Okla-homey
12/29/2010, 07:32 AM
December 29, 1890: U.S. Army massacres Indians at Wounded Knee
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/9056/wounded1jm4.jpg
120 years ago, on this day in 1890, in the final chapter of America's long Indian wars, the U.S. Cavalry kills 146 Sioux at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/637/woundedkneeir5.gif
Throughout 1890, the U.S. government worried about the increasing influence at Pine Ridge of the Ghost Dance spiritual movement, which taught that Indians 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 chief, who they mistakenly believed was a Ghost Dancer, and killed him in the process, increasing the tensions at Pine Ridge.
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/1307/woundedsittingbullth9.jpg
Sitting Bull. He didn't actually believe Ghost Dancing had any magical power, but he approved of the increase of morale among many of his people it brought about
On December 29, a elements of the 7th Cavalry Regiment surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers under the Sioux Chief Big Foot near Wounded Knee Creek and demanded they surrender their weapons.
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/8360/woundedindians090amx1.jpg
Chief Big Foot
As that was happening, a fight broke out between an Indian and a trooper and a shot was fired, although it's unclear from which side. A brutal massacre followed, in which it's estimated almost 150 Indians were killed (some historians put this number at twice as high), nearly half of them non-combatant women and children. The cavalry lost 25 men.
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/8344/woundedkneeimgassistcuser4.jpg
The troopers were armed with horse-drawn Hotchkiss guns like this one. The Hotchkiss was a breech-loading field piece that fired devastating canister rounds which were pop can sized containers filled with steel balls that made the Hotchkiss essentially an enormous shotgun.
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.
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/2654/woundedkneevx7.jpg
January 1, 1891
Some historians speculate that the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry were deliberately taking revenge for the regiment's defeat at 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.
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/4290/wounded20knee20cemetarywl9.jpg
Memorial at the site of the mass grave
Conflict came to Wounded Knee again in February 1973 when it was the site of a 71-day occupation by the activist group AIM (American Indian Movement) and its supporters, who were protesting the U.S. government's mistreatment of American Indians. During the standoff, two Indians were killed, one federal marshal was seriously wounded and numerous people were arrested.
Postscript:
It should be noted that December 29, 1890 was not the bloodiest day in American Indian history. That distinction belongs to March 27, 1814 and the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River near modern Alexander City, Alabama at the close of the Creek War.
On that day, elements of the US 39th Infantry Regiment, the Tennessee militia and their Cherokee and Choctaw allies, all under the command of Andrew Jackson, annihilated over 850 Muscogee (Creek) men, women and children after Jackson's force had won the stand-up fight at a prepared defensive encampment constructed by the Creeks during the Creek War.
Jackson's victory and subsequent massacre of non-combatants and defeated battle survivors broke the back of the Creek resistance, ending the war and thus clearing Alabama for large-scale white settlement and eventual Muscogee (Creek) removal to Oklahoma.
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/7889/insane7zowh7.jpg
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/9056/wounded1jm4.jpg
120 years ago, on this day in 1890, in the final chapter of America's long Indian wars, the U.S. Cavalry kills 146 Sioux at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/637/woundedkneeir5.gif
Throughout 1890, the U.S. government worried about the increasing influence at Pine Ridge of the Ghost Dance spiritual movement, which taught that Indians 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 chief, who they mistakenly believed was a Ghost Dancer, and killed him in the process, increasing the tensions at Pine Ridge.
http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/1307/woundedsittingbullth9.jpg
Sitting Bull. He didn't actually believe Ghost Dancing had any magical power, but he approved of the increase of morale among many of his people it brought about
On December 29, a elements of the 7th Cavalry Regiment surrounded a band of Ghost Dancers under the Sioux Chief Big Foot near Wounded Knee Creek and demanded they surrender their weapons.
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/8360/woundedindians090amx1.jpg
Chief Big Foot
As that was happening, a fight broke out between an Indian and a trooper and a shot was fired, although it's unclear from which side. A brutal massacre followed, in which it's estimated almost 150 Indians were killed (some historians put this number at twice as high), nearly half of them non-combatant women and children. The cavalry lost 25 men.
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/8344/woundedkneeimgassistcuser4.jpg
The troopers were armed with horse-drawn Hotchkiss guns like this one. The Hotchkiss was a breech-loading field piece that fired devastating canister rounds which were pop can sized containers filled with steel balls that made the Hotchkiss essentially an enormous shotgun.
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.
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/2654/woundedkneevx7.jpg
January 1, 1891
Some historians speculate that the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry were deliberately taking revenge for the regiment's defeat at 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.
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/4290/wounded20knee20cemetarywl9.jpg
Memorial at the site of the mass grave
Conflict came to Wounded Knee again in February 1973 when it was the site of a 71-day occupation by the activist group AIM (American Indian Movement) and its supporters, who were protesting the U.S. government's mistreatment of American Indians. During the standoff, two Indians were killed, one federal marshal was seriously wounded and numerous people were arrested.
Postscript:
It should be noted that December 29, 1890 was not the bloodiest day in American Indian history. That distinction belongs to March 27, 1814 and the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River near modern Alexander City, Alabama at the close of the Creek War.
On that day, elements of the US 39th Infantry Regiment, the Tennessee militia and their Cherokee and Choctaw allies, all under the command of Andrew Jackson, annihilated over 850 Muscogee (Creek) men, women and children after Jackson's force had won the stand-up fight at a prepared defensive encampment constructed by the Creeks during the Creek War.
Jackson's victory and subsequent massacre of non-combatants and defeated battle survivors broke the back of the Creek resistance, ending the war and thus clearing Alabama for large-scale white settlement and eventual Muscogee (Creek) removal to Oklahoma.
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/7889/insane7zowh7.jpg