Wounded Knee
Wounded Knee – 120th Anniversary
(This article is dedicated to the memory of Rex Holy Dance, USMC Korean War veteran who was a descendent of one of the women who survived the massacre. Mr. Holy Dance crossed over July 4, 2010 at his home in Slim Butte, SD. Rex’s father, also named Rex, was born of one of the survivors shortly after the massacre, as per a discussion with Beatrice Weasel Bear, Rex Holy Dance’s sister.)
This is not a holiday story. But it occurred during the winter holiday season of the majority culture.
This is not a legend. But it is remembered far and wide among not only the Lakota Oyate (people) but all the native peoples of
Most of all, it is about survival.
1890 began as any year on the reservations, with desperate people trying hard to simply live as they had for thousands of years while being swept aside by the tide of American western expansion. The ‘sweeping aside’ included being assigned individual plots of land and forced to farm rather than living the nomad’s life of hunters and gatherers.
Once the buffalo had been purposefully hunted to near extinction by European Americans, the major form of subsistence for plains Indians
in general and the Lakota in particular became untenable. Between government sponsored slaughter excursions and the high bounty paid for buffalo tongue and hides, it was not long before the dependence of the Lakota upon the buffalo became impractical. This intentional denial of livelihood was designed as a means of control as well as to facilitate forced assimilation.
Elaine Goodale Eastman, visiting Indian schools during the fall of 1890, also was alarmed: "In persistent hot winds the pitiful little gardens of the Indians curled up and died. Even the native hay crop was a failure. I had never before seen so much sickness. The appearance of the people shocked me. Lean and wiry in health, with glowing skins and the look of mettle, many now displayed gaunt forms, lackluster faces, and sad, deep-sunken eyes." http://www.dickshovel.com/WagnerA.html
As the eighteen eighties came to a close, there appeared to be hope in the darkness. Word came from the west, from families and brothers as they quietly traveled. The Ghost Dance was a simple one, begot of the desperate times of restrictive reservation conditions. It began among the Paiutes of Nevada – a prayer for the return of the old days. In the dance, relatives long gone were revisited through trance and prayer. The struggles of the day could be borne because tomorrow, with prayer, the buffalo and the old ways would return with what became termed the rolling up of the world. Whether it was through vision or Mormon influence, sacred attire known as Ghost Dance shirts became part of the ritual. As the danger of military intervention became greater, these shirts took on bullet-proof attributes as a protective garment of the wearers.
By the fall of the year 1889, the Lakota had already quietly sent specific travelers to learn from a Paiute called Wovoka because they were in such desperate need of that hope the prayers were bringing to other western Indian nations. Short Bull (T?at?á?ka Ptécela) and Kicking Bear (Mat?ó Waná?take) were entrusted with this dangerous, exploratory undertaking for their people. This trip was made all the more perilous because movement beyond one’s specific reservation required agency papers and permission.
The concept of the Lakota, or any Indian tribe, taking charge of their lives was extremely threatening to all manner of government officials entrusted with the task of ‘civilizing the savages’. The goal was for these wandering hunter/gatherers with an incredibly complex spiritual legacy, to give it all up in less than a generation to become obedient Christian farmers. The new lifestyle was to be supplemented by government rations.
