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American History
Related: About this forumOn 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 Americas 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. Armys 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 its unclear from which side. A brutal massacre followed, in which its 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, its unlikely that Big Foots band would have intentionally started a fight. Some historians speculate that the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry were deliberately taking revenge for the regiments defeat at the Little Bighorn in 1876. Whatever the motives, the massacre ended the Ghost Dance movement and was the last major confrontation in Americas 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 Americas 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. Armys 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 its unclear from which side. A brutal massacre followed, in which its 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, its unlikely that Big Foots band would have intentionally started a fight. Some historians speculate that the soldiers of the 7th Cavalry were deliberately taking revenge for the regiments defeat at the Little Bighorn in 1876. Whatever the motives, the massacre ended the Ghost Dance movement and was the last major confrontation in Americas 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
(92,403 posts)1. ...
niyad
(119,606 posts)2. Thank you.
3Hotdogs
(13,352 posts)3. Read, "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee." It is an extraordinary compilation of interactions between
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
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?