The Wounded Knee Massacre

[stopbush]

The media is telling us that the Orlando mass shooting is the worst mass shooting in US history.

Really? Maybe a mass shooting isn't a mass shooting when the government is the one doing the shooting. Or when the victims are Native Americans:

The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred on December 29, 1890,[5] near Wounded Knee Creek (Lakota: Čhaŋkpé Ópi Wakpála) on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of South Dakota.

The previous day, a detachment of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment commanded by Major Samuel M. Whitside intercepted Spotted Elk's band of Miniconjou Lakota and 38 Hunkpapa Lakota near Porcupine Butte and escorted them 5 miles (8.0 km) westward to Wounded Knee Creek, where they made camp. The remainder of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, led by Colonel James W. Forsyth, arrived and surrounded the encampment. The regiment was supported by a battery of four Hotchkiss mountain guns.

On the morning of December 29, the troops went into the camp to disarm the Lakota. One version of events claims that during the process of disarming the Lakota, a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote was reluctant to give up his rifle, claiming he had paid a lot for it.[7] A scuffle over the rifle escalated, and a shot was fired which resulted in the 7th Cavalry opening fire indiscriminately from all sides, killing men, women, and children, as well as some of their fellow soldiers. The Lakota warriors who still had weapons began shooting back at the attacking soldiers, who quickly suppressed the Lakota fire. The surviving Lakota fled, but cavalrymen pursued and killed many who were unarmed.

By the time it was over, more than 150 men, women, and children of the Lakota had been killed and 51 were wounded (4 men and 47 women and children, some of whom died later); some estimates placed the number of dead at 300. Twenty-five soldiers also died, and 39 were wounded (6 of the wounded later died). At least twenty soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor. In 2001, the National Congress of American Indians passed two resolutions condemning the awards and called on the U.S. government to rescind them. The site of the battlefield has been designated a National Historic Landmark. - Source: Wikipedia

[stopbush]

3. Really? Did you read the account I posted?

Doesn't sound like a battle to me. Mowing down hundreds of men, women and children during the process of supposedly disarming them isn't a battle. It's a massacre.

[Gomez163]

5. The warriors were fighting back. I read it.

[stopbush]

8. Right. They're being disarmed, the Soldiers begin to indiscriminately

muder the Lakota, so the Lakota who still had weapons shot back trying to defend themselves and their families. What should they have done? Put down their arms to be shot down like clay pigeons?

That's what you call a battle? Then why is it known as a massacre?

On edit: the Hotchkiss guns mentioned in the article were Gattling-style weapons that could fire 68 rounds per minute. The US Cavalry had four of those weapons at Wounded Knee.

[Gomez163]

12. Maybe I'm wrong. The list of mass shootings is to promote a cause. Gun control.

This massacre/battle won't take one AR-15 off the market. So why bring it up?

[stopbush]

17. Because in the broader context, both incidents are examples

of the sanctioned bigotry that has disgraced our country throughout its history.

At the core of both incidents is the belief of the perpetrators that the people they are killing are lesser people than themselves. One could make the argument that those beliefs are inspired by religious beliefs: in the case of Wounded Knee, the belief that a god-directed manifest destiny allowed for the white man to achieve his god-directed destiny no matter who got in the way. If that meant visiting genocide upon indigenous people, well, we were only doing the Lord's work.

In the case of today's shooting, it appears that the shooter had it in for gays based on his embrace of a radicalized form of religion (how radicalized is a matter of opinion).

And of course, coupled to that is the gun culture, be it that of the wild west era, or our current basterdized interpretation of the Second Amendment.

[metroins]

4. This. NT

[randr]

18. How many old people and children did you count at Antietam and Gettysburg?

[Gomez163]

20. Why are we even talking about this today???

[randr]

21. If you don't know your past you don't know your future

Once again the media has jumped on another horrible experience and dumb it down by quantification. They may very well incite another hate filled asswipe to up the numbers as if it were a contest.
A recognition of our history and empathy for the victims is what we need to address latest incident if we are to make any changes foe the better.
Paraphrasing General Santiago; if we can not learn from our past we are committed to repeating it.

[Gomez163]

22. "Santiago's death, though tragic, saved lives."

Sorry. I couldn't help myself.

[BlueMTexpat]

23. How many women and children were killed

in those battles?

Wounded Knee was a massacre.

[BumRushDaShow]

2. You can add Tulsa, OK

http://tulsahistory.org/learn/online-exhibits/the-tulsa-race-riot/

[Stuart G]

6. Wounded Knee was/is ...a .."Massacre"

and it will not be discussed in today's news....Why?...because it was the cavalry and the U.S. Government who was responsible.. you are correct............

Read about many of the tragedies of many Native American nations..in

"Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" by Dee Brown

[TheCowsCameHome]

7. Yeah. It was terrible.

Do you have a point to make?

[Maven]

9. WTF is your point?

[stopbush]

14. That the media loves their little characterizations of horrible events

and have no regard for the actual history of this country when they come up with their little characterizations.

[randr]

19. Not to mention that it will incite some other asswipe try and kill more

[stopbush]

27. "Quick, look up the death count on mass shootings over the past

50 years and let us know ASAP if this one was the worst. I've got an idea." - a conversation that took place this morning in any number of newsrooms

[Downwinder]

10. What is the record for 1 hellfire missile?

[rjsquirrel]

11. Technically correct and not the only massacre

of Native Americans or other minorities.

[Aerows]

13. I wasn't alive back then.

What is your solution to time travel so I can go back and correct all of the horrible things that people have done.

[stopbush]

15. Er, no one is asking that history be rewritten.

I'm asking that the media be aware of history before coming up with their little labels/sound bites when reporting on current events.

Would it be accurate to call any race-related incident in the past 50 years "the worst racial conflict in our nation's history?" You'd need to ignore the Civil War to do so.

[Ms. Toad]

16. Thank you for that reminder of our white-washed history.

My brother and sister are Lakota (although not an enrolled member because their biological mother refuses to provide the documentation).

The reality of that massacre should be a part of all of our collective memories - and, specifically, it should come to my mind the way other atrocities committed by our government (like the internment of Japanese citizens) do when there are declarations that this new atrocity is the first, or worst, it has ever been.

[lunatica]

24. Genocide is NOT a one time historic perversion of the Nazis

It's as old as human history.

[JCMach1]

25. Also, don't forget the massacre of the Tuscarora

where 950 (some of them my ancestors died)...

https://nativeheritageproject.com/2013/03/26/fort-neoheroka-300-years-later-tuscarora-commemorative-monument/

[zazen]

26. I wondered about the massacres of union strikers too, and the 1898 Wilmington massacre

We don't know how many African Americans were killed in the latter--I'll go look it up, but I still don't think it's ever been fully determined.

Since mass shootings seem to be a weekly occurrence I don't think there's ever a "good time" to bring up other issues.

I agree we can acknowledge the shocking horror and loss caused by the actions this morning of that sexist bigoted religious fanatic mass murderer and his ISIS zealot compatriots, while not allowing the media to sensationalize it today by rendering invisible the massacres of other groups in our history.

(I also think batterers killing their partners and families is also a form of terrorism because it's random but consistently is by one group against another. That's Catharine MacKinnon's argument, anyway, but that's for another day.)