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 are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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Posted on 03/13/2003 5:25:12 AM PST by SAMWolf
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are acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated.
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December 29, 1890 The Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 (which was originally referred to by the United States army as the Battle of Wounded Knee -- a descriptive moniker that remains highly contested by the Native American community) is known as the event that ended the last of the Indian wars in America. As the year came to a close, the Seventh Cavalry of the United States Army brought an horrific end to the century-long U.S. government-Indian armed conflicts.  On the bone-chilling morning of December 29, devotees of the newly created Ghost Dance religion made a lengthy trek to the Pine Ridge Reservation in southwestern South Dakota to seek protection from military apprehension. Members of the Miniconjou Sioux (Lakota) tribe led by Chief Big Foot and the Hunkpapa Sioux (Lakota) followers of the recently slain charismatic leader, Sitting Bull, attempted to escape arrest by fleeing south through the rugged terrain of the Badlands. There, on the snowy banks of Wounded Knee Creek (Cankpe Opi Wakpala), nearly 300 Lakota men, women, and children -- old and young -- were massacred in a highly charged, violent encounter with U.S. soldiers. The memory of that day still evokes passionate emotional and politicized responses from present-day Native Americans and their supporters. The Wounded Knee Massacre, according to scholars, symbolizes not only a culmination of a clash of cultures and the failure of governmental Indian policies, but also the end of the American frontier. Although it did bring an end to the Ghost Dance religion, it did not, however, represent the demise of the Lakota culture, which still thrives today. By August of 1890, the U.S. government was fearful that the Ghost Dance was actually a war dance and, in time, the dancers would turn to rioting. By November, the War Department sent troops to occupy the Lakota camps at Pine Ridge and Rosebud, convinced that the dancers were preparing to do battle against the government. In reality, the Indians were bracing themselves to defend their rights to continue performing the sacred ceremonies. In reaction to the military encampment, the Lakotas planned various strategies to avoid confrontation with the soldiers, but the military was under orders to isolate Ghost Dance leaders from their devotees.  Big Foot's Minniconjou band at the Grass Dance on the Cheyenne River, August 1890. Four months later, nearly all would be killed by the U.S. Cavalry in the massacre at Wounded Knee. The Hunkpapa Sioux Chief, Sitting Bull, had returned from Canada with a promise of a pardon following the Battle at Little Bighorn and was an advocate of the Ghost Dance. At his request, Kicking Bear traveled to the Standing Rock reservation to preach and made numerous Hunkpapa Sioux converts to the new religion. Kicking Bear: "My brothers, I bring to you the promise of a day in which there will be no white man to lay his hand on the bridle of the Indian horse; when the red men of the prairie will rule the world . . . I bring you word from your fathers the ghosts, that they are now marching to join you, led by the Messiah who came once to live on earth with the white man, but was cast out and killed by them."  A mounted soldier surveys the battlefield at Wounded Knee, South Dakota. Kicking Bear (quoting Wovoka): "The earth is getting old, and I will make it new for my chosen people, the Indians, who are to inhabit it, and among them will be all those of their ancestors who have died...I will cover the earth with new soil to a depth of five times the height of a man, and under this new soil will be buried the whites...The new lands will be covered with sweet-grass and running water and trees, and herds of buffalo and ponies will stray over it, that my red children may eat and drink, hunt and rejoice." (Source: Eyewitness at Wounded Knee, 1991) Reservation agents began to fear that Sitting Bull’s influence over other tribes would lead to violence. By December reservation official grew increasingly alarmed by the Ghost Dance outbreak, and the military was called upon to locate and arrest those who were considered agitators, such as the Sioux Chiefs, Sitting Bull and Big Foot. On December 15, 1890, Sitting Bull and eight of his warriors were murdered by agency police sent to arrest him at the Standing Rock reservation. The official reason given for the shooting claimed that he had resisted arrest. Fearing further reprisal, some of his followers fled in terror to Big Foot’s camp of Miniconjou Sioux. While many of Big Foot’s group were devout Ghost Dancers, others had already begun to leave the religion. Old Big Foot was a peaceful leader and was not attempting to cause further agitation of the situation. But after the slaying of Sitting Bull, Big Foot was placed on the list of "fomenters of disturbances," and his arrest had been ordered. Upon arrest, his group was to be transferred to Fort Bennett.  