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On this day, December 29, 1890, the U.S. Army massacred at least 146 Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee.
{edited to add the link to the 2019 thread}
Mon Dec 30, 2019: Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: December 29, 1890
U.S. Army massacres Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee
On December 29, 1890, in one of the final chapters of America’s long Indian wars, the U.S. Cavalry kills 146 Sioux at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. ... Throughout 1890, the U.S. government worried about the increasing influence at Pine Ridge of the Ghost Dance spiritual movement, which taught that Native Americans had been defeated and confined to reservations because they had angered the gods by abandoning their traditional customs. Many Sioux believed that if they practiced the Ghost Dance and rejected the ways of the white man, the gods would create the world anew and destroy all non-believers, including non-Indians.
On December 15, 1890, reservation police tried to arrest Sitting Bull, the famous Sioux leader, who they mistakenly believed was a Ghost Dancer, at the Standing Rock reservation and killed him in the process.
On December 29, the U.S. Army’s 7th cavalry surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers under the Sioux Chief Big Foot near Wounded Knee Creek and demanded they surrender their weapons. As that was happening, a fight broke out between an Indian and a U.S. soldier and a shot was fired, although it’s unclear from which side. A brutal massacre followed, in which it’s estimated almost 150 Native Americans were killed (some historians put this number at twice as high), nearly half of them women and children. The cavalry lost 25 men.
The conflict at Wounded Knee was originally referred to as a battle, but in reality it was a tragic and avoidable massacre. Surrounded by heavily armed troops, it’s unlikely that Big Foot’s band would have intentionally started a fight. Some historians speculate that the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry were deliberately taking revenge for the regiment’s defeat at the Little Bighorn in 1876. Whatever the motives, the massacre ended the Ghost Dance movement and was the last major confrontation in America’s deadly war against the Plains Indians.
{snip}
Citation Information
Article Title
U.S. Army massacres Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee
Author
History.com Editors
Website Name
HISTORY
URL
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-army-massacres-indians-at-wounded-knee
Access Date
December 29, 2022
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 5, 2022
Original Published Date
November 24, 2009
On December 29, 1890, in one of the final chapters of America’s long Indian wars, the U.S. Cavalry kills 146 Sioux at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. ... Throughout 1890, the U.S. government worried about the increasing influence at Pine Ridge of the Ghost Dance spiritual movement, which taught that Native Americans had been defeated and confined to reservations because they had angered the gods by abandoning their traditional customs. Many Sioux believed that if they practiced the Ghost Dance and rejected the ways of the white man, the gods would create the world anew and destroy all non-believers, including non-Indians.
On December 15, 1890, reservation police tried to arrest Sitting Bull, the famous Sioux leader, who they mistakenly believed was a Ghost Dancer, at the Standing Rock reservation and killed him in the process.
On December 29, the U.S. Army’s 7th cavalry surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers under the Sioux Chief Big Foot near Wounded Knee Creek and demanded they surrender their weapons. As that was happening, a fight broke out between an Indian and a U.S. soldier and a shot was fired, although it’s unclear from which side. A brutal massacre followed, in which it’s estimated almost 150 Native Americans were killed (some historians put this number at twice as high), nearly half of them women and children. The cavalry lost 25 men.
The conflict at Wounded Knee was originally referred to as a battle, but in reality it was a tragic and avoidable massacre. Surrounded by heavily armed troops, it’s unlikely that Big Foot’s band would have intentionally started a fight. Some historians speculate that the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry were deliberately taking revenge for the regiment’s defeat at the Little Bighorn in 1876. Whatever the motives, the massacre ended the Ghost Dance movement and was the last major confrontation in America’s deadly war against the Plains Indians.
{snip}
Citation Information
Article Title
U.S. Army massacres Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee
Author
History.com Editors
Website Name
HISTORY
URL
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/u-s-army-massacres-indians-at-wounded-knee
Access Date
December 29, 2022
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
January 5, 2022
Original Published Date
November 24, 2009
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