay Creek.

At first it looked like it might be another Custer debacle, but black troopers of the 9th Cavalry rode to the rescue and drove off the Indians. General Miles acted quickly to assemble a force of 8,000 troops, deploying them to surround the Sioux, who had returned to the Stronghold. This time Miles was careful, acting slowly and deliberately to contract the ring — almost gently — around the Indians. As he did this, he urged them to surrender, and he pledged good treatment. Whether anyone believed Miles or not, it had become clear that what the Ghost Dance foretold was a hope forlorn. The Sioux laid down their arms on January 15, 1891, bringing decades of war to an end. While lives were lost on both sides at White Clay Creek and in other skirmishes here and there, the massacre at Wounded Knee is generally considered to be the last major engagement of the Indian wars. This article was written by Charles Phillips and originally published in the December 2005 issue of American History Magazine. For more great articles, subscribe to American History magazine today!

Wounded Knee | hamlet, South Dakota, United States | Britannica.com hamlet, South Dakota, United States Written By: United States Wounded Knee, hamlet and creek on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in southwestern South Dakota , U.S. It was the site of two conflicts between North American Indians and representatives of the U.S. government. On Dec. 29, 1890, more than 200 Sioux men, women, and children were massacred by U.S. troops in what has been called the Battle of Wounded Knee , an episode that concluded the conquest of the North American Indian. Reaching out for some hope of salvation from hard conditions, such as semistarvation caused by reduction in the size of their reservation in the late 1880s, the Teton Sioux responded affirmatively to Wovoka , a Paiute prophet who promised the disappearance of the white man and a return of native lands and buffalo if certain rites and dances were performed. These rites, known as the Ghost Dance , caused alarm among whites and led to federal military intervention.

The army subdued the Ghost Dance movement, but Chief Sitting Bull was killed by reservation police while being arrested (December 14), and a few hundred Sioux left their reservation at Pine Ridge, seeking to hide in the Badlands. Technically classified as hostiles because they had left the reservation, the Indians gathered around Chief Big Foot (byname of Chief Spotted Elk), who was dying of pneumonia. However, they surrendered quietly to pursuing troops of the 7th Cavalry on the night of December 28. Following an overnight encampment near Wounded Knee Creek, the Indians were surrounded and were nearly disarmed when a scuffle broke out over a young brave’s new rifle. A shot was fired from within the group of struggling men, and a trooper fell. From close range the soldiers, supported by machine guns, fired into the Indians, whose only arms were the clubs and knives that they had hidden in blankets. Fleeing Indians were pursued, and some were killed miles from the camp.

Although the number of Indian dead is unknown (the Indians removed some of the dead later), 144 Indians, including 44 women and 16 children, were buried in a mass grave the following spring when the weather permitted the army to return. About 30 soldiers were killed during the hostilities. Similar Topics Battle of the Little Bighorn - Native American History - HISTORY.com Battle of the Little Bighorn Battle of the Little Bighorn Author Battle of the Little Bighorn URL A+E Networks Introduction The Battle of the Little Bighorn, fought on June 25, 1876, near the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory, pitted federal troops led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer (1839-76) against a band of Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne warriors. Tensions between the two groups had been rising since the discovery of gold on Native American lands. When a number of tribes missed a federal deadline to move to reservations, the U.S. Army, including Custer and his 7th Calvary, was dispatched to confront them.

Custer was unaware of the number of Indians fighting under the command of Sitting Bull (c.1831-90) at Little Bighorn, and his forces were outnumbered and quickly overwhelmed in what became known as Custer’s Last Stand. Google Battle of the Little Bighorn: Mounting Tensions Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse (c.1840-77), leaders of the Sioux on the Great Plains, strongly resisted the mid-19th-century efforts of the U.S. government to confine their people to reservations. In 1875, after gold was discovered in South Dakota’s Black Hills, the U.S. Army ignored previous treaty agreements and invaded the region. This betrayal led many Sioux and Cheyenne tribesmen to leave their reservations and join Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse in Montana . By the late spring of 1876, more than 10,000 Native Americans had gathered in a camp along the Little Bighorn River–which they called the Greasy Grass–in defiance of a U.S. War Department order to return to their reservations or risk being attacked. Did You Know?

Several members ofGeorge Armstrong Custer's family were alsokilled at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, including two of his brothers, his brother-in-law and a nephew. In mid-June, three columns of U.S. soldiers lined up against the camp and prepared to march. A force of 1,200 Native Americans turned back the first column on June 17. Five days later, General Alfred Terry ordered George Custer’s 7th Cavalry to scout ahead for enemy troops. On the morning of June 25, Custer drew near the camp and decided to press on ahead rather than wait for reinforcements. Battle of the Little Bighorn: Custer’s Last Stand At mid-day on June 25, Custer’s 600 men entered the Little Bighorn Valley. Among the Native Americans, word quickly spread of the impending attack. The older Sitting Bull rallied the warriors and saw to the safety of the women and children, while Crazy Horse set off with a large force to meet the attackers head on. Despite Custer’s desperate attempts to regroup his men, they were quickly overwhelmed.

