Sunday marked date of 'cold-blooded massacre,' but military review is still unresolved
Sunday marked 134 years since a "brutal, cold-blooded massacre" of the Indigenous Lakota Sioux people of the Great Plains, a tragedy that drew more scrutiny from the U.S. government in recent months.
The date marked the slaughter of hundreds of Lakota, including women and children, in the snow at Wounded Knee Creek by the 7th Cavalry on Dec. 29, 1890.
“I have never heard of a more brutal, cold-blooded massacre than that at Wounded Knee,” Maj. Gen. Nelson Miles, who took over the 7th Cavalry after the noncombatant deaths came to light, wrote in a private letter.
Earlier this year, the Pentagon announced it would review 20 Medals of Honor awarded to soldiers who took part in the massacre as the military continues efforts to acknowledge the role that racism may have played in its past and that not all of its awardees meet modern standards of heroism.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin directed a five-member panel to present recommendations by Oct. 15, but those recommendations have yet to be announced.
What happened in the Wounded Knee Massacre?
As the last decade of the 19th century began, the Indigenous Lakota Sioux people of the Great Plains had been put in government reservations, according to History.com. Their culture and hunting livelihoods were destroyed as white settlers seized their lands and pursued fortunes of gold in the Black Hills of what had become South Dakota.
As noted by History.com, the year 1890 would only compound their despair, bringing prolonged drought and outbreaks of measles, influenza and whooping cough. As their world crumbled around them, many found hope in a dance ritual that adherents believed would ultimately spark an upheaval in which their enemies would be ousted and their once-free existence restored.
White settlers, however, viewed the growing Ghost Dance practice as a harbinger of insurrection. President Benjamin Harrison dispatched the 7th Cavalry to the area, where growing tensions would culminate in the slaughter of hundreds of Lakota at Wounded Knee Creek on Dec. 29, 1890.
As the winter of 1890 set in, federal agent Daniel Royer sent a telegram to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs expressing his fears about the Lakota’s spiritual dance ritual.
“Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy,” he said. “We need protection, and we need it now.”
Tensions escalated once the 7th Cavalry arrived, and a shot rang out as they made moves to disarm the Lakota. Dwight Mears, an Army combat veteran and former West Point professor, detailed the events that followed in a University of Oklahoma College of Law paper published this year.
After about 20 minutes of “bitter, close quarters fighting,” the battle shifted to a ravine, Mears wrote, where the cavalry “used M1875 Hotchkiss mountain guns (breech-loading cannons) to fire into the locations where Natives were seeking shelter.”
The dead included about two dozen Army casualties and, depending on the source, 200 to 300 or more Lakota. Some bodies lay in the snow for several days, eventually gathered up by the military and placed in a mass grave.
Initial investigations of the event, Mears said, found noncombatants had been killed but excused the deaths as unintentional despite evidence to the contrary.
“Among other contradictions, this outcome overlooked the fact that an officer had falsified testimony under oath during the inquiry by omitting that he had witnessed the intentional execution of a ten-year-old child who was fleeing from Wounded Knee,” he wrote.
Massacre site became a rallying point for Indigenous rights
Wounded Knee would become a rallying cry in the fight for Indigenous rights. In 1973, it became the site of a 71-day standoff between members of the American Indian Movement and federal agents; two tribal members were killed and a federal agent was seriously wounded.
That event spotlighted Native American struggles, most notably during the 1973 Oscars, which took place as the standoff dragged on. At the ceremony, Native American actress Sacheen Littlefeather endured boos and ridicule as she delivered a speech on Marlon Brando’s behalf stating that Brando could not accept the Academy’s best actor award because of "the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry."
(This story was updated to correct a misspelling.)