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mahatmakanejeeves

(60,699 posts)
Thu Dec 29, 2022, 10:54 AM Dec 2022

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
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On this day, December 29, 1890, the U.S. Army massacred at least 146 Sioux Indians at Wounded Knee. (Original Post) mahatmakanejeeves Dec 2022 OP
... 2naSalit Dec 2022 #1
Thank you. niyad Dec 2022 #2
Read, "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee." It is an extraordinary compilation of interactions between 3Hotdogs Dec 2022 #3
How many Native Americans have perished due to the arrival of Europeans GreenWave Dec 2022 #4

3Hotdogs

(13,352 posts)
3. Read, "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee." It is an extraordinary compilation of interactions between
Thu Dec 29, 2022, 12:56 PM
Dec 2022

whites and Native Americans from colonial times, forward.

GreenWave

(9,028 posts)
4. How many Native Americans have perished due to the arrival of Europeans
Thu Dec 29, 2022, 01:08 PM
Dec 2022

in the past five centuries? We have seen thriving populations of millions dwindle down to hundreds in a quarter century or so.

On my breaks at a huge library I read cavalry reports. They are straight out of 1884, Mr. Orwell, not 1984. The reports show no empathy just how many they killed, estimated ages and did they get all of them?

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