What Really Caused the Death’s at Wounded Knee?

"What's left of Si Tanka’s (Big Foot's) band"

US Library of Congress,

Image taken in 1891

From the prospective of most Lakota Indians the White Men may call it a battle but they view it as a massacre.   It has been described by the few surviving Indians of Wounded Knee Creek that on that morning of December 29, 1890, one could hear the twigs snapping in the cold frigid air.

It’s important to keep in mind that 350 of the South Dakota Pine Ridge Reservation Lakota Native Americans had already been captured (for being “off reservation”) and had allegedly been disarmed by US troops, before this event transpired. The later day 7th US Calvary, of Custer fame, you might say was on watch detail when they suddenly attacked and massacred almost the entirety of men, children, and women that made up this group of Indians being led by Chief Si Tanka aka Big Foot, aka Spotted Elk.

There has been a good bit of debate during the last 120 years or so as to what prompted the American soldiers to open deadly fire that cold December morning; one of the survivors, a Lakota woman, who was treated by the Indian physician Dr. Charles Eastman in a make-shift hospital gave the following account shortly before she died of her wounds:

The deaf young Lakota called Black Coyote was refusing to give up his rifle; he was deaf and had not understood the earlier order to surrender his gun to the soldiers. Another Indian shouted: “Black Coyote is deaf,” although not in English. But the soldier refused to heed his warning, so he said “Stop! He cannot hear your orders!” At that moment, two soldiers seized Black Coyote from behind, and in the struggle his rifle discharged.  The deafening report of that single shot caused pandemonium amongst the soldiers and they opened up with their guns upon the unarmed men, women and children.

The Lakota woman went on to describe her very own unsettling experience that early morning, regarding how she had concealed herself in a clump of bushes in an attempt to survive. As she hid there in the bushes she noticed two terrified little girls running past. She quickly grabbed them and pulled them into the bushes with her. She put her hands over their mouths in an attempt to keep them quiet but a mounted soldier spotted the three of them. He fired a single bullet into the head of one girl and them calmly reloaded his rifle and fired into the head of the second girl. He then fired into the body of the Lakota woman. At this time she pretendedto be dead; although wounded, she obviously lived long enough to relate her terrible ordeal to Dr. Eastman. She stated further that as she lay there pretending to be dead, the soldier leaned down from his horse, used his rifle to lift up her dress in order to see her private parts, snickered and rode away.

This miscommunication began the action which the government has called a “battle” and the Lakota still call a “massacre.” The Lakota people say that only 50 of the original 350 followers of Si Tanka survived that morning of slaughter.

Some have made the argument that since the U.S. was at war with the Indians that any act of violence, including the killing of women and children, was simply an unfortunate result of war. These days it would be called collateral damage. In addition, there is a different but similar account of the events described by the dying Lakota woman:

According to some accounts, a medicine man named Yellow Bird who was at Wounded Knee Creek began to perform the Ghost Dance, which according to the medicine man would make the Lakota invincible to the soldier’s bullets. As tension mounted, a soldier began trying to retrieve a rifle from a Lakota brave. A struggle ensued and the rifle discharged; at the same moment Yellow Bird threw some dust into the air, and approximately five young Lakota men with concealed weapons threw aside their blankets and fired their rifles at Troop K of the 7^th Calvary. After this initial action, the firing became haphazard.  The Calvary reported that in less than an hour at least 150 Indians had been killed and 50 had been wounded. Army casualties were reported as 25 dead and 39 wounded.

So what really caused the events at Wounded Knee, I’m betting that both of the stories I’ve described above are well short of the whole truth. Perhaps the only aspect of the tragedy that both sides can readily agree upon is that it was very cold that early 1890 December morning in South Dakota.  

Sources ...

http://www.danielnpaul.com/WoundedKnee.html                                         http://www.dickshovel.com/hill.html                                        http://crazyhorsesghost.hubpages.com/hub/What-Happened-At-Wounded-Knee    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wounded_Knee_Massacre                     http://www.indigenouspeople.net/bigfoot.htm