Remember the Massacre at Wounded Knee

[Judi Lynn]

12.29

Remember the Massacre at Wounded Knee

Peter Cole

On this day in 1890, the US Army murdered as many as 300 Native American men, women, and children.



As dawn appeared on December 29, 1890, about 350 Lakota Indians awoke, having been forced by the US Army to camp the night before alongside the Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota. The US Cavalry’s 7th Regiment had “escorted” them there the day prior and, now, surrounded the Indians with the intent to arrest Chief Big Foot (also called Spotted Elk) and disarm the warriors.

When a disagreement erupted, army soldiers opened fire, including with Hotchkiss machine guns. Within minutes, hundreds of children, men, and women were shot down. Perhaps as many as three hundred killed and scores wounded that morning.

Few Americans now know that the deadliest shootings in US history were massacres of native peoples. Today is the anniversary of the largest such massacre.

The event’s common name, “The Battle of Wounded Knee,” obscures the true horrors of that day. For this was no “battle” — it was a massacre.

More:
https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/12/wounded-knee-massacre-lakota-us-army/

[pangaia]

1. Thank you Judi Lynn for the reminder.

[Judi Lynn]

12. Thank you, pangaia. You are very kind.

[ffr]

2. K&R for the great read. I never knew and yes, it wasn't part of American History.

Not in high school and not in college. Now I know why. It's an embarrassing reminder that the white man is the conqueror, a violent, mean-spirited race that will take what it wants, including life, without remorse.

Truly sad set of stories, that we still seem to portray today, we white men. Ashamed of that part of my heritage.

[Judi Lynn]

11. Surely wish everyone had a conscience, and depth. What a different country we'd have.

Thank you for the thoughtful, painstaking painting. Beautiful.

[uppityperson]

3. K&R

[DreamGypsy]

4. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee...

Indigo Girls.

Lest we ever forget...

[Judi Lynn]

9. Never heard this song until you posted it. Thank you, DreamGypsy.

[Feeling the Bern]

5. Remember them all. Sand Creek, Camp Grant, Bear River, Oak Run, Old Shasta, Yontoket,

and all those I didn't mention.

[pfitz59]

18. too many to count

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1860_Wiyot_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridge_Gulch_massacre

[nikto]

6. Let's hope Standing Rock does not explode into Establishment violence against the Sioux

If Trump takes a pro-Pipeline-Business hard-line, tragedy may result.

http://thesuspicionist.blogspot.com/2016/12/standing-rock-sioux-vs-trump-new.html

[Judi Lynn]

10. "The country, and the world, will be watching." Absolutely. Thank you, nikto.

[nikto]

16. You're welcome!

[Jopin Klobe]

7. Medal of Honor controversy ...

For this 1890 offensive, the army awarded twenty Medals of Honor, its highest commendation. Recently, in the governmental Nebraska State Historical Society's summer 1994 quarterly journal, Jerry Green construes that pre-1916 Medals of Honor were awarded more liberally; however, "the number of medals does seem disproportionate when compared to those awarded for other battles." Quantifying, he compares the three awarded for the Battle of Bear Paw Mountain's five-day siege, to the twenty awarded for this short and one-sided action.

Historian Will G. Robinson notes that, in contrast, only three Medals of Honor were awarded among the 64,000 South Dakotans who fought for four years of World War II.

Native American activists have urged the medals be withdrawn, as they say they were "medals of dishonor". According to Lakota tribesman William Thunder Hawk, "The Medal of Honor is meant to reward soldiers who act heroically. But at Wounded Knee, they didn't show heroism; they showed cruelty." In 2001, the National Congress of American Indians passed two resolutions condemning the Medals of Honor awards and called on the U.S. government to rescind them.

Some of the citations on the medals awarded to the troopers at Wounded Knee state that they went in pursuit of Lakota who were trying to escape or hide Another citation was for "conspicuous bravery in rounding up and bringing to the skirmish line a stampeded pack mule."
[link:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre|

[Judi Lynn]

8. Amazing what the "winners" did. They were born without consciences to be able to murder so easily.

Gave themselves medals for stealing lives, breaking bodies, minds, hearts, lives.

Then covered it all up in the history they wrote, based on pure fiction.

[HoneyBadger]

13. Still the biggest gun violence incident ever on American soil

Almost half the annual Chicago homicides.....in one day, to put it into perspective.

[Pachamama]

14. Obama wisely chose this day to announce his creation of Bear Ears National Monument

Mahalo Mr President

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

15. The Mankato Hanging isn't listed as a massacre but those souls are no less dead

SAINT PAUL, December 27, 1862.
The PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:
I have the honor to inform you that the thirty-eight Indians and half-breeds ordered by you for execution were hung yesterday at Mankato at 10 a.m. Everything went off quietly and the other prisoners are well secured.
Respectfully,
H. H. SIBLEY, Brigadier-General.

[Duppers]

17. An American history and theatre arts teacher

A friend of ours staged and directed an elaborate outdoor reenactment of this a few decades ago. He posted about it on fb and lamented that these battles were "inevitable" because of the clash of cultures.

I replied:
It seems heartless to me to dismiss THIS as being "inevitable." Such is a fucking sad and hopeless commentary on the human psyche. But human greed is indeed so woefully pervasive. It shall be the epitaph and tombstone of homo sapiens.

From the article

"Black Elk, made famous in John Neihardt’s Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux, published in 1961, survived Wounded Knee:

I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream . . . the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.