“On November 12, 1890, the Pine Ridge reservation agent wired the army to send help after witnessing Indians dancing wildly in the snow. Major General Miles responded with 5,000 men. They included the Seventh Cavalry, brought up to strength with new soldiers.” http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1550.html
“There were also many clashes in 1890 between white cowboys, the U.S. Army and Indians that resulted in the massacres of Indian people. The following are three examples:
- The State of
- A small band of Indians were also killed by the cowboy militia in early December, 1890, on French Creek. The band had gone to Buffalo Gap to hunt at the ranch of a friendly white man they knew. They were greeted with a gun. They were unaware of the events that were transpiring around them. They sensed something wrong and attempted to leave. Because their horses were tired, they had to make camp on French Creek and were massacred in a surprise attack the next morning. One young woman managed to escape to tell the story. The U.S. Government had a duty under Article 8 of the 1877 Act to protect the Indians, but failed to hold the State of
- The United States Army was also guilty of a massacre in early December of 1890. Troops A & B of the 8th Cavalry under Capt. Almond B. Wells was stationed at
The above incidents are documented in the Renee Sansom Flood Collection at Vermillion,
STATEMENT OF MARIO GONZALEZ, ATTORNEY, CHEYENNE RIVER AND PINE RIDGE WOUNDED KNEE SURVIVORS' ASSOCIATIONS AND OGLALA SIOUX TRIBE, SUPPORTING PROPOSALS TO ESTABLISH A MEMORIAL AND HISTORIC SITE TO COMMEMORATE THE EVENTS SURROUNDING THE 1890 INDIAN MASSACRE AT WOUNDED KNEE CREEK, SOUTH DAKOTA, IN THE HEARING OF SEPTEMBER 25,1990, BEFORE THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS, U.S. SENATE, WASHINGTON, D.C.” http://www.dickshovel.com/mario.html
Amazingly, American historians to this day, look upon these as the events in the final hours of 1890 as what they call ‘The closing of the Frontier’. From a long view of European-American culture, this truly was the end of an era. "On December 29, 1890 at Wounded Knee Creek, on the Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota, some 500 soldiers of the United States Seventh Cavalry opened fire on approximately 350 Lakota (Sioux) Indians of Chief Big Foot's Miniconjou band. At the end of the confrontation, between 150 and 300 Sioux men, women, and children, including Chief Big Foot, were dead. This event marked the end of Lakota resistance until the 1970s. Apart from the few minor skirmishes that followed, the
Most of the traumatic events happened in December. At the very end of what the Lakota call
It was warm and dry for the season in the
On top of all the other expanding tensions building in the
For the Lakota, it was another attack on their leadership as well as their religious freedom threatening their very existence. Word of the attack spread quickly across the reservations in the
Fear followed. There were rumors and some concrete evidence of a government containment list.
Spotted Elk (He?áka Glešká) (Big Foot was the derogatory name given to him by the
During the approximately ten years of reservation life at
Thus, shortly after the murder of Sitting Bull, families from the Standing Rock reservation, who had previously followed him, began to join the Minneconjou under the leadership of Spotted Elk, for a journey south towards Red Cloud’s reservation in hopes of finding some sanity and protection. Over the course of the journey in the bitter cold, Spotted Elk developed pneumonia.
Many of the
General Miles sent this telegraph from
"The difficult Indian problem cannot be solved permanently at this end of the line. It requires the fulfillment of Congress of the treaty obligations that the Indians were entreated and coerced into signing. They signed away a valuable portion of their reservation, and it is now occupied by white people, for which they have received nothing.
They understood that ample provision would be made for their support; instead, their supplies have been reduced, and much of the time they have been living on half and two-thirds rations. Their crops, as well as the crops of the white people, for two years have been almost total failures.
The dissatisfaction is wide spread, especially among the Sioux, while the
By December 28th, 350 men, women and children led by Spotted Elk were intercepted by a 7th Cavalry detachment under Major Samuel M. Whiteside southwest of the badlands near Porcupine Butte. This ragtag band approached the troops under a white flag. As a result of scout advisement, they were not disarmed at this time. The major, however, noting that Spotted Elk was ill and bleeding, arranged for him to be transferred to an ambulance wagon from the open one he was using at the time. After a peaceful interaction with all concerned, they headed to their destination, Wounded Knee Creek.
Once situated at the predetermined location, Major Whiteside not only deployed his forces but the two Hotchkiss guns directed at the lodges as well. Over night, Colonel John Forsyth and the rest of the assigned 7th Cavalry arrived with two more Hotchkiss guns and orders to ship the band by rail to a military prison in
There was a shot then chaos. Few survived. Most were hunted down as they escaped. Children were even called out of hiding only to be shot when they showed themselves. It is not unusual for residents to still refer to the area as ‘killing fields’. There is a palpable unease in the area even today, one hundred and twenty years after the event.
Rather than provide a fourth, fifth or sixth hand account of the event, I will now let those survivors tell the story.
FLYING HAWK'S RECOLLECTIONS OF WOUNDED KNEE (1936): “This was the last big trouble with the Indians and soldiers and was in the winter in 1890. When the Indians would not come in from the Bad Lands, they got a big army together with plenty of clothing and supplies and camp-and-wagon equipment for a big campaign; they had enough soldiers to make a round-up of all the Indians they called hostiles.
