Wounded Knee Massacre Informative Essay
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Wounded Knee Massacre Informative
Essay
A factual and objective examination of the events, context, consequences, and historical
legacy of December 29, 1890.
Introduction
The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred on December 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee
Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. U.S. Army soldiers of the Seventh
Cavalry surrounded and attempted to disarm a group of Lakota men, women, and children
who had been traveling toward Pine Ridge. A gunshot during the disarmament process was
followed by widespread military fire, killing hundreds of Lakota people. The event was
initially described by many Americans as a battle, but the term massacre has become widely
used because so many of those killed were unarmed or attempting to escape. Wounded Knee
grew out of decades of conflict over Indigenous land, federal reservation policies, cultural
suppression, and fear surrounding the Ghost Dance movement. Understanding the massacre
therefore requires examining not only the violence of December 29 but also the political and
social pressures that brought the Lakota and U.S. government into a final crisis.
Lakota Homelands and U.S. Expansion
The Lakota were part of the larger Oceti Sakowin, commonly known in English as the
Great Sioux Nation. Their communities depended on extensive Plains territories for hunting,
travel, trade, and cultural life. During the nineteenth century, U.S. settlement and military
expansion increasingly challenged Indigenous control of these lands. Treaties attempted to
define relationships and territories, but disputes over land, resources, and treaty obligations
continued. The discovery of valuable resources in the Black Hills intensified conflict because
the Black Hills held profound spiritual and cultural importance for the Lakota. By the late
nineteenth century, federal policy had greatly reduced the land base available to Lakota
communities and confined many people to reservations.
Reservation Policy and Loss of Independence
Reservation policy transformed nearly every part of Lakota life. Federal officials sought to
limit traditional movement, encourage farming, regulate political leadership, and promote
assimilation into Euro-American society. The destruction of large buffalo herds also
weakened an economic and cultural foundation of Plains life. Food shortages and
dependence on government rations increased the pressure on reservation communities.
These changes were not simply administrative adjustments; they altered relationships to
land, family, religion, work, and community authority. Many Lakota people adapted in
different ways, but resentment toward federal control remained strong.
The Ghost Dance Movement
The immediate crisis before Wounded Knee was connected to the Ghost Dance, a religious
movement that spread among Native communities in the late 1880s. The movement was
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associated with the Northern Paiute religious leader Wovoka, who taught a message
emphasizing renewal, moral living, and the restoration of Indigenous life. Different
communities interpreted and practiced the movement in their own ways. Among some
Lakota, Ghost Dance ceremonies became a source of hope during a period of hunger,
political uncertainty, and cultural disruption. Federal authorities, however, increasingly
viewed the movement as a threat. The Library of Congress notes that government anxiety
about the Ghost Dance contributed to crackdowns on Native gatherings in 1890.
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Fear and Federal Crackdown
By late 1890, government officials and military officers were deeply concerned that the
Ghost Dance might lead to renewed armed resistance. The fear was heightened by the
continuing memory of earlier wars and by the killing of Sitting Bull on December 15, 1890,
during an attempt by Lakota Indian police to arrest him. After his death, groups of Lakota
people moved through the region seeking safety. Among them was a band of Miniconjou
Lakota led by Chief Spotted Elk, who was also known as Big Foot. The group's movement
toward Pine Ridge became part of the chain of events that led to Wounded Knee.
Big Foot's Band
Spotted Elk's group included families rather than a conventional military force. The
people were traveling in winter conditions after a period of uncertainty and conflict. Soldiers
of the Seventh Cavalry intercepted them on December 28 and directed them to a camp near
Wounded Knee Creek. The following morning, the military prepared to search the group and
collect weapons. The situation was tense because the soldiers were heavily armed and the
Lakota were surrounded. The Library of Congress describes the people as having been
confined to a camp before soldiers attempted to recover weapons from them.
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The Disarmament
On December 29, soldiers began searching the Lakota camp for firearms. Most accounts
agree that the military intended to disarm the group completely. The process became
increasingly tense as soldiers searched tents and belongings. Some weapons were
surrendered, while others were hidden or difficult to locate. One rifle was associated with a
Lakota man named Black Coyote. Accounts differ about the precise circumstances
surrounding the rifle and the first shot. The uncertainty surrounding that moment is
important because later descriptions of the event sometimes treated the shooting as a
conventional battle initiated by the Lakota, while other accounts emphasize the
circumstances of the forced disarmament and the vulnerability of the people in the camp.
