Massacre At Wounded Knee, 1890
Photo of Chief Big Foot murdered during the Massacre
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On the morning of December 29, 1890, the Sioux Chief Big Foot and some 350 of his followers camped on the banks of Wounded Knee Creek. Surrounding their camp was a force of U.S. troops charged with the responsibility of arresting Big Foot and disarming his warriors. The scene was tense. Trouble had been brewing for months. The once proud Sioux found their free-roaming life destroyed, the buffalo gone, themselves confined to reservations dependent on Indian Agents for their existence. In a desperate attempt to return to the days of their glory, many sought salvation in a new mysticism preached by a Paiute shaman called Wovoka. Emissaries from the Sioux in South Dakota traveled to Nevada to hear his words. Wovoka called himself the Messiah and prophesied that the dead would soon join the living in a world in which the Indians could live in the old way surrounded by plentiful game. A tidal wave of new soil would cover the earth, bury the whites, and restore the prairie. To hasten the event, the Indians were to dance the Ghost Dance. Many dancers wore brightly colored shirts emblazoned with images of eagles and buffalos. These "Ghost Shirts" they believed would protect them from the bluecoats' bullets. During the fall of 1890, the Ghost Dance spread through the Sioux villages of the Dakota reservations, revitalizing the Indians and bringing fear to the whites. A desperate Indian Agent at Pine Ridge wired his superiors in Washington, "Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy....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 now." The order went out to arrest Chief Sitting Bull at the Standing Rock Reservation. Sitting Bull was killed in the attempt on December 15. Chief Big Foot was next on the list. When he heard of Sitting Bull's death, Big Foot led his people south to seek protection at the Pine Ridge Reservation. The army intercepted the band on December 28 and brought them to the edge of the Wounded Knee to camp. The next morning the chief, racked with pneumonia and dying, sat among his warriors and powwowed with the army officers. Suddenly the sound of a shot pierced the early morning gloom. Within seconds the charged atmosphere erupted as Indian braves scurried to retrieve their discarded rifles and troopers fired volley after volley into the Sioux camp. From the heights above, the army's Hotchkiss guns raked the Indian teepees with grapeshot. Clouds of gun smoke filled the air as men, women and children scrambled for their lives. Many ran for a ravine next to the camp only to be cut down in a withering cross fire. When the smoke cleared and the shooting stopped, approximately 300 Sioux were dead, Big Foot among them. Twenty-five soldiers lost their lives. As the remaining troopers began the grim task of removing the dead, a blizzard swept in from the North. A few days later they returned to complete the job. Scattered fighting continued, but the massacre at Wounded Knee effectively squelched the Ghost Dance movement and ended the Indian Wars. Eyewitness to a Massacre Philip Wells was a mixed-blood Sioux who served as an interpreter for the Army. He later recounted what he saw that Monday morning: "I was interpreting for General Forsyth (Forsyth was actually a colonel) just before the battle of Wounded Knee, December 29, 1890. The captured Indians had been ordered to give up their arms, but Big Foot replied that his people had no arms. Forsyth said to me, 'Tell Big Foot he says the Indians have no arms, yet yesterday they were well armed when they surrendered. He is deceiving me. Tell him he need have no fear in giving up his arms, as I wish to treat him kindly.' Big Foot replied, 'They have no guns, except such as you have found.' Forsyth declared, 'You are lying to me in return for my kindness.' During this time a medicine man, gaudily dressed and fantastically painted, executed the maneuvers of the ghost dance, raising and throwing dust into the air. He exclaimed 'Ha! Ha!' as he did so, meaning he was about to do something terrible, and said, 'I have lived long enough,' meaning he would fight until he died. Turning to the young warriors who were squatted together, he said 'Do not fear, but let your hearts be strong. Many soldiers are about us and have many bullets, but I am assured their bullets cannot penetrate us. The prairie is large, and their bullets will fly over the prairies and will not come toward us. If they do come toward us, they will float away like dust in the air.' I turned to Major Whitside and said, 'That man is making mischief,' and repeated what he had said. Whitside replied, 'Go direct to Colonel Forsyth and tell him about it,' which I did. Forsyth and I went to the circle of warriors where he told me to tell the medicine man to sit down and keep quiet, but he paid no attention to the order. Forsyth repeated the order. Big Foot's brother-in-law answered, 'He will sit down when he gets around the circle.' When the medicine man came to the end of the circle, he squatted down. A cavalry sergeant exclaimed, 'There goes an Indian with a gun under his blanket!' Forsyth ordered him to take