The Lakota Tribe

Just like in the holocaust the American Indians have faced their own share of hardships that were pressed upon them by citizens the US. Since people started settling here in the 1500’s there has always been problems with the natives and the new comers but this incident that I will talk about is one of the more recent and pretty much last of it’s kind that has happened between the American Indians and the US government.

In the 1800's the earliest non-Indian people in the west were trappers and traders. They mostly got along with the Indians and shared resources and would also marry Indian women. As time moved forward settlers started going west and began building homes and putting fences up on the Indians land, pushing them out. As more people wanted to go west the military was sent in to remove the Indians from the land. They proposed treaties and made offers that they claimed the Indians would greatly benefit from in exchange for the land. Once treaties were created they were soon broken and new ones were made up.

The first treaty was in 1851. It allowed white settlers to travel through the Platte River Valley and boundaries were set up for the Lakota tribe. Another treaty was drawn up in 1868 was an agreement between the United States and the Lakota nation, guaranteeing to the Lakota ownership of the Black Hills, and further land and hunting rights in South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. The Powder River Country was to be closed to all others. This treaty ended the war between Red Cloud and the US government. In the Agreement of 1876 the US government triggered another war because they wanted the Indians to give up the Powder River hunting grounds. At that same time gold was discovered in the Black Hills and miners came from all over to retrieve it. This broke the treaty of 1868. The US response was to annex the Black Hills. This gave the Indians less territory.

The Dawes act of 1887 was another negotiation that shrank the tribal lands into smaller reservations where each family would get a small parcel of land to tend. There were seven reservations; Cheyenne River Agency, Crow Creek Agency, Lower Brule Agency, Rosebud Agency, Sisseton Agency, Yankton Agency and Pine Ridge Agency. Americans would be appointed to go to these agencies and appoint land to the Indian families and would be in charge of passing out supplies and maintaining order among the people.

The American Indians once in and starting to settle would try their best to adapt and continue with their way of life. Ghost dancing was part of it. It is a spiritual dance that was done as a way of communicating with the deceased in hopes that they may return in some form. In 1888 a man named Wovoka reported 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. Tribal leaders met with him and took the message home. All of the tribes adopted Wovoka's advice against violence except for the Sioux. They were still quite angry over the broken land treaty in February of 1890 and the reduction in rations. Although Ghost Dancing was a spiritual ceremony, some agents for other tribes misinterpreted it as a war dance. The agents became frightened and sent for military help to stop what they interpreted as upcoming war.

On December 15, 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, Big Foot became seriously ill with pneumonia. The tribe then set off to seek shelter with Red Cloud at Pine Ridge. Big Foot’s group was intercepted by Major Samuel Whitside and the Seventh Cavalry Regiment and was 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, around 500; the Indians, 350. A rumor among the Lakota during the evening of the 28th, said that all Indians were to be deported to an Oklahoma territory, which had the reputation for living conditions far worse than any prison. The Lakota became fearful that the rumor was true.

On December 29, Lakota Ghost Dancers were on their way through the badlands toward Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. There the 7th Cavalry Regiment intercepted the dancers and ordered them to hand over their weapons. A search was ordered, and some of the weapons were collected. A shot was fired, prompting a call for the Cavalry to fire. At first, the struggle was fought at close range, but the fight moved as the Lakota sought to escape fire from the troops, who chased them for miles across the prairies. By the end of fighting, which lasted less than an hour, at least 150 Lakota had been killed and 50 wounded. In comparison, army casualties numbered 25 dead and 39 wounded. 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 reportedly died on the field, while at least seven of Lakota were mortally wounded.

After the battle 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, 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 troops 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.

This incident is only one of many that go along with the American Indians. I’m not saying that it is right but as Americans, I think too much is concentrated on what bad things have happened outside our country and not enough is known about what happened here. Actually I think that not enough is even covered about what goes on in the world outside the US either. But a lot of people have at least heard about the holocaust and could tell you who was involved. How many can tell you about incidents that happened here on our soil? We really need to start from inside our own country and work our way out. It’s important to see the mistakes and the events of the people before us so we can be educated to not let something like that happen again. I think once people can get a grasp on that, then moving beyond our borders to learn about the history of another country would be a lot better.



You can find more information here: http://www.woundedkneemuseum.org/main_menu.html

Also there is a great film that HBO did last May called "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee"