Black Elk Remembers The Wounded Knee Massacre Analysis

On June 25, 1876, The Battle of Little Bighorn took place near the Black Hills in Montana. This was one of the most controversial battles of the 20th century and the line between good guys and bad guys was grey at best. Gen. George Armstrong Custer (reduced to LTC after the civil war) had 366 men of the 7thU.S. Cavalry under his command that day. Sitting Bull (A Medicine Man) led 2000 braves of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes (Klos, 2013). At the conclusion of the battle, the stories of the Indians savagery were used to demonize their culture and there were no survivors from the 7thcavalry to tell what really happened.

Many other military events occurred, such as the Indian raiding parties. One Indian raiding party killed all of the white settlers at Indian Creek while the raiding party was scavenging supplies in the area for the band, which was running low on food. Militiamen in the Battle of Pecatonica, in which the raiding party was defeated, attacked another Sauk raiding party. There was then the Battle of Wisconsin Heights. In this battle, sixty Sauk warriors held off the militia while the Indian non-combatants escaped to safety across the river. An old Indian chieftain hid in a tree after the battle and attempted to negotiate surrender, but the militia could not understand what he was trying to say, ignored him, and continued to pursue the fleeing Indians. Many events like this happened, where the Sauk attempted to surrender, whether by a white flag or verbally, but the US troops and militiamen misinterpreted them or did not care and continued to battle and pursue the Indians (Wyman and Hagan).

It is easy to picture nearly the entire column, which was marching from Fort William Henry to Fort Edwards, being slaughtered when you hear the story. When 1600 armed, Indian warriors are attacking a defenseless, panicked column of about 2400 people (including women & children), there is not much left to the imagination how things happened. In reality, however, it did not happen the way that the most people think it did. Colonel Monro's own estimations were that 129 were killed and wounded among the British troops. Regarding the colonial militia, he said, "No Regular Accot Could be got from the Provincials but their Numbers Kill'd Could not be Less than Four Officers & about 40 Men. And very near as many Men Wounded." There is no doubt some killing occurred, but in the big

Source C Textbook Entry About Little Bighorn, Source B: Kate Bighead Interview (modified), and Source A: Cameron Report (modified) were the most helpful to me. In Source C Textbook Entry About Little Bighorn would be the most helpful to find out why there was conflict between the US Army and the Lakota Sioux in the late 1800s because it gives facts about why the war was started. An example is “For years the Lakota Sioux conducted raids against white settlers who had moved into Sioux lands.The U.S. government ordered all Lakota Sioux to return to their reservation by January 31, 1876. They refused. The situation was turned over to the military." The second most helpful to me was the Source B: Kate Bighead Interview (modified) because it told

Never have the men seen Lewis this mad and they never seen them whip an Indian. The soldiers had threatened the Old man with the rifles and they also had gave him a few hit with a switch. The Chinooks show Lewis and Clark their flaws. They had such a bad reputation. They wasn’t just known as thieves they was known as one of the best thieves. They was so good that the men could turn their back for one second and something would be missing. The Indians tended to upset Lewis. They had stolen his dog (Seaman) and that was the last straw for Lewis patience with these Indians. Lewis ordered three men to go out and follow them and if they become any type of difficult to fire at

On June 25, 1876, a battle was fought on the territory of Montana. This battle became known as the battle of Little Bighorn. The battle took place because Natives refused to move off territories that they were told to move from into native reserves. When they refused the U.S Army was dispatched to confront them. Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong led the troops into battle. Native warriors from Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne outnumbered the Army. June 25,

In the south of central Montana during 1876 on June 25th and 26th, a battle happened known as the Battle of Little Bighorn or also known as “Custer’s Last Stand”. The Native American Tribes that were involved was the Lakota Sioux, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes. They were battling against the 7th regiment of the US Cavalry which was led by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer. In the year of 1868 Lakota leaders agreed to a treaty known as Fort Laramie Treaty which was suppose to give the Lakota leaders a large reservation for their tribes. But in accepting the treaty they also accepted giving up their nomadic lifestyles and agreed to a more stationary livelihood in the reservation. Some leaders like Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse did not agree

In 1874 the US Army sent a force under Colonel Custer into South Dakota. When gold was discovered in the area, the federal government declared that all Sioux Indians not in reservations would have to be subjugated by Custer’s troops. Many Sioux refused to cooperate, and Custer began to attack. At the battle of Little Bighorn, in June 1876, Custer split his troops, and a larger force of Indians wiped out all of his men. After this defeat, the army took a different course by harassing the Sioux in attrition. Indians eventually lost the will to resist as these strategies were commonly successful against the Sioux. In the December of 1890, approximately 300 Indians were killed by US troops at Wounded Knee. This massacre was the indication to the end of Indian opposition. The Plains Indians were eventually conquered and forced into reservations.