The Shooting Begins
A gunshot suddenly broke the tension. Almost immediately, soldiers opened fire on the
camp. The violence spread rapidly as rifle and artillery fire struck people who were clustered
together. The military's use of Hotchkiss guns positioned near the camp increased the
destructive power of the attack. The National Park Service's historical materials describe the
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event as involving several hundred Dakota people, including men, women, and children, as
well as soldiers. The Library of Congress likewise records that hundreds of Lakota men,
women, and children died after the gun was discharged.
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Lakota Men, Women, and Children
The people killed at Wounded Knee were not limited to adult men. Women, children, and
elderly people were among the dead. Some individuals attempted to flee from the immediate
area, but soldiers continued firing. This fact is central to why the event is understood today
as a massacre rather than simply a military engagement. Estimates of the number of Lakota
deaths vary because records were incomplete and different historical sources count victims
differently. Modern historical accounts commonly place the number of Lakota dead at more
than 200, with some estimates approaching 300. The National Park Service has cited at least
250 Lakota deaths in historical documentation, while the Library of Congress gives an
estimated 200 in its research guide.
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Military Casualties
A smaller number of U.S. soldiers also died during the violence. Historical accounts differ
about how some soldiers were killed, and historians have debated the extent to which
soldiers were struck by Lakota fire or by the military's own weapons during the confusion.
The deaths of soldiers became part of later efforts to present Wounded Knee as a battle. The
imbalance between the number of Lakota civilians killed and the number of soldiers who
died, however, is one reason the conventional battle narrative has been challenged by later
historians and by Native communities.
The Role of the Seventh Cavalry
The Seventh Cavalry had a particularly significant history with the Lakota. Fourteen years
earlier, units of the regiment had suffered a major defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn,
where Lakota and Cheyenne forces defeated Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer's
command. By 1890, that earlier defeat remained part of the regiment's institutional memory
and the broader history of the Plains wars. Smithsonian historical coverage notes that the
Seventh Cavalry was the regiment associated with Custer's defeat and that it later
participated in the events at Wounded Knee.
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The Immediate Aftermath
After the shooting, the dead remained exposed in the winter landscape. A severe storm
soon covered the area with snow, complicating the recovery of bodies. Soldiers eventually
arranged for the victims to be buried in a mass grave. The physical treatment of the dead
became part of the historical memory of the massacre because it demonstrated how quickly
the victims were moved from a living community to a mass burial site. The grave later
became a place of remembrance for generations of Lakota people and others who sought to
understand the tragedy.
How Newspapers Described Wounded Knee
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Contemporary newspapers often used language that reflected the racial assumptions and
political attitudes of the period. Some reports described the event as a military victory and
emphasized the supposed danger posed by Native people. The Library of Congress has
preserved historic newspapers that show how Wounded Knee was discussed publicly at the
time. These sources are valuable because they reveal both information about the event and
the biases through which Americans interpreted Native resistance. Later generations of
historians and Native writers reexamined those accounts and challenged descriptions that
minimized the deaths of Lakota civilians.
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Medals of Honor and Historical Debate
The U.S. Army later awarded Medals of Honor to members of the Seventh Cavalry who
participated in the action. These awards became controversial because of the large number
of Lakota civilians killed. The debate over the medals reflects a broader question about how
nations remember violence: an action described as heroic in one period may be reassessed
when historians examine the experiences of people who suffered from it. The controversy has
remained part of discussions about military history, public memory, and the treatment of
Native American history.
Why Wounded Knee Was Called a Battle
The phrase Battle of Wounded Knee was widely used in the years following the event.
Calling it a battle placed the incident within the familiar language of warfare and suggested
two organized forces confronting each other. Yet the circumstances were unusual for a
conventional battle. The Lakota group was surrounded while being disarmed, and many of
the dead were women and children. The Library of Congress explains that the incident was
initially referred to controversially as a battle and later became known as the Wounded Knee
Massacre.
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Native Perspectives and Historical Memory
For Lakota communities, Wounded Knee was not an isolated military episode. It
represented the culmination of a much longer period of dispossession, broken promises,
cultural pressure, and violence. Native oral histories, family memories, and later scholarship
have helped preserve perspectives that were often absent from nineteenth-century
newspapers. The existence of multiple accounts does not mean that every detail can be
established with equal certainty; rather, it shows why historians compare military records,
newspapers, photographs, oral traditions, and other evidence when reconstructing the past.
Wounded Knee and the End of the Indian Wars
Wounded Knee is frequently described as one of the final major armed confrontations of
the Indian Wars on the northern Plains. Its significance came partly from its timing. By 1890,
most Plains tribes had been confined to reservations, military resistance had been weakened,
and federal assimilation policies were expanding. The massacre therefore became a symbol
of the transition from open military conflict to a period in which federal control was exercised
through reservations, schools, agencies, policing, and other institutions.
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The Cultural Consequences
The consequences of Wounded Knee extended beyond the immediate deaths. The
massacre deepened grief and fear among Lakota communities and became associated with
the suppression of Indigenous religious practices. Government pressure against the Ghost
Dance did not simply end a religious movement; it demonstrated the extent to which federal
authorities attempted to regulate Native spiritual and cultural life. The event therefore
belongs to a larger history of assimilation policies that sought to change Indigenous
languages, religions, education, landholding, and community structures.
Wounded Knee as a Symbol
During the twentieth century, Wounded Knee became an increasingly powerful symbol of
Native American resistance and the consequences of federal Indian policy. The site was
remembered in family histories and public activism, especially as Native movements
challenged government policies and demanded greater recognition of treaty rights and
Indigenous sovereignty. The Library of Congress notes that Wounded Knee became a rallying
cry in later Native American rights movements.
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The 1973 Wounded Knee Occupation
The historical importance of Wounded Knee was renewed dramatically in 1973, when
members of the American Indian Movement and Oglala Lakota activists occupied the site for
71 days. The occupation brought national attention to treaty rights, conditions on the Pine
Ridge Reservation, and longstanding disputes over federal policy. Although the occupation
occurred more than eight decades after the massacre, activists deliberately connected their
demands to the historical memory of Wounded Knee. The event demonstrated how a place
associated with nineteenth-century violence could become a center of twentieth-century
political activism.
Preserving the Site
The Wounded Knee landscape remains important as a place of memory. Historical
photographs, military documents, newspaper reports, oral traditions, and archaeological
evidence have all contributed to understanding the site. Preservation is also connected to
questions of who controls historical interpretation. Native communities have emphasized
remembrance, respect for the dead, and the importance of presenting the massacre from
Indigenous perspectives rather than treating it only as a military episode.
Historical Interpretation
Historians continue to study Wounded Knee because the surviving evidence contains
contradictions and because the meaning of the event has changed over time. Military reports
can clarify troop movements and official decisions, while newspaper accounts reveal
contemporary public attitudes. Oral histories and Native scholarship provide information
about family experiences and cultural memory that may not appear in military records.
Comparing these sources allows historians to distinguish documented facts from uncertain
details and to understand how interpretations of the massacre developed.
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Why the Massacre Matters
Wounded Knee matters because it connects several major themes in United States
history: westward expansion, treaty conflicts, federal Indian policy, military power, religious
freedom, racial attitudes, and the survival of Indigenous communities. It also demonstrates
that historical events cannot always be understood from the perspective of the government
that recorded them. The massacre's meaning became clearer as Native voices and later
historians questioned the language and assumptions used in earlier accounts.
Conclusion
The Wounded Knee Massacre was the result of a long history of conflict between the
Lakota and the expanding United States, intensified in 1890 by federal fear of the Ghost
Dance and by efforts to control Native communities. On December 29, soldiers of the Seventh
Cavalry surrounded and disarmed a Lakota group near Wounded Knee Creek before a
gunshot triggered a devastating burst of military fire. Hundreds of Lakota men, women, and
children died. Although the event was initially celebrated in some circles as a military
victory, later historical research and Native remembrance have established Wounded Knee
as a massacre and a lasting symbol of the consequences of conquest and forced assimilation.
Studying Wounded Knee helps explain both the violence of the nineteenth-century American
West and the continuing importance of Indigenous memory, sovereignty, and historical
interpretation.