Custer and some 200 men in his battalion were attacked by as many as 3,000 Native Americans; within an hour, Custer and all of his soldiers were dead. The Battle of the Little Bighorn, also called Custer’s Last Stand, marked the most decisive Native American victory and the worst U.S. Army defeat in the long Plains Indian War. The demise of Custer and his men outraged many white Americans and confirmed their image of the Indians as wild and bloodthirsty. Meanwhile, the U.S. government increased its efforts to subdue the tribes. Within five years, almost all of the Sioux and Cheyenne would be confined to reservations. Tags Surviving Wounded Knee | The Aftermath Project Surviving Wounded Knee Surviving Wounded Knee Danny Frazier, 2010 Winner An exploration of the aftermath of the 19th century Wounded Knee massacre in South Dakota and of the 1973 stand-off between the American Indian Movement, which occupied Wounded Knee for 71 days, and the US government. Wilcox examines the plight of the Lakota Indian people who are still fighting for disputed lands.

The sun begins to set in the Badlands of South Dakota, the region that is home to the Lakotas. The Oglala Lakota people have long resisted the US government and continue their legal battle over the sacred Paha Sapa (Black Hills). Originally confined to the Pine Ridge Reservation, most Oglala today live in abject poverty in what is the poorest region of the United States. Paha Sapa (Black Hills). The 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty guaranteed the Black Hills for the Lakotas, but the treaty was broken after General Custer announced the discovery of gold in 1874. That announcement triggered a boom by prospectors that consumed much of the Lakota’s sacred land. (2010) Girl at home, Oglala, Pine Ridge Reservation. (2010) Dog and carcass, Batesland, Pine Ridge Reservation. (2010) Summer Mills at her grandmother’s front window, Porcupine, Pine Ridge Reservation. (2010) Mass Grave and Wounded Knee Massacre Site, Pine Ridge Reservation. The U.S.

7th Calvary massacred nearly 300 men, women, and children on December 29, 1890 at Wounded Knee Creek, the tragic end to the Indian Wars. Between 170 and 200 of those killed were women and children. (2010) Winter, near Wanblee, Pine Ridge Reservation. (2008) Boys play rough, Oglala, Pine Ridge Reservation. (2010) Oglala tribal rangers shot a buffalo that will be processed and distributed to tribal members for ceremonial and social events across the Pine Ridge Reservation. The Lakota tribes of the Great Plains traditionally depended on the buffalo for food, clothing, shelter, and spiritual guidance. The US government supported the extermination of the buffalo from the American West. Wikuchela Waters sleeps on his parents’ bed in Allen, South Dakota. Allen, part of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, has been called the poorest city in America, with a per capita income of $1,539. Over 90% of the population on the Pine Ridge Reservation lives below the federal poverty line, while unemployment ranges from 85% to 90%.

Zaniyan Little dishes up food for her children and extended family. Little lives with her husband, Andre Mills, at her mother-inlaw’s home outside of Porcupine, South Dakota. Numerous family members stay at the house when temperature drop during winter months, their own homes lacking sufficient heat. (2010) Paha Sapa (Black Hills), South Dakota. (2010) Floating in the creek, Pine Ridge Village, Pine Ridge Reservation. (2011) Children play at sunset, Allen, Pine Ridge Reservation. (2008) Horseshoes, Allen, Pine Ridge Reservation. (2008) Horseback, Batesland, Pine Ridge Reservation. (2010) Alton Broken Rope (dead at the age of 32), Allen, Pine Ridge Reservation. Life expectancy is forty-eight years for men and fifty-two years for woman on the reservation. (2008) Kids get high, Allen, Pine Ridge Reservation. (2010) John Waters at home, Allen, Pine Ridge Reservation. John and his extended family are known as traditionalists on the reservation, Lakotas who work to preserve their language and culture.

(2010) Snow covers ridges and pines near Kyle, Pine Ridge Reservation. (2010) Pines on a hill, Pine Ridge Reservation. (2010) Getting every last drop, Allen, Pine Ridge Reservation. (2008); Doing homework in a cold, unfinished basement during winter, Oglala, Pine Ridge Reservation. (2010); Clarence Broken Rope is one of the many young people on Pine Ridge Reservation without a job. The reservation has an unemployment rate of more than 80 percent. (2008) Boy with mask, Oglala, Pine Ridge Reservation. (2010) Boys play in a creek, Pine Ridge Village, Pine Ridge Reservation. Many Lakotas worry that their traditions, including the language, seem to be fading as elders die and the reservation’s youth embrace popular culture. (2010) Wild horse races take place at the Oglala Lakota Nation Pow Wow on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Lakotas celebrate traditional life throughout late summer with Sun Dances and horse races across the reservation. The Pine Ridge region is America’s poorest, but it is a part of the country rich in culture and tradition.

