Wounded Knee:The Ties of Religion and Violence Essay

Most of the women and children in Big Foot's tribe were family members of the warriors who had died in the Plains wars. The Indians had agreed to live on small reservations after the US government took away their land. At the Wounded Knee camp, there were 120 men and 230 women and children. At the camp, they were guarded by the US Seventh Cavalry lead by Major Samuel Whitside. During the year 1890 a new dance called the Ghost Dance started among the Sioux and other tribes. The Sioux's Christ figure, Wovoka, was said to have flown over Sitting Bull and Short Bull and taught them the dance and the songs. The Ghost Dance legend was that the next spring, when the grass was high, the Earth would be covered with a new layer of soil, covering all white men. Wild buffalo and horses would return and there would be swift running water, sweet grass, and new trees. All Indians who danced the Ghost dance would be floating in the air when the new soil was being laid down and would be saved. The Ghost Dance was made illegal after the Wounded Knee massacre though. On December 28, 1890 the Seventh Cavalry saw Big Foot moving his tribe and Big

Many of the Indians that left with the missionaries were gone for many years and did not know how much had changed back at home. In the story The Soft-Hearted Sioux a young man comes back home after receiving an education from the missionaries. He had left before he was taught how to survive out in the wild. He came back to dying and starving parents. He was brainwashed by the missionaries because he went against his family’s customs and told the medicine man never to come back and that God will save his father. He started preaching God’s words to his people and they left the community. His father was growing sicker and sicker and he needed food. His son went out everyday trying to get something but had no skills in hunting. His father had told him to go two hills over and he could find meat. With no concept of ownership, the son went and killed a cow that belonged to an American. Upon leaving with the meat he was chased down and attacked by the “owner” of the cattle. The son accidentally killed the man and fled back to his father’s teepee only to realize that he was too late and that his father had died. He was so conditioned by the white man that he had forgotten his ancestors’ ways of survival.

“Indians are like the weather.” With his opening words Vine Deloria Jr. sets up the basis for the rest of his witty yet substantial manifesto, Custer Died for Your Sins. The book, which describes the struggles and misrepresentation of the American Indian people in 1960s American culture, is written in a style that changes from ironic and humorous satire to serious notions, then back again. Through energetic dialogue that engages the reader in a clever and articulate presentation, Deloria advocates the dismissal of old stereotypes and shows a viewpoint that allows the general public to gain a deeper understanding of what it is to be an American Indian.

The Sand Creek Massacre involved many native tribes, including the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Sioux, Kiowa, and Comanche. Among many of these tribes were the targeted, Black Kettle and White Antelope leaders of the Cheyenne. Left Hand and Little Raven were the Arapaho chiefs. “The Cheyenne and the Arapaho were the tribes that were mainly affected in this massacre.” (Hoig 15)

"My People the Sioux" is a good literary work written in 1928. This book leaves an everlasting impression with some because it definitely intensifies the sympathy for the Indians. Luther Standing Bear, also known as Plenty Kill, portrays the dramatic and traumatic changes about the Sioux throughout their traditional way of life. As a young boy growing up, he experienced many of these hardships first hand between his people and the whites. This autobiography is quite valuable as it helps allow us to envision what really happened in the battling times of the Indians. Luther stated this quote, which to me, is unforgettable and very well said. It reads:

President Harrison’s intended message in his “Report on Wounded Knee Massacre and the Decrease in Indian Land Acreage” is to ensure the people that the massacre was a self-defense act by the soldiers. He said that the natives were “naturally warlike and turbulent” which puts the blame on the massacre on the Natives. Modern American’s can learn a lot from the Wounded Knee Massacre. To Americans, the massacre represents the end of the Indian resistance. Although this massacre is usually not mentioned in history classes today is it defiantly something that should be remembered. American soldiers were violent towards the Indians. While men were trying to flee the American soldiers would shoot them in the back and let their bodies there to freeze.

In John Smith’s The General History of Virginia, New England, and the Summer Isles, his portrayal of the Native Americans is that of a tradition-driven people, who were willing to trade and occasionally aid the colonists, but were ultimately considered barbarians. The traditional aspect of the native’s culture can be found in their descriptions of fighting and dancing, with one of Smith’s first hostile encounters describing the Native Powhatan warriors being painted in different colors while “singing

“Custer’s luck! The biggest Indian village on the continent!” Supposedly, these were the last words recorded to have been uttered by Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer before the infamous battle that would claim his life and the lives of hundreds of soldiers (Dippie 2). Nearly a century and a half later, this conflict is immersed in just as much controversy as it was the day it occurred. The Battle of Little Bighorn and Custer’s Last Stand is perhaps more famous due to the difficulty of differentiating the myths versus the facts, rather than its actual historical significance in the 19th century. The different interpretations via historians, archaeologists, and Native Americans have contributed to the positive and negative versions of the battle that exist today. However, by understanding the basics, conflict, and research that surrounds the Battle of Little Bighorn and Custer’s Last Stand, one can form their own opinion and better interpret the ways in which it is portrayed in media and throughout time by interested persons and descendent communities.

The American government felt threatened by the Ghost Dance and the prophecies that the Indians

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

With the whites moving in on the Black Hills in search for gold, they wanted to buy it from the Lakota people. Crazy Horse moved and set up camp around the area and led raids on the miners. With these attacks, the whites decided to build more forts in the Lakota area, and force all of the Lakota people into agencies. Crazy Horse and the people who had followed him believed that they had to drive out the whites, and that the buffalo would return.

Native Americans make up less than .9% of the United States population. With this trivial number, it is difficult to keep its culture and traditions alive as generations progress. In the short story “War Dances,” author Sherman Alexie morns the loss of Native American identity through a deprecating tone which illustrate a divide between generations.

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.

I’d like to begin by ensuring the reader that the title is intentionally facetious. In this essay, I will compare the ritual actions of the Crow Tribe to the seemingly relativistic nature of contemporary American culture in regards to meaning and explore the multitude of questions this comparison raises. The Crow Tribe found great fulfillment in actions associated with tribal warfare such as enumerating battle achievements or engaging in the Sun Dance together (meant to inspire the Crow warriors to be successful in battle). When their land was encroached by the white settlers of the early U.S., these actions suddenly lost meaning as warfare was outlawed. Why dance together to inspire the warriors when there could no longer be any tribal fighting? While some meaningful actions like stealing the Sioux’s horses were literally barred from existence, I find the problem of the lack of purpose of the Sun Dance to be more interesting. This problem - societal rituals losing their meaning and the depression that ensues within that society - is referred to by Lear as cultural devastation. While the Crow Tribe rituals were stripped of meaning once their way of life was disturbed, American meaningful actions (rituals or otherwise) are less prone to losing meaning due to the individualistic nature of the U.S. Take for example: graduating from college. The fact that graduating from college has meaning should be self-evident. Is graduating meaningful because of its collectivist