On December 15, 1890 authorities feared that the Sioux's new Ghost Dance�
religion might inspire an uprising. Sitting Bull permitted Grand River people
to join the antiwhite Ghost Dance cult and was therefore arrested by troops.
In the fracas that followed, he was shot twice in the head.
Sitting Bull' followers were apprehended and brought to the U.S Army Camp
at Wounded Knee Creek in southwestern South Dakota.
Moving among the tipis, soldiers lifted women's dresses and touched their
private parts, ripping from them essential cooking and sewing utensils. The
men sitting in the council heard the angry shrieks of their wives, mothers,
and daughters. Several Lakota, offended by the abusive actions of the cavalry,
stubbornly waited to have their weapons taken from them. It was a show of
honor in front of their elders, for few of them were old enough to have fought
in the "Indian Wars" fifteen years before.
That night, everyone was tired out by the hard trip. James Asay, a Pine
Ridge trader and whiskey runner, brought a ten-gallon keg of whiskey to the
Seventh Cavalry officers. Many of the Indian men were kept up all night by the
drunken Cavalry where the soldiers kept asking them how old they were. The
soldiers were hoping to discover which of the men had been at the Battle of
Little Bighorn where Custer was killed.
On the bitterly cold morning of December 29, 1890, Alice Ghost Horse, a
thirteen- year old Lakota girl rode her horse through the U.S Army camp
looking for her father, one of the Indian men who had been rounded up earlier
that day.
Less than fifty yards away she could see her father sitting on the ground
with other disarmed men from Chief Big Foot's band, surrounded by more than
500 heavily armed soldiers of the Seventh Cavalry. She looked North up the
hill where four "guns on wheels" were mounted. Troopers watched
silently on each side of the Hotchkiss battery.
To one side Alice noticed a familiar figure standing with hands raised
above his head, his arms turned upward in prayer. It was the medicine man by
the name of Yellow Bird. He stood facing the east, right by the fire pit which
was now covered with dirt. He was praying and crying. He was saying to the
spotted eagles that he wanted to die instead of his people. He must have sense
that something was going to happen. He picked up some dirt from the fire place
and threw it up in the air and said, "This is the way I want to go, back
to dust."
Seventh Cavalry interpreter Phillip F. Wells, whose knowledge of the Lakota
language was poor, later told military investigators that a man named Yellow
Bird stood up at Wounded Knee and deliberately incited the Lakota to fight.
Colonel Forsyth gave a bizarre order: each soldier was told to aim his
unloaded gun at an Indians forehead and to pull the trigger. After Wells
translated the demeaning order to the astonished Lakota, they could not
comprehend this foolishness. Looking at each other, their faces grew
"wild with fear."
Alice then saw two or three sergeants grab a deaf man named Black Coyote
who had yet to be disarmed. His friends had been so busy talking that they had
left him uniformed. The soldiers tore off his blanket, roughly twirling him
around. He raised his rifle above his head to keep it away from them. In the
midst of yelling, jerking, and twisting, the struggle ended unexpectedly when
the rifle pointed toward the east end discharged in the crisp morning air.
Lieutenant James Mann screamed, "Fire! Fire on them!" On command
the troops opened fire in an explosive volley, enclosing both attackers and
victims in a dark curtain of pungent smoke.
That day over three hundred elderly men, women, and children, all disarmed
were brutally murdered. After the genocidal procedure occurred, a blizzard
hit, and it was on the forth day that search parties were sent out to bury the
dead.
A newspaper reporter accompanying the burial party described the first body
they found as that of a male about twelve years old. The boy had been shot.
He was wearing a "ghost shirt" embolized with an eagle, buffalo,
and morning-star insignia. They believed that these symbols of powerful
spirits would protect them from the soldier's bullets.
Many of the wounded survivors later died or were secretly carried away in
the night by Lakota from other bands. The dead were buried in hidden
locations, and carefully concealed from federal officials who later
underestimated the death toll at 146, over two hundred less than the actual
number butchered an their own land.
