The Wounded Knee Massacre was the last major armed conflict between the Dakota Sioux and the United States, subsequently described as a "massacre" by General Nelson A. Miles in a letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.

On December 29, 1890, five hundred troops of the U.S. 7th Cavalry, supported by four Hotchkiss guns (a lightweight artillery piece capable of rapid fire), surrounded an encampment of Miniconjou Sioux (Lakota) and Hunkpapa Sioux (Lakota) with orders to escort them to the railroad for transport to Omaha, Nebraska. The commander of the 7th had been ordered to disarm the Lakota before proceeding and placed his men in too close proximity to the Lakota, alarming them. Shooting broke out near the end of the disarmament, and accounts differ regarding who fired first and why.

By the time it was over, 25 troopers and 300 Lakota Sioux lay dead, including men, women, and children. Many of the dead soldiers are believed to have been the victims of "friendly fire" as the shooting took place at point blank range in chaotic conditions, and most of the Lakota had previously been disarmed. Around 150 Lakota are believed to have fled the chaos, of which many likely died from exposure.

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 and was in accordance with the government’s clearly stated "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 plots, forced to farm, raise livestock, and send their children to boarding schools that forbade any inclusion of traditional Native American culture and language.

To help support the Sioux during the period of transition, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was delegated the responsibility of supplying the Sioux -- traditionally a hunter-gatherer society -- with food, and hiring white farmers to teach them agriculture. 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. Unfortunately, this was also the time when the government’s patience with supporting the so-called “lazy Indians" ran out. Rations to the Sioux were cut in half. With the American bison virtually eradicated from the plains a few years earlier, the Sioux began to starve. Increased performances of the Ghost Dance religious ceremony ensued, frightening the supervising agents of the BIA, who 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 1870’s brought hordes of prospectors and settlers. Many whites wanted to claim the sacred Black Hills, which formed part of the assigned land given to the Lakota by the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. If the Lakota had sold the Black Hills, this would have allowed whites to mine there legally, but the Lakota were not interested in doing so.

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 to increase the amount of food and other necessities for the Lakota after reducing their land area.

THE GHOST DANCE

The Gost Dance, a form of circle or spirit dancing which according to anthropologist James Mooney had existed for centuries -- is a religious ceremony by which participants believe they can see their dead relatives in the next life. 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.

Although Ghost Dancing was a spiritual ceremony, the agents may have misinterpreted it as a war dance. 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 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. Devotees were dancing to pitches of excitement that frightened the government employees, setting off a panic among white settlers. Pine Ridge agent Daniel F. Royer then called for military help to restore order and subdue the frenzy among white settlers.

BIG FOOT

On December 15, an event occurred that set off a chain reaction ending in the massacre at Wounded Knee. 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. Sitting Bull was one of the Lakota’s tribal leaders, and 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 Chief 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 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 — the Indians, 350; all but 120 were women and children. A rumor among the Lakota during the evening of December 28, 1890, said that all Indians were to be deported to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) which had the reputation for living conditions far worse than any prison. The Lakota became fearful that the rumor was true. The interpreter was not fluent in the peculiar dialect of Hohwoju used by Big Foot's people, and he mistranslated the Indians' speeches making them appear more belligerent than they actually were. Eyewitness accounts also claimed that the soldiers had been drinking and celebrating the capture of Big Foot.

BATTLE

On December 29, the Lakota were informed that it was necessary to turn in any weapons they possessed to prevent violence. A search was ordered, which turned up a few weapons. A medicine man called Yellow Bird began to perform the ghost dance, reminding the Lakota that the ghost shirts were bullet-proof. As tension mounted, a scuffle broke out between a soldier trying to disarm a deaf Indian named Black Coyote. He had not heard the order to turn in his gun and assumed he was being charged with theft. At that moment, a firearm discharged, and at the same moment Yellow Bird threw some dust into the air. Indian bystanders said he meant it as a ceremonial gesture but the hairtriggered soldiers took it for a signal to attack. The silence of the morning was broken by the guns echoing near the river bed. At first, the struggle was fought at close range, but when the Indians ran to take cover, the Hotchkiss cannons started shooting and shredding tipis. A few Lakota were able to produce concealed weapons.

By the end of fighting, which lasted less than an hour, 153 Lakota had been killed and 50 wounded. These numbers are under reported, in actuality the Lakota dead numbered as many as 300 or more. In comparison, army casualties numbered 25 dead and 39 wounded. Forsyth was later charged with the killing of innocents but was exonerated.

