Wounded Knee Massacre (1890)

Mon Dec 29, 1890

Image (NSFW):

Image: A line of U.S. troops in the background, and the Indian encampment at Wounded Knee. This is not the actual battle from 1890 but only its 1913 reenactment. From the Library of Congress [Wikipedia]

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On this day in 1890, the U.S. Army committed the Wounded Knee Massacre, slaughtering hundreds of Lakota people, most of whom were women, children, or disarmed men. For this atrocity, twenty U.S. soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor.

The massacre took place near Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, following a botched attempt to disarm the Lakota camp. According to journalist Charles Allen, an eyewitness to the violence, the attack began when soldiers tried to disarm a deaf Native American and the gun went off in a struggle. Soldiers began firing indiscriminately, and, although the Lakota fought back, many of them had been disarmed by this point.

By the time the massacre was over, as many as 300 men, women, and children of the Lakota had been killed and 51 were wounded. For their efforts, twenty U.S. soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor.

On February 27th, 1973, hundreds of Oglala Lakota and American Indian Movement (AIM) members seized the town of Wounded Knee, holding it against federal U.S. forces for 71 days. Leonard Crow Dog, a leader with AIM, stated: “My great-grandfather’s spirit gave me a vision to do this. The vision told me to revive [the ghost dance] at the place where Chief Big Foot’s ghost dancers, three hundred men, women, and children, had been massacred by the army, shot to pieces by cannons, old people, babies.”

In 1973, the same year as the occupation, the band Redbone released the song “We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee”. While the song reached number one on European charts, in the U.S. it was initially withheld from release and then banned by several radio stations.

"Now we make our promises We won’t break our word Well sing, sing, sing out our story Till the truth is heard There’s a whole new generation Which will dream of veneration Who were not wiped out by the seventh Calvary

You and me you and me. We were all wounded at wounded knee You and me We were all wounded at wounded knee You and me In the name of manifest destiny You and me you and me you and me."

• Redbone, “We Were All Wounded at Wounded Knee”

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• Date: 1890-12-29
• Learn More: en.wikipedia.org, libcom.org, www.youtube.com, en.wikipedia.org.
• Tags: #Massacre.
• Source: www.apeoplescalendar.org