SUNRISE AT WOUNDED KNEE

SUNRISE AT WOUNDED KNEE

Wounded Knee Massacre Memorial Site

December 29, 1890
By all accounts it was a cold morning that greeted the Lakota camp as it arose.  The day before a detachment of about 500 soldiers from the US 7^th Cavalry had escorted a band of about 350 Lakota Sioux to an encampment along Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.  Tensions between the two groups ran high that morning as troops attempted to disarm the Lakota before continuing their journey.  No one knows who fired the first shot.  Some say that the shot was fired accidentally. But by the time the ensuing melee ended over 150 Lakota men, women and children, as well as 25 US cavalrymen, lie dead.  Another 51 Sioux and 39 soldiers were wounded; many of whom would succumb to their injuries in the days that followed.

The Lakota Sioux

In late 1890 the Lakota people were dissatisfied.  Already confined to reservations, the US government continued to press the Lakota to give up more of their lands.  The herds of Bison, upon which the Lakota depended for survival, were all but extinct and the US government had failed in its promise to provide food, clothing, and housing to the people as compensation.  The US government also failed to protect reservation lands as miners and settlers continued to disregard reservation borders.  And Indian agents, chartered with advocating for the Lakota, often preyed on the very people they were tasked to represent.

Into this volatile mix came a Paiute prophet named Wovoka. Wovoka had a vision, a vision that the Christian messiah, Jesus Christ, had returned to Earth as a Native American.   In this vision Jesus would raise all of the Native peoples above the Earth, the European invaders would disappear from Native lands, the animals upon which the People depended would return in abundance, and the ghost  of the people’s ancestors would return to Earth and usher in an era of peace and prosperity. Wovoka’s vision spread quickly as the Native people sought a spiritual release from their suffering.  

The European American Settlers

European American settlers along the frontier were frightened by the spread of what they termed “the Messiah Craze” across the plains.  They saw the spread of a common belief system, as evidenced by the performance of the ritual ghost dance, as a unifying agent bringing the disparate tribes together behind a common cause in a prelude to armed revolt.  

In order to prevent the anticipated violence, US government agents decided to detain Native leaders in an attempt to cut off the head of the perceived insurrection.  On December 15, 1890, a contingent of Native American reservation police attempted to arrest Sitting Bull, the renowned Lakota chief, at his home.  During the arrest shots were fired, killing eight Native Americans, including Sitting Bull himself, as well as six tribal policemen.  Fearing reprisal, a band of 350 Sioux, led by a Lakota chief named Black Elk, set out for a safe haven on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.  Along the way, they would have their fateful encounter with the US 7^th Cavalry.

The US 7^th Cavalry

In 1890 the 7^th Cavalry was still recovering from its stinging defeat at the hands of the Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho at the Battle of the Little Big Horn just 14 years before.  Many of the soldiers who encountered the small band of Lakota that day on the plains of South Dakota were survivors of that battle.  Led by Col. James W. Forsyth, this same 7^th Cavalry intercepted Black Elk’s band and escorted them to a site along Wounded Knee Creek.  Once encamped, Col. Forsyth set up a ring of high-powered, rapid fire weapons around the Lakota camp and prepared to disarm them in advance of escorting them to waiting trains for deportation to places unknown.

The stage was set for disaster.  The Lakota, already angry at what they perceived as another in a series of broken promises by the US government were, once again, facing disarmament and forced relocation.  The 7^th Cavalry, urged on by settler’s fears of a resurgent Native people and impending violence, with the memory of Little Big Horn fresh in their minds, was in position to unleash a barrage of death and destruction at the first sign of danger.  

And then, into this volatile mix of anger, fear, mistrust, and resentment, a single shot was fired.

Same Event, Different Perceptions

Few dispute the facts surrounding the incident at Wounded Knee. Reacting to shots fired the US 7^th Cavalry opened fire on a group of 350 Lakota men, women, and children; killing over 150.  In the melee the Lakota also killed some 29 US Cavalry troops before being subdued by superior numbers and firepower.  But the meaning of the event to the two communities was radically different.  For the most part the European American community was not concerned by the incident; seeing it as another in a series of necessary encounters to secure the Western frontier. Some asserted that the incident was further proof of the legitimacy of the US policy towards Native peoples, as evidenced by an editorial which appeared 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 untamable 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.

The meaning of the incident to the Native people involved was radically different, as evidenced by this statement made by Black Elk, the leader of the Lakota band, in the waning days of his life:

Black Elk

"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 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."