Funeral for car accident victims, Manderson, Pine Ridge Reservation. (2010) Hunting deer, Pine Ridge Reservation. (2010) View the photo gallery Photographer's Statement: The history of Wounded Knee, though forgotten by many Americans, is very much alive on the Pine Ridge Reservation, where the lives of the Lakotas are still defined today by what happened on December 29, 1890. On that cold day, the U.S. 7th Calvary slaughtered more than 300 Lakotas, most of them women and children. The Wounded Knee Massacre is known as the event that brought an end to the 19th century “Indian Wars” waged by the U.S. government on the native people of North America. My first trip to the Wounded Knee Massacre site was on an evening of bitter cold. Dense clouds hung overhead and the dull gray light appeared lifeless. Snow seemed to fly horizontally, while the wind stung like tiny needles poking just beyond the skin’s surface. As day began to fade, the sun appeared through a break in the clouds. The rays of light burned bright, a red haze soaked the scene around me.

The wind seemed to fall silent, like a dancer suspended in a moment of flight. The crimson sky pulled my gaze west toward the Black Hills, “Paha Sapa”— the land that was at the heart of the war between the Lakotas and the United States. The Black Hills are the sacred spiritual center for Lakota traditions. In 1868, the U.S. government signed a treaty with the Lakotas, guaranteeing them rights to territory that included the Black Hills. General Custer discovered gold there in 1874, and soon those hallowed lands were invaded by prospectors eager to strike it rich. The Lakotas fought back and U.S. forces punished them severely—ultimately forcing all Lakotas onto reservations and subjugating the tribes. Over 100 years later the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Lakotas, stating that the terms of the 1868 treaty had been violated and the land taken illegally. The Court awarded the Lakotas a cash settlement, but the tribes refused payment, demanding instead the return of the Black Hills. To date, the legal battle is unresolved.

Just south of the Black Hills, in the poorest region of the United States, sits the Pine Ridge Reservation (home to Wounded Knee and the Oglala Lakota). Two out of three people on the reservation live below the federal poverty line. Lakotas suffer rates dramatically worse than the national averages for life expectancy, disease, addiction, sexual abuse, and suicide. These conditions are the continuing legacy of American’s progress in the West, progress attained without virtue or compassion. My time on Pine Ridge has cultivated in me a respect for the Oglala Lakota that I cannot express in words. That, I do with my photographs. These are my record of the beauty and hardships I have witnessed there, my feelings about a people whose love for their land and their culture remains remarkably resilient, whose determination to maintain their heritage perseveres more than a century after the bloody events at Wounded Knee.

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small Wounded Knee google map image link <a href="" title="google satellite map of Wounded Knee"><img src="" width="260" height="150" border="0" alt="Wounded Knee google map" style="border:1px solid #000;"/></a> medium Wounded Knee google map image link <a href="" title="google satellite map of Wounded Knee"><img src="" width="300" height="250" border="0" alt="Wounded Knee google map" style="border:1px solid #000;"/></a> large Wounded Knee google map image link <a href="" title="google satellite map of Wounded Knee"><img src="" width="336" height="280" border="0" alt="Wounded Knee google map" style="border:1px solid #000;"/></a> latest placemarks Wounded Knee, 1890 - 1973 in photos Wounded Knee, 1890 – 1973 in photos Posted Jan 02, 2014 Share This Gallery On December 29, 1890 members of

 the U.S.

7th Cavalry Regiment opened fire on hundreds of Lakota men, women and children, killing over 150 people. “The regrettable and tragic clash of arms at this site on December 29, 1890, the last significant engagement between Indians and soldiers on the North American Continent, ended nearly four centuries of warfare between westward-wending Americans and the indigenous peoples. Although the majority of the participants on both sides had not intended to use their arms—precipitated by individual indiscretion in a tense and confused situation rather than by organized premeditation—and although the haze of gunsmoke that hung over the battlefield has obscured some of the facts, the action more resembles a massacre than a battle. For 20th-century America, it serves as an example of national guilt for the mistreatment of the Indians.” – National Park Service . Events at the site of the 1890 massacre again captured the nation’s attention on February 27, 1973 when nearly 200 activists from the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized the community of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

The siege lasted 71 days as activists briefly held 11 hostages and exchanged gunfire with FBI agents and U.S. marshals. The site was specifically chosen by AIM leaders Russell Means and Dennis Banks to protest living conditions, uninvestigated crimes against Indian people and the federal government’s violation of treaties. During the 71 day occupation , two AIM supporters were killed and a deputy marshal wounded. Today, Wounded Knee and the Pine Ridge Reservation is one of the poorest places in America. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, Shannon County, S.D., which is contained within the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation is one of only five counties in the United States with poverty rates greater than 39 percent . The following historic images from the Associated Press, Library of Congress , Denver Public Library and The Denver Post’s archives span the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre to the 1973 standoff.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 2nd, 2014 at 9:15 pm and is filed under From The Archive , World and National News and tagged with AIM , American Indian Movement , Dennis Banks , Lakota , Oglala , pine ridge reservation , red cloud , Russell Means , Sioux , sitting bull , South Dakota , wounded knee incident , wounded knee massacre . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. ← → José Guns are not an answer to peace. Being them a symbol of slavery to passion, they cannot extend freedom Mr. Ditba They are not meant to be an answer to peace. Guns are the answer and solution to oppression, slavery and tyranny. Denise Leitzel

Question: In which US State did the Battle of Wounded Knee take place?
Answer: SOUTH DAKOTA