The Wounded Knee Massacre took place on December 29, 1890, on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of South Dakota. By the time the massacre was over, more than 250 men, women and children had been killed and 51 were wounded. Twenty soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor. The site of the massacre has been designated a National Historic Landmark.
About Wounded Knee Massacre in brief
The Wounded Knee Massacre took place on December 29, 1890, on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of South Dakota. The U. S. Army tried to disarm the camp, but a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote was reluctant to give up his rifle. At the same time, an old man was performing a ritual called the Ghost Dance. The Lakota warriors fought back, but many had already been stripped of their guns and disarmed. By the time the massacre was over, more than 250 men, women and children had been killed and 51 were wounded ; some estimates placed the number of dead as high as 300. Twenty soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor. The site of the massacre has been designated a National Historic Landmark by the United States Department of the Interior. The National Congress of American Indians passed two resolutions condemning the military awards and called on the federal government to rescind them. In 1990, both houses of Congress passed a resolution on the historical centennial formally expressing “deep regret” for the massacre. In 2001, the resolution was amended to express regret for the shooting of Sitting Bull, a Native American leader who was killed by the military in 1890. The resolution was also amended to say that the shooting was an act of self-defense by Sitting Bull and that he was not responsible for the deaths of the other Lakota men and women. In the years leading up to the conflict, the government had continued to seize Lakota lands.
The once-large bison herds, a staple of the Great Plains indigenous peoples, had been hunted to near-extinction. Treaty promises to protect reservation lands from encroachment by settlers and gold miners were not implemented as agreed. As a result, there was unrest on the reservations. The military first hoped to take some of the chiefs into custody in order to quell what they called the “Messiah craze” Chief Sitting Bull was shot dead by the police when he refused to comply with the military’s order to reduce the chance of violence. Another Lakota chief, Catch-the-Bear, was shot in the chest by Lt. James McLaughlin over his firing revolver. The Sioux were enraged at the military and sent Indian police over to arrest Sitting Bull over his house. When Sitting Bull’s house was raided, the police used his revolver on him, firing into his chest. The incident led to the creation of the “Standing Rock” Indian Agency, which was established in 1894 to protect the reservation from further incursions by white settlers. The reservation was later taken over by the Army and is now a National Park Service park. The park is now home to the National Museum of the American Indian, which is open to the public. It is also home to a museum that commemorates the history and culture of the reservation, as well as a museum of Lakota history. The museum is located on the site of where the massacre took place, and is open for public tours.
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This page is based on the article Wounded Knee Massacre published in Wikipedia (as of Jan. 04, 2021) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
