Ronin (Aizawa Romance)

(b) Massacre at Wounded Knee

History of the Wounded Knee Massacre

By Robert McNamara
Updated November 13, 2019

The massacre of hundreds of Native Americans at Wounded Knee in South Dakota on December 29, 1890, marked a particularly tragic milestone in American history. The killing of mostly unarmed men, women, and children, was the last major encounter between the Sioux and U.S. Army troops, and it could be viewed as the end of the Plains Wars.
The violence at Wounded Knee was rooted in the federal government's reaction to the ghost dance movement, in which a religious ritual centered around dancing became a potent symbol of defiance to white rule. As the ghost dance spread to Indian reservations throughout the West, the federal government began to regard it as a major threat and sought to suppress it.

The tensions between whites and Indians greatly increased, especially as federal authorities began to fear that the legendary Sioux medicine man Sitting Bull was about to become involved in the ghost dance movement. When Sitting Bull was killed while being arrested on December 15, 1890, the Sioux in South Dakota became fearful.

Overshadowing the events of late 1890 were decades of conflicts between whites and Indians in the West. But one event, the massacre at the Little Bighorn of Col. George Armstrong Custer and his troops in June 1876 resonated most deeply.
The Sioux in 1890 suspected that commanders in the U.S. Army felt a need to avenge Custer. And that made the Sioux especially suspicious of actions taken by soldiers who came to confront them over the ghost dance movement.

Against that backdrop of mistrust, the eventual massacre at Wounded Knee arose out of a series of misunderstandings. On the morning of the massacre, it was unclear who fired the first shot. But once the shooting began, the U.S. Army troops cut down unarmed Indians with no restraint. Even artillery shells were fired at Sioux women and children who were seeking safety and running from the soldiers.

In the aftermath of the massacre, the Army commander on the scene, Col. James Forsyth, was relieved of his command. However, an Army inquiry cleared him within two months, and he was restored to his command.
The massacre, and the forcible rounding up of Indians following it crushed any resistance to white rule in the West. Any hope the Sioux or other tribes had of being able to restore their way of life was obliterated. And life on the detested reservations became the plight of the American Indian.

The Wounded Knee massacre faded into history, but a book published in 1971, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, became a surprise bestseller and brought the name of the massacre back to public awareness. The book by Dee Brown, a narrative history of the West told from the Indian point of view, struck a chord in America at a time of national skepticism and is widely considered a classic.

And Wounded Knee came back in the news in 1973, when American Indian activists, as an act of civil disobedience, took over the site in a standoff with federal agents.
Roots of the Conflict
The ultimate confrontation at Wounded Knee was rooted in the movement of the 1880s to force Indians in the West onto government reservations. Following the defeat of Custer, the U.S. military was fixated on defeating any Indian resistance to forced resettlement.

Sitting Bull, one of the most respected Sioux leaders, led a band of followers across the international border into Canada. The British government of Queen Victoria allowed them to live there and did not persecute them in any way. Yet conditions were very difficult, and Sitting Bull and his people eventually returned to South Dakota.

In the 1880s, Buffalo Bill Cody, whose exploits in the West had become famous through dime novels, recruited Sitting Bull to join his famous Wild West Show. The show traveled extensively, and Sitting Bull was a huge attraction.

After a few years of enjoying fame in the white world, Sitting Bull returned to South Dakota and life on a reservation. He was regarded with considerable respect by the Sioux.