The Government army, after many fights and loss of lives, succeeded in driving these starving Indians, with their families of women and gaunt-faced children, into a trap, where they could be forced to surrender their arms. This was on
The Indians were hungry and weak and they suffered from lack of clothing and furs because the whites had driven away all the game. When the soldiers had them all surrounded and they had their tepees set up, the officers sent troopers to each of them to search for guns and take them from the owners. If the Indians in the tepees did not at once hand over a gun, the soldier tore open their parfleech trunks and bundles and bags of robes or clothes,--looking for pistols and knives and ammunition. It was an ugly business, and brutal; they treated the Indians like they would torment a wolf with one foot in a strong trap; they could do this because the Indians were now in the white man's trap,--and they were helpless.
Then a shot was heard from among the Indian tepees. An Indian was blamed; the excitement began; soldiers ran to their stations; officers gave orders to open fire with the machine guns into the crowds of innocent men, women and children, and in a few minutes more than two hundred and twenty of them lay in the snow dead and dying. A terrible blizzard raged for two days covering the bodies with Nature's great white blanket; some lay in piles of four or five; others in twos or threes or singly, where they fell until the storm subsided. When a trench had been dug of sufficient length and depth to contain the frozen corpses, they were collected and piled, like cord-wood, in one vast icy tomb. While separating several stiffened forms which had fallen in a heap, two of them proved to be women, and hugged closely to their breasts were infant babes still alive after lying in the storm for two days in 20 degrees below zero weather.
I was there and saw the trouble,--but after the shooting was over; it was all bad.“ http://occawlonline.pearsoned.com/bookbind/pubbooks/divine5e/chapter17/medialib/primarysources3_17_4.html
“I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream . . . . the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.”
---- Black Elk
American Horse, Oglala Sioux, described the carnage: "There was a woman with an infant in her arms who was killed as she almost touched the flag of truce...A mother was shot down with her infant; the child not knowing that its mother was dead was still nursing...The women as they were fleeing with their babies were killed together, shot right through...and after most all of them had been killed a cry was made that all those who were not killed or wounded should come forth and they would be safe. Little boys...came out of their places of refuge, and as soon as they came in sight a number of soldiers surrounded them and butchered them there.” http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/WKmscr.html
According to commanding Gen. 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 Spotted Elk, and a large number of women and children who tried to escape by running and scattering over the prairie were hunted down and killed." http://www.answers.com/topic/wounded-knee-massacre-2
Edward S. Godfrey; Captain; commanded Co. D of the Seventh Cavalry: "I know the men did not aim deliberately and they were greatly excited. I don't believe they saw their sights. They fired rapidly but it seemed to me only a few seconds till there was not a living thing before us; warriors, squaws, children, ponies, and dogs...went down before that un-aimed fire." (Godfrey was a Lieutenant in Captain Benteen's force during the
Hugh McGinnis; First Battalion, Co. K, Seventh Cavalry: “General Nelson A. Miles who visited the scene of carnage, following a three day blizzard, estimated that around 300 snow shrouded forms were strewn over the countryside. He also discovered to his horror that helpless children and women with babes in their arms had been chased as far as two miles from the original scene of encounter and cut down without mercy by the troopers. ... Judging by the slaughter on the battlefield it was suggested that the soldiers simply went berserk. For who could explain such a merciless disregard for life?... As I see it the battle was more or less a matter of spontaneous combustion, sparked by mutual distrust...” http://www.answers.com/topic/wounded-knee-massacre-2
Charles Allen described the Lakota tent camp after the Wounded Knee massacre: ”We rode past what but recently had been the site of a far-flung camp of white and brown army tents and the grimy old canvas of torn tepees; now marked only, here and there, by the bended willow frames and shattered poles of what so lately were shelters for the living. Near by was the debris-strewn grass where lay the lonely dead.” http://www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/books/others/rejallen.htm
******************
Five days after the massacre, the Aberdeen Saturday Pioneer ran the following by editorialist L. Frank Baum "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." Mr. Baum later went on to write the Wizard of Oz books for children. In 2006, descendants of Baum asked the Lakota people to forgive Baum for the editorials he wrote calling for their annihilation.
Black Elk was interviewed by John Neihardt for his 1932 book, Black Elk Speaks. This has gone on to be one of the most famous and thorough books on Oglala culture and life.
In the 1990’s, a major factory for the production of ballistic cloth used for bullet proof vests and body armor was located east of the Standing Rock Reservation.
In 2004, Beatrice Weasel Bear, a descendent of massacre survivors, widow of survivors, was chosen to be one of the thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers. Her son, Aloysius Weasel Bear is a seventh generation descendent of Sitting Bull.
