Wounded Knee (12-29-1890)

“I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream.”
-- Black Elk

This haunting quote from the Lakota holy man Black Elk describes his insight on the Wounded Knee Massacre. Today is the anniversary of the December 29, 1890 conflict, in which the US military attacked a group of Indian people who had surrendered their freedom the day before.

Spotted Elk, a chief of the Miniconjou, had led approximately 350 people, from various tribes, on a trip towards the reservation the military had selected for them. They had camped along the bank of the Chanjkpe-Opi-Wakpala, or Wounded Knee Creek.

According to historians, on the morning of the 29th, the military attempted to secure the guns that some of the Indians had. A deaf man, Black Coyote, did not understand when a soldier attempted to take his gun. Thus, the violence began: over 200 Indian men, women, and children were killed, and 51 wounded (4 men, and 47 women and children); some of the wounded died in the days that followed. Twenty-five soldiers were killed, and 39 were wounded (six of the wounded died in the following days).

The dead Indians were buried in a mass grave. The Wounded Knee Massacre would mark the end of the “Indian wars” of the 1800s. There were, of course, other incidents of conflict, where people were injured and killed. Though it was not the only such massacre, it stood out in our nation’s history.