When he failed to do so at the point time and place they ordered his arrest General Nelson A.Miles on December 28.The Army casualties were 25 dead and 39 wounded. The Following the massacre the soldiers left the wounded Native American to die in a three day blizzard that followed and later hired civilians to remove the bodies and bury them in a mass grave.Then they got 20 medals of honor were later given to honor the U.S soldiers who participated in the massacre.Even so,Miles to continue to criticize Forsyth and promoted the fact that wounded knee was a deliberate massacre.

The reservation was also the place where the Battle of Wounded Knee occurred (“History of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation”). As the Ghost Dance movement grew in strength and popularity, so did the uneasiness of the United States government. Sitting Bull was captured and killed. The U.S. 7th Cavalry attacked Black Elk’s Sioux encampment, killing 200 men, women, and children. Black Elk also experienced the poverty and starvation forced upon them by the policies of the U.S. government (“Black Elk”). The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 guaranteed land to the Great Sioux Nation. This was cut down to create the present day Pine Ridge Reservation (Martinez).

The book Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee was written by Dee Brown. Dee Brown wrote a handful of books and the central theme around those books were tales of Native Americans and civil war stories. He spent a long time studying different tribes all around the United States. He has brought out the voice of the Native Americans which was muffled and silenced by the army and government. This book brought much awareness to a cause many had forgotten about, and to the shock of many when they realized he was not a Native American. Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee tells the stories of many Native American tribes and their hardships when facing the government, army, and settlers. While reading this book, I came to quite a shock. I learned the point of view that was hidden in history books, the loss instead of the win, and the sadness felt throughout the book that made it unpleasant to read. I believe this book has brought to light the mistreatment of Native Americans in the past, the main hardships including countless false treaties, harsh treatments from the settlers, and the unjust massacres. I found this book to be quite a difficult read but incredibly worth it. It is written in such a manner that you feel immersed, you feel the all the emotions and imagine how everything came to be. It is figurative, but also incredibly factual. In the beginning of almost every chapter, before the actual start, there is small paragraph with the year and the events in that following year, a quote, or

The Wounded Knee, the confliction of North Americans Indians and the U.S government representatives, was located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota, U.S. This massacre that began on December 29, 1890, was the cause of

Crazy Horse was brutally murdered and the Sioux surrendered (“Battle”). In 1890 the government learned that the Native Americans were doing the Ghost Dance (Cayton 265). The Ghost Dance was a ritual in which people join hands and twirled in a circle (Cayton 265). When the government saw the Ghost Dance, they thought the Native Americans were crazy and trying to rebel, so they tried to arrest Sitting Bull (Cayton 265). In this conflict that came to be known as the Battle of Wounded Knee, soldiers killed Sitting Bull, 120 men, and 230 women and children (Cayton 265). These battles pushed Native Americans onto reservations and took away their basic human rights.

On the morning of December 29, 1890, many Sioux Indians (estimated at above two hundred) died at the hands of the United States Army near Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The Indians were followers of the Ghost Dance religion, devised by Wovoka, a Paiute prophet, as a spiritual outlet for Indian repression by whites. The United States Army set out to intercept this group of Native Americans because they performed the controversial Ghost Dance. Both whites’ and the Sioux’s misunderstanding of an originally peaceful Indian religion culminated in the Battle of Wounded Knee. This essay first shows how the Ghost Dance came about, its later adaptation by the Sioux, and

On November 18, 1978, followers of Jim Jones shot and killed United States Congressman Leo J. Ryan and four others traveling with him on a fact finding trip to Guyana. Ryan was there to investigate complaints about the community called "Jonestown," which was largely inhabited by his former California constituents.