Dakota Daughters presentation on Wounded Knee Massacre open to all on Wednesday 12/6 at Rapid City church.
As the 133rd anniversary of the tragic Wounded Knee massacre arrives this month, an event in Rapid City this week will provide some light on this dark event in American history.
On Dec. 29, 1890, nearly 300 Lakota people — many of them elderly, women and children — were shot and killed by a regiment of the Seventh United States Cavalry. That mass murder left a dark stain of blood on the ground and on the soul of this nation.
The soldiers were responding to concerns about the ride of the Ghost Dance spiritual movement among Native Americans. Wovoka, a Northern Paiute spiritual leader, said if the dance was performed, the spirits of dead ancestors would arise and join with their descendants to fight with them, repelling the white invaders who were taking over their ancient lands. The Ghost Dance shirt he created would be invulnerable to bullets, Wovoka said.
Indians would live in peace and prosperity, Wovoka proclaimed. The movement swept across the West.
On Dec. 15, 1890, Sitting Bull, the legendary Hunkpapa Lakota leader, was killed by Indian Agency Police officers on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation that crosses the border between South and North Dakota. Government officials were worried that Sitting Bull — “Tatanka Yotanka” or “Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake” — would add his voice to the Ghost Dance movement. They ordered his arrest.
Sitting Bull fought back and a bloody skirmish broke out. When it was over, he was dead, along with seven of his supporters, as well as eight police officers.
This added to the tension of that time. In addition, members of the Seventh Cavalry still bore a grudge over the overwhelming defeat of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer in the Battle of Greasy Grass, aka Custer’s Last Stand on June 25-26, 1876. Custer and his entire immediate command were killed by a combined force of Lakota, Northern Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors.
So on Dec. 28, 1890, when the Seventh Cavalry arrested more than 300 Lakota people making their way through winter conditions to the Pine Ridge Reservation, the frigid air crackled with anger and danger.
The next day, soldiers tried to seize weapons from the Lakota, who were held at a camp near Wounded Knee Creek. At least one man resisted, and a shot was fired. There is no clear evidence where it came from, but it sparked a horrific assault on largely unarmed people.
The 500 soldiers were armed with repeating rifles and Hotchkiss guns, a cannon with a revolving barrel. They fired into the camp, killing elderly people, women and children as well as men.
More than a century after the mass murder, the Wounded Knee Massacre still resonates. Astoundingly, 20 soldiers who took part in the horror at Wounded Knee in 1890 received the coveted Medal of Honor. Efforts to have those undeserved awards rescinded continue.
On Feb. 27, 1973, Native American activists, many of them members of the American Indian Movement, seized control of the village in an effort to bring attention to the racist and violent treatment of Indians. The occupation ended after 71 days and at least three deaths.
The late South Dakota newspaperman Tim Giago, a regular contributor to The South Dakota Standard, grew up in Wounded Knee, and often wrote about its ongoing significance to the Lakota people, to the state and the world. What happened there can never be forgotten, and the bitter lessons learned must be repeated and remembered.
The massacre, its causes and aftermath will be discussed through the Dakota Daughters, a long-running and popular South Dakota Humanities Council speakers bureau program, at 6:15 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 6. The event will be held at St. Andrews Episcopal Church, 910 Sioux San Drive in Rapid City.
It is free and open to all.
SDHC scholars Joyce Jefferson, Geraldine Goes In Center and Lillian Witt (photo above is from a previous show’s flyer - l. to r. are Witt, Goes In Center, Jefferson) will provide a contemplative, Chautauqua-style retelling of history by three women from diverse cultures (one white, one black, one Lakota) in the late 1800s.
Although the character portrayals are fictionalized, the historical representation is based on the actual events, materials and arts of the period.
December is a joyous time for many people, as they celebrate faith, family and friends with Christmas and other holidays. But there is a grim anniversary that also must be marked, and this Dakota Daughters presentation will help ensure it is recalled this month.
Tom Lawrence has written for several newspapers and websites in South Dakota and other states and contributed to The New York Times, NPR, The Telegraph, The Daily Beast and other media outlets.
Addendum: We’d like to thank Dr. Dwight S. Mears, Reference Librarian at Portland State University for sending us clarification and further illumination of the tragedy at Wounded Knee.
Writes Dr. Mears: I have a law review article forthcoming on the Wounded Knee Massacre, and a documentary in production on the same. My Google alert led me to read your recent Dakota Daughters article, and I noted a few inaccuracies that you may wish to correct. The Army actually awarded only 19 medals of honor for conduct that flowed from Wounded Knee--one medal to Private Marvin Hillock actually was awarded for action at White Clay Creek a day later, but in later decades was identified as a Wounded Knee medal due to a typographical mistake. The Hotchkiss mountain guns used against Natives at Wounded Knee were single barrel breach-loaded cannons, not the revolving cannon you identified. The proper reference is M1875 Hotchkiss mountain gun, 1.65 inch, also known as two-pounders. That mistake is common in the literature surrounding Wounded Knee, and traces to Smithsonian ethnologist James Mooney, who described the cannons as machine guns with a high rate of fire in his report in the 1890s (he was not an eyewitness and apparently looked up the wrong model weapon). Mooney's report was cited by Dee Brown in his book Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, which effectively popularized the error. Happy to send you primary sources validating both claims, if interested.
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