Tim Giago, founder of the Lakota Times which became Indian Country: “On December 29, 1890, my grandmother, Sophie, was a 17-year-old student at the Holy Rosary Indian Mission, a Jesuit boarding school just a few miles from
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tim-giago/the-lakota-will-never-for_1_b_78621.html
Additional visual references:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc7fZonjD1M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8KRkIpDWrE
In redress of grievances:
Two of the citations of the twenty Medals of Honor awarded at
GRESHAM, JOHN C.: Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Wounded Knee Creek, S. Dak., 29 December 1890. Entered service at:
SULLIVAN, THOMAS: Rank and organization: Private, Company E, 7th U.S. Cavalry. Place and date: At Wounded Knee Creek, S. Dak., 29 December 1890. Entered service at:
Rescind The Medals Of dis-Honor
An e-mail campaign has been initiated so as to force the rescindment of the twenty "medals of dis-Honor" awarded for the Massacre at
Please lend your support to help:
To: Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs,
Whereas it was stated on February 9, 1995 by Senator Daschle that he was acknowledging "...the armed struggle between the Plains Indians and the U.S. Army that culminated in the death of over 300 Lakota Sioux men, women, and children at Wounded Knee, SD, on December 29, 1890 [at Wounded Knee]."
And, whereas it was stated by Senator Tim Johnson on February 9, 1995 that it was his "...hope that enhancing a national awareness of the
And, whereas it was stated on February 2, 1993 in the Senate of the United States that "...on December 29, 1890, an incident [sic] occurred in which soldiers under Colonel Forsyth's command killed and wounded over 300 members of Chief Big Foot's [sic] band, almost all of whom were unarmed and entitled to protection of their rights to property, person and life under Federal law and that the Senate of the United States" and that the United States Senate ..."hereby expresses its commitment to acknowledge and learn from our history, including the Wounded Knee Massacre, in order to provide a proper foundation for building an ever more humane, enlightened, and just society for the future..."
And, whereas it was stated on October 25, 1990 by the One Hundred First Congress of the United States of America that..."in order to promote racial harmony and cultural understanding, the Governor of the State of South Dakota has declared that 1990 is a Year of Reconciliation between the citizens of the State of South Dakota and the member bands of the Great Sioux Nation..." and that "...it is proper and timely for the Congress of the United States of America to acknowledge...the historic significance of the Massacre at Wounded Knee Creek, [and] to express its deep regret to the Sioux [sic] people..."
And, whereas it was stated in September, 1990 during testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs by Doctor Sally Roesch Wagner that "Clearly in this enlightened time [1990], when the United States government has made compensation to the Japanese for their property which was lost during World War II, when the army is willing to look at it's mistake in Mai Lai and Panama, and when the Soviet Union publicly and with compensation, has acknowledged a massacre it committed in Poland, we can do no less than the justice to the Indians which the commanding general [Miles] demanded eighty years ago.
"During the 100th anniversary of the Massacre at Wounded Knee [1990], I would ask the
"As one of the treaty commissioners who negotiated with the Sioux Indians concluded: 'Our country must forever bear the disgrace and suffer the retribution of its wrong-doing. Our children's children will tell the sad story in hushed tones, and wonder how their fathers dared so to trample on justice and trifle with God.'"
We ask you to consider that the "Medal of Honor, established by Joint Resolution of Congress, July 12, 1862 (amended by Acts of Congress, July 9, 1918 and July 25, 1963), is awarded in the name of Congress to a person who, while a member of the Armed Forces, distinguishes himself or herself conspicuously by gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against any enemy of the United States; while engaged in military operations involving conflict with an opposing foreign force; or while serving with friendly foreign forces engaged in an armed conflict against an opposing armed force in which the United States is not a belligerent party. The deed performed must have been one of personal bravery or self-sacrifice so conspicuous as to clearly distinguish the individual above his or her comrades and must have involved risk of life. Incontestable proof of the performance of service is required, and each recommendation for award of this decoration is considered on the standard of extraordinary merit."
In light of the above, we, the undersigned, call for the immediate rescindment of the twenty Medals of dis-Honor awarded for actions contributing to the Massacre at Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890. Your immediate attention to this will be appreciated.
This item is from the following website. Please follow the link in order to send word to your senators and congress people. Thank you very much for your support. http://www.dickshovel.com/RescindMedals.html