The frozen bodies were taken to the top of the hill overlooking the valley
where they had died. Gravediggers carved a gaping hole form the earth, six
feet deep, ten wide, sixty long. When the orders were given to bury the first
load, three soldiers jumped into the grave and each corpse was given to them
one at a time. They stripped them of all salable articles from the bodies as
if they were skinning rabbits.
Without prayer services of any kind, the Lakota dead were layered in a mass
grave, first one naked row across the bottom of the trench, and old army
blankets were placed over them, then another row of limp bodies lengthwise.
And so on they continued until the last mound of dirt was shoveled on.
BIA Takeover
In 1968, the Indian activist group known as AIM was born. The actual
founding members remain unknown, but Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt, and
George Miller were prominent in its foundation. The group was initially
organized to deal with discriminatory practices of the police in the arrest of
Indians and to fight for the rights of American Indians.
In November 1972, members of AIM marched and protested in front of the
White House in Washington D.C. They had come to complain about the treatment
of the bureau towards them. The group of over 500 then decided to take over
the BIA building.
During the instrumental week-long occupation, the Indians comfortably
settled in the building. Cooking, dishwashing, and cleaning was organized.
Guards were appointed and children were looked after. This was amazing
considering the amount of people in the building. Then the inevitable arrival
of the police surrounded the building. Uniformed in riot gear, the police
began to beat Indians standing around the vicinity and haul them to jail. A
rainstorm of office materials were thrown at the police. Many were discouraged
and kept their distance from the entrance.
Inside the building, it was not totally chaotic but somewhat of an
organized confusion. Women and children ran for safety and the brave grasp
various weapons and stood their ground. Many were prepared to die in the
confrontation.
Indian Reorganization Act
The Indian Reorganization Act, a major reform of U.S policy toward American
Indians, was enacted by Congress on June 18, 1934 as a result of a decade of
criticism of conditions on the reservations. It forbade the further allotment
of tribal lands to individual Indians. It destroyed the old, traditional form
of Indian self- government. Power was mainly left to half-blood tribal
presidents whose alliance was mainly to the U.S government.
Dicky Wilson was the worst of this type. He was accused of illegally
converting tribal funds and having people beaten and murdered. He also had
Russel Means, a AIM leader, beaten up and sent to the hospital. After that
situation, AIM decided to fight back.
Siege of Wounded Knee
In February 1973, members of AIM gathered around a courthouse to attend the
trial of Wesly Bad Heart who had been stabbed to death by a white man.
Not surprisingly, the murderer was acquitted. The group refused to accept
the decision. The coiled tension was about to be released by the abusive
actions of the police. Troopers used an array of riot weapons to control the
masses. Indians set buildings on fire and broke into stores. The fighting
lasted till midafternoon.
The group then decided to head to Wounded Knee, an Oglala Sioux hamlet on
the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. Everyone began setting up tents
and making bunkers around the Sacred Heart Church. Only a few had rifles and
there was only one automatic weapon an AK-47. Many stood silent as they stood
on where many of there people were butchered.
Around the vicinity stood the Gildersleeve Trading Post and Sacred Heart
Church. Both had been desecretions of the slaughtered Indians from the
Original Battle of Wounded Knee. There was a store that sold postcards with
the images of the dead corpses. The church that overlooked the valley was
taken over by the Indians. They stormed in and began to dance Indian fashion.
A FBI car arrived to monitor their actions. We challenged them to repeat the
massacre that occurred almost a hundred years ago.
During the ten-week long takeover at Wounded Knee, the time was mostly past
in boredom. Women were sent to stores to buy food while others prepared it.
The brave and strong women carried weapons. A white man's home became a
hospital ran by woman. More and more feds arrived to surround the area and
some shot at people. Some were strolling around in armored vehicles others
walked through the vicinity with attack dogs. Reporters and politicians had
also arrived. When food became short, they began hunting for elks and bulls.
One day a plane flew through and dropped four hundred pounds of food. Everyone
began to swarm around it and unpack it. It was filled with powdered milk,
beans, flour, rice, coffee, bandages, vitamins, and antibiotics.
Two Indians were dead and many were injured. When an Indian was shot at and
badly hurt, they asked the feds to cease fire. They began to wave a white
flag. The two thousand Indians had stood their ground at Wounded Knee.