A blizzard prevented soldiers from removing the dead until a few days after the killing occurred. When they returned to the scene, they loaded the frozen corpses into wagons and buried them in a mass grave. Under cover of the night on December 23, a band of 350 people left the Miniconjou village on the Cheyenne River to begin a treacherous 150-mile, week-long trek through the Badlands to reach the Pine Ridge Agency. Although Chief Big Foot was aged and seriously ill with pneumonia, his group traversed the rugged, frozen terrain of the Badlands in order to reach the protection of Chief Red Cloud who had promised them food, shelter, and horses. It is reported that both Big Foot and Red Cloud wanted peace. On December 28, the group was surrounded by Major Samuel M. Whitside and the Seventh Calvary (the old regiment of General George Custer). Big Foots band hoisted a white flag, but the army apprehended the Indians, forcing them to the bank of Wounded Knee Creek. There, four large Hotchkiss cannons had been menacingly situated atop both sides of the valley overlooking the encampment, ready to fire upon the Indians. A rumor ran through the camp that the Indians were to be deported to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) which had the reputation for its living conditions being far worse than any prison. The Lakotas became panicky, and historians have surmised that if the misunderstanding had been clarified that they were to be taken to a different camp, the entire horrific incident might have been averted. That evening, Colonel James Forsyth arrived with reinforcements and took over as commander of the operation. The Indians were not allowed to sleep as the soldiers interrogated them through the night. (It has been reported that many of the questions were to determine who among the group had been at Little Bighorn fourteen years earlier. In addition, eyewitnesses claimed that the soldiers had been drinking to celebrate the capture of the ailing Big Foot.)  The soldiers ordered that the Indians be stripped of their weapons, and this further agitated an increasingly tense and serious situation. While the soldiers searched for weapons, a few of the Indians began singing Ghost Dance songs, and one of them (thought to be the medicine man, Yellow Bird, although this is still disputed by historians) threw dirt in a ceremonial act. This action was misunderstood by the soldiers as a sign of imminent hostile aggression, and within moments, a gun discharged. It is believed that the gun of a deaf man, Black Coyote, accidentally fired as soldiers tried to take it from him. Although the inadvertent single shot did not injure anyone, instantaneously the soldiers retaliated by spraying the unarmed Indians with bullets from small arms, as well as the Hotchkiss canons which overlooked the scene. (Hotchkiss canons are capable of firing two pound explosive shells at a rate of fifty per minute.) With only their bare hands to fight back, the Indians tried to defend themselves, but the incident deteriorated further into bloody chaos, and the 350 unarmed Indians were outmatched and outnumbered by the nearly 500 U.S. soldiers. The majority of the massacre fatalities occurred during the initial ten to twenty minutes of the incident, but the firing lasted for several hours as the army chased after those who tried to escape into the nearby ravine. According to recollections by some of the Indian survivors, the soldiers cried out "Remember the Little Bighorn" as they sportingly hunted down those who fled -- evidence to them that the massacre was in revenge of Custers demise at Little Bighorn in 1876. (Recorded by Santee Sioux, Sid Byrd, from oral histories of several survivors.)  Wounded Indian women and children were brought from Wounded Knee in army wagons to the Holy Cross Episcopal Church at Pine Ridge, where they were laid out, as seen here, on beds of hay stacked on the floor. A christmas tree had been moved out of the way, but "joyous green garlands still wreathed windows and doors," wrote Elaine Goodale Eastman, an observer, in her book, Sister to the Sioux. Many of the injured died of exposure in the freezing weather, and several days after the incident the dead were strewn as far as approximately two to five miles away from the original site. By mid-afternoon on December 29, 1890 the indiscriminate slaughter ceased. Nearly three-hundred men (including Chief Big Foot), women, and children -- old and young -- were dead on the frosty banks of Wounded Knee Creek. Twenty-nine soldiers also died in the melee, but it is believed that most of the military causalities were a result of "friendly" crossfire that occurred during the fighting frenzy. Twenty-three soldiers from the Seventh Calvary were later awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for the slaughter of defenseless Indians at Wounded Knee. The wounded and dying were taken to a makeshift hospital in the Pine Ridge Episcopal Church. Ironically, above the pulpit hung a Christmas banner which read:  A blizzard swept over the countryside the night of December 29, and when it cleared days later, the valley was strewn with frozen, contorted dead bodies. A burial party returned to the site on New Years Day, 1891. The bodies of the slain were pulled from beneath the heavy snow and thrown into a single burial pit. It was reported that four infants were found still alive, wrapped in their deceased mothers shawls. American Horse, Oglala Sioux, and others 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." (Source: 500 Nations, 1994) While only 150 bodies were interred in the mass grave, Lakotas estimate that twice as many Indians perished that brutal morning in 1890 -- on a reservation supposedly protected by two treaties.  The dead at Wounded Knee South Dakota, December 29th, 1890 Over 300 Indians were killed that day, 200 of them children and women This man's frozen body was turned on top of the others and the rifle was laid across him by the photographers who sold postcards. A crowd of whites came out to watch the shootings. 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." (Source: Black Elk Speaks, c. 1932)
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It took 100 years for the government to say were sorry. I'm glad that the Indians get to have gambling now. At least that way they can make some money for themselves. Though neither is justifiable, what happened to the American Indians is far worse than what happened to the slaves. It is all very sad.
If the American Flag could speak, I think this is what it might say:
I am your Flag, and I am proud to be your Flag. Together we live in the greatest nation in the world. A free nation where I can fly freely in the breeze outside your home, on the street, in your schools and courthouses.