the gun from the Indian, which he did. Whitside then said to me, 'Tell the Indians it is necessary that they be searched one at a time.' The young warriors paid no attention to what I told them. I heard someone on my left exclaim, 'Look out! Look out!' I saw five or six young warriors cast off their blankets and pull guns out from under them and brandish them in the air. One of the warriors shot into the soldiers, who were ordered to fire into the Indians. I looked in the direction of the medicine man. He or some other medicine man approached to within three or four feet of me with a long cheese knife, ground to a sharp point and raised to stab me. He stabbed me during the melee and nearly cut off my nose. I held him off until I could swing my rifle to hit him, which I did. I shot and killed him in self-defense. Troop 'K' was drawn up between the tents of the women and children and the main body of the Indians, who had been summoned to deliver their arms. The Indians began firing into 'Troop K' to gain the canyon of Wounded Knee Creek. In doing so they exposed their women and children to their own fire. Captain Wallace was killed at this time while standing in front of his troops. A bullet, striking him in the forehead, plowed away the top of his head. I started to pull off my nose, which was hung by the skin, but Lieutenant Guy Preston shouted, 'My God Man! Don't do that! That can be saved.' He then led me away from the scene of the trouble." References: Brown, Dee, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1971); Jensen, Richard, et. al, Eyewitness at Wounded Knee (1991); Utley, Robert M., The Last Days of the Sioux Nation (1963); Wells, Philip, "Ninety-six Years among the Indians of the Northwest", North Dakota History, 15, no. 2 (1948). How To Cite This Article: "Massacre At Wounded Knee, 1890," Eyewitness to History (1998). Hotchkiss gun
Monument Erected by Joseph Horn Cloud in 1903 at the mass grave site at Wounded Knee Creek commemorating those massacred at Wounded Knee in 1890.
Further reading:
The article below was submitted by Scott Barta in December 2001: Article VI of the U.S. Constitution states “Treaties made with Indian Nations shall be the supreme law of the land, with the judges in every state bound thereby”. Article 3 of the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie states “The U.S. bind themselves to protect the seven signatory Indian Nations against the commission of all depredations by the United States”. On December 15, 1890, U.S. government agents assassinated Tatanka Iyotake “Sitting Bull” at his home as they began overt efforts to “establish” a state called “South Dakota”. Immediately, the mostly women, children and elderly relatives of Tatanka Iyotake - next on the assassination list - grabbed what they could carry and fled, seeking refuge 200 miles south behind a U.S.-supported “Red Cloud Agency” (Pine Ridge Indian Reservation). As the refugees neared the agency, they were overtaken and placed under military arrest by a reincarnation of a recently defeated and dissolved “7th” cavalry unit of the army. The group of 453 Lakota was spat upon, beaten, and strip-searched; the women having even their sewing awls confiscated. They were force-marched a few miles away to a small valley surrounded by rolling hills called Wounded Knee. The following day before dawn on December 29th, 1890, one of the worst acts of terrorism in the world occurred. The army ordered the hostage Indians awake and began herding them together in the pre-blizzard cold. At the planned signal, the terrible massacre began with troops opening fire with their rifles and Hotchkiss guns they had placed upon the hills above during the night overlooking the camp. The innocent victims were gunned down; survivors attempted to scatter and were shot. There were reports of infants bayoneted and pregnant women hunted down by the troops and stabbed in the stomach. Later, the army threw the remains of the 453 in a mass grave. For years the massacre was propagandized as a “battle” in attempts to blame the victims. Eighteen U.S. congressional “medals of honor” were awarded to the soldiers for their actions at “Wounded Knee” and to this day, the U.S. government has yet to rescind the nefarious “awards”. Indigenous peoples do not want “apologies”; there is no Lakota word for “sorry”. Wrongs have to be admitted to, genocide cannot be repeated, and reparations must be made. The continued occupation of 1851 Treaty Territories and theft of trillions of dollars in Lakota gold and mineral resources, timber and tourism remains a daily violation of Article VI of the U.S. Constitution and the 1851 Treaty of Fort Laramie. The Lakota should be afforded the right to become a nation once again, free to travel their homelands and live as they may wish upon sacred Grand Mother Earth. Written by Scott Barta - December 2001 My Two Beads Worth thanks Scott Barta for providing us with his article on the Massacre at Wounded Knee. Please be patient while the audio downloads. To listen to the sounfile again, click on "reload" or "refresh" on your computer. Copyright of sound file remains with original owner.
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Last updated on December 27, 2005