It is claimed that while the soldiers were firing at the Lakota they were yelling repeatedly “Remember the Little Bighorn,” or “Remember Custer.” After the shooting stopped, U.S army officials gathered up their dead and wounded soldiers, some of whom died later. Some had been caught in friendly crossfire. Soldiers stripped the bodies of the dead Lakota, keeping their ghost shirts and other clothing and equipment as souvenirs.

AFTERMATH

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 died on the field, while at least seven of Lakota were mortally wounded. These numbers are under reported, in actuality the Lakota dead numbered as many as 300 or more.

Colonel Forsyth was immediately denounced by General Nelson Miles and relieved 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—while it did include several cases of personal testimony pointing toward misconduct—was flawed^. It was not conducted as a formal court-martial, and without the legal boundaries of that format, several of the witnesses minimized their comments and statements to protect themselves or peers. Ultimately the Secretary of War concurred and reinstated Forsyth to command of the 7th. Testimony before the court indicated that for the most part troopers 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. The concept of Wounded Knee as a deliberate massacre rather than a tragedy caused by poor decisions stems from Miles.

The American public's reaction to the battle was at the time generally favorable. Twenty Medals of Honor were awarded for the action. A decade later when these were reviewed, Miles saw that they were retained. Currently, Native Americans are urgently seeking the recall of what they refer to as "Medals of Dis-Honor". Many non-Lakota living near the reservations interpreted the battle as a defeat of a murderous cult, though some confused Ghost Dancers with Native Americans in general. In an editorial in response to the event, a young newspaper editor, L. Frank Baum (later known as 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 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."

 

POPULAR CULTURE

In the late 20th century, critical reaction to the event became more widespread and vocal. Many consider the incident one of the most grievous atrocities in United States history. In 1970, it was the subject of the best-selling book "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" by historian Dee Brown.

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

More than eighty years after the massacre, beginning on February 27, 1973, Wounded Knee was also the site of a 71-day standoff between federal authorities and militants of the American Indian Movement. Two Indians were killed among them, Frank Clearwater, a militant was shot dead while resting in a church.

In 1973, the American rock band Redbone, which was formed by two Native Americans, released the politically oriented song "We were all wounded at Wounded Knee", recalling the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890. 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 but did not chart in the U.S. where it 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 lyrics in the first 2 verses portray the persecution of fictitious native peoples of an "island in the sun" and a "village in the trees" after the arrival of the "white man". The theme in the chorus is that this is a repetition of what happened at Wounded Knee: "Oh no, not a Wounded Knee again". The final verse refers back to the plight of Native American Indians: "We were pow-wowing to our hearts content; We had the great spirit, we didn't need a president; 'Long came a white man from the civilized nations; now he ain't having second thoughts; but we've got reservations."

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, which intertwines a modern era crime-story with spiritual allusions to both the massacre in 1890, and a fictionalized version of the Wounded Knee incident which took place in 1973 on the Sioux reservation. Also in 1992 the Wounded Knee Massacre was commemorated in the popular protest song Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee written by Buffy Sainte-Marie. This song includes not only allusions to the massacre but also references to the plight of present day Native American activists. Three years later the Indigo Girls released a cover of this song on their 1200 Curfews (Live) CD.

In 1997, rock band Toad the Wet Sprocket found mainstream success with a song about Indian rights. The song "Crazy Life," which tells the story of Leonard Peltier in the 1970s, specifically mentions the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Five Iron Frenzy penned a song titled "The Day We Killed" which is found on their 2001 release titled: Electric Boogaloo. The song makes references to the massacre at Wounded Knee, and even has a reading of a quote by Black Elk that reads, "I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered 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..."

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

Scottish songwriter Alan Cassidy makes reference to Wounded Knee in his highly charged song The Red The White and The Blue, "tell me of the Raj or Wounded Knee and you'll see clear...".

The Wounded Knee massacre is briefly shown in the 2004 film Hidalgo. Frank Hopkins is portrayed as a half-Indian who in his work as a government dispatch rider, had carried the orders that led to the tragedy and subsequently held himself partly responsible.

The massacre was reenacted for the 2005 film Into the West (TV miniseries), executive-produced by Steven Spielberg for Turner Network Television. The filming style for this sequence of the program is similar to Spielberg's recreation of the landing on Omaha Beach in his 1998 film Saving Private Ryan, including hand-held cameras and no music.

In 2005 Marty Stuart produced "Badlands; Ballads of the Lakota" with original songs telling the story of the Lakota and a cover of the John R. Cash song "Bigfoot."

In May 2007, HBO Films released the film adaptation of the Dee Brown bestseller "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" on the HBO television network. Like the book, the film culminates with the Wounded Knee Massacre.