I am not just a piece of brightly colored cloth, I am a symbol that represents something great. My red stripes indicate hardiness and courage. My white is a symbol of purity and innocence. The blue color is vigilance, perseverance, and justice.
I was in the hand of my first President in the blood and snow of Valley Forge. I was there when my nation was born - small, with a wilderness at her back and seas at her sides, and not one friendly neighbor to whom she, as a struggling infant orphan, could call for help in distress.
I saw that child survive and grow strong. Most people forget, but I still see in my memory those bright and brave young men and women who died at Pearl Harbor, Normandy, Coral Sea, the Asian Jungles, throughout Europe, Korea and Vietnam.
And when they died for me, I wrapped them in my love and draped my honor over their caskets. Yes, I must speak because their voices have been silenced forever. I fly proudly over their green graves, praying that wars might end forever. Never forgetting them, I rise every morning to watch over the graves of our finest, whose years were short but whose service was longer than we can ever measure.
I, the American Flag, have lived long, traveled far and endured much. A million lives and more were sacrificed to give me the right to speak.
You can climb any mountain! Possibilities? They're unlimited - except as you limit them with a cynical, bitter, negative attitude! Yes, when you see me in church, school or flying on the streets - listen to my stars and stripes as I cry out to every boy and girl, every man and woman. "Dream Your Dreams" - "Dare To Believe" - You Can Make It In America.
I am the American Flag. Be humble enough to know where your glory and greatness come from. "Old Glory," I'm called. What is my glory? My glory is the freedom that I give to every law respecting man, woman and child. I live in the hearts of all people who yearn for freedom to laugh, to love, to pray, to play, to marry and to have children.
I have called out to countries, "Come to my shores, all who are tired, poor, oppressed, and yearning to breathe freely. Come and I will be your guarantee of liberty." I say to my people, "Be proud, be humble, and last,… be renewed! If you get a lump in your throat when you hear the Star Spangled Banner, or break out in a cold chill with goose bumps when I pass by waving freely, or tears shade your eyes when you sing "God Bless America", never think you are getting sentimental or weak. No, that is a sign of being strong, loyal, and dedicated to a cause, a principal - "one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all......."
I agree with you there, Government policy was just short of genocide concerning the Ameican Indian.
We have the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde up near Lincoln City and they have a Casino that does very well and as far as I know they do a lot of good with the money they make. It's really good to see. This is from their site. The Casino was created to enhance economic self-sufficiency opportunities for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, its members and surrounding communities; to promote economic diversification by the Tribes: to support a variety of housing, educational and cultural programs under the direction of Tribal Council.
After the death of Sitting Bull in 1890, a band of Sioux fled into the badlands of South Dakota where they were captured by the U.S. Cavalry near Wounded Knee. While the Sioux were being disarmed, a young warrior pulled a gun and shot an officer. The U.S. troops responded by opening fire and killing nearly 200 Sioux men, women, and children.
The so-called "Battle" at Wounded Knee marks the final, tragic chapter in the Indian Wars, which had reached their height between 1869 and 1878. During these years, the Army fought over 200 battles against Native American tribes, who sought to protect their homelands and buffalo hunting practices against incursions made by white settlers and the railroad.
Hi Victoria. A clash of cultures caused by Western expansion.
A clash of cultures caused by Western expansion.
Tough times for sure.
They had never believed that man could own the earth, their mother.
That, IMHO, is one of the causes of the problems between the two cultures, one based on private ownership of land and the other that did not understand not believe in that concept. How was that to be resolved?
5.56mm
At some point I slogged to a halt and put it down.
As in a dream, running in water, we can't gain on it.
The wretched excess of the westward ho honkies shooting the buffalo from trains leaving them to rot.
In context, there were massacres both ways, and no joy.
A friend thereafter being a coyote half Indian half Spanish killed himself sitting under a tree overnight to freeze to death.
Then working for a famous "native American" artist who burned us, watching him roll on the ground with his bottle of Ripple as his Jewish wife cursed him.
Lift us up to the high-flying eagle spirit of the codetalkers, and their clean courage.
A lady came from Vassar to the Navajo Reservation and married Sheepherder, and they battled alcoholism.
In 1996 Gordon House killed a family of four in his wrong-way DUI run on the Interstate.
Last year Lloyd Larson repeated the feat in another DUI wrong-way Interstate head-on killing four.
At the other end were the bright young faces who came out for our Senate candidate and their fathers with medals.
We were up in Carson Forest and had to return a pack to a guy from Kentucky staying with a police woman at one of the pueblos.
We drove in during a fiesta and followed a police unit til it stopped.
Out stepped a very tall, powerful man in loincloth, mocs, feathers and paint.
We were welcomed for food and drink, delivered the pack and returned up north.
Many times of reflection on mesas, visits to springs, the Pedernal razor, Bandelier.
Now all pueblos seem to have casinos with bright lights, floor shows, and the stars are unchanged.
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