The Story of Wounded Knee Essays

Big Foot was the chief of a subtribe of the Lakota called Miniconjou. He was very old and had pneumonia. He was taking his tribe to the Pine Ridge Reservation in south-western South Dakota.

One event brought death to over 225 Sioux Indians on December 29, 1890. The Sioux Indians were fighting against themselves until Wovoka created the Ghost Dance Ritual, which is for the peace of the Indians. Due to the frequent use of the rituals the Americans thought of it as a sign of hostility causing the Ghost Dance Wars. The Ghost Dance Wars caused the death of Sitting Bull which did lead to the start and finish of Wounded Knee Battle. The Battle of Wounded Knee lead to the end of the war, starting violence against the Indians, but lead to the Indians rights to return. The Battle of Wounded Knee, a horrific battle, ended The Ghost Dance Wars, and brought up A.I.M which helped the Sioux tribes gain their rights.

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 Indians faced many problems since Jackson and his “ Indian Removal Act”. “An Act to provide for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for their removal west of the river Mississippi” (Doc 4). In 1877, the government established the “Dawes Act”. The “Dawes Act” was an attempt by the U.S government to Americanize the Native Americans, For example, it set up schools to make Native Americans children more like other American. Although some Indians thought they will be protected under the government, but on November 1864 colonel Chivington’s militia massacred 400 indians and killed them with cold blood even they had been promised to be safe and they were peaceful. As a result, many tribes followed “Wovoka”, who he had vision that he saw the Christ and received warning about the evils of white men. Many people started to believe in him and practice a “Ghost Dance”, which believed that it will send back the whites to where they come from and help the young warriors. As a result and fearing of the “Ghost Dance” American troops were called to go with the reformist. Which led to the death of 150 of the indians, the death of sitting Bull and end everything .This later was called “the battle of wounded

Chief Spotted Elk gained many new members after 200 people left Sitting Bull’s Hunkpapa band. They were afraid that more police officers would arrive and detain them. Then, Spotted Elk, his band, and a handful of Hunkpapa left the Indian Reservation on the Cheyenne River. They fled to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, under the control of Red Cloud, to obtain shelter from the repercussions they believed they faced.

Ghost dancers near Wounded Knee Creek gained a big crowd and gathered to sing and dance their traditional dances. The federal government were worried that this would turn into something worse and sent troops to watch over them. Evidently, the troops opened fire and ended up killing around 200 people, most of them being women and children. This event, referred to as the Wounded Knee Massacre showed how far the government will go to seek land in the west for economic reasons. This marked the end of conflict between the settlers and the Native Americans. Their population had fallen to the lowest point of history. Congress slashed the treaty system that saw Native American tribes as independent nations in 1871, which was backed heavily by railroad companies to gain more land for construction (Fohner, Liberty 624). They saw Native Americans as an obstacle in production and sought to eliminate their existence. The Dawes Act in 1877 broke up the land of almost of Native American tribes and split them into small parcels with some being allotted to Native American families, while the remainder of the land was sold to white settlers (Fohner, Liberty 625). The settlers and Native Americans ideas of freedom were vastly different. Native Americans idea of

The Ghost Dance originated from A Paiute named Wovoka. According to him, the people needed to perform a circle dance and sing songs from visions. Wovoka told the indigenous people to return to more traditional outfits and lead moral lives. If they did this, the dead led by Jesus Christ would come for them and restore balance to their chaotic world. The Lakota lost more than half of their land due to the Dawes Act. Due to this, along with bison becoming nearly extinct in the area, not being able to access their hunting grounds, and the United States Government’s inadequate care towards them, the Lakota suffered large losses at the hands of illness and a lack of resources. However the Ghost Dance soon reached the Lakota, where it had great success

Today a Monument stands in wounded knee, but it was once a reservation were native Americans used to reside. Back in 1890, a U,S Calvary executed an attack on wounded knee. The attack was aimed to stop Native Americans from preforming the ghost dance, a native American movement, this resulted in many lives. As a result, today we view the occurrence as an inhumane action, but it is not right to judge history by the standards of today.

Prior to the Americans invasion of the Indians land, resources, social hierarchy and traditions; Indians hopes and fears were those of a common human. Humans hope for good weather to turn good crops, peace between different tribes, and strong healthy families, but all humans have a fear of war, hunger, and the unknown. During the massacre of Wounded Knee the Indians hoped for mercy for their people, and feared for their life’s. The massacre of miscommunication was a combination of assumptions, rumors, and fear. The Ghost dance contributed to the American fear due to their misunderstanding of what the dance symbolized. After the Indian had their freedom taken away, and culture assimilation into the American way;

Professor Wilson chose to talk about Native American Indians during the last part of the class, something that not only myself but my classmates were probably very excited about. Pretty sure, this will be the topic of many other students, because of how passionate Professor Wilson was about Native American Indians. This made it all the more interesting because of the emotion that Wilson choose to put into it, making myself more enthusiastic, and involved in the topic.

The tribe was about to move to the woods for the winter. Dances with wolves had to go back to the post and get his journey he was writing everything in about him and the Indians, for if soldiers would find it, it would not be to good. He arrived back and the place was loaded with soldiers, and they shot at him like he was an Indian. He managed to survive, but he could not prove he was a Lt. In the army and was being arrested for treason.

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.

It is so sad to read at how many of these treaties were promised to the people that turned out to not be fulfilled. Wanted to trust those same people who didn’t keep their promises that would be extremely difficult to do. The Ghost Dance religion was something that many of the chiefs were interesting it taking part in. Little did they know the trouble that it was going to cause in the future. In which eventually lead to the Battle of Wounded Kneee. Your presentation was very informative and the picture you use added to the information that was presented.

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

Crook had with him 60 or some odd number of Native scouts in his control to talk in Crazy Horse into surrendering, in doing so the Sioux scouts that were in possession of Crook finally acquired Crazy Horse and made him come into the reservation for good. Smits stats one of Crazy Horse’s number one men, High Bear by saying “You sent for us to come in, and we knew that some of our people were with you, and we did not wish to fight them, and so we came.” This showing the U.S. Army that the Sioux tribe had no intention of killing innocent Natives that were literally brainwashed by fear of death by the hands of the U.S. Army. Smits continues on by showing us that a day later Miles and his scouts crushed Lame Deer’s band of Natives, in achieving the end of the Great Sioux War.