Wounded Knee through the Lens of Colonialism

Abstract

It was the last of the Indian wars. At Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, troops of the U.S. Army rounded up a group of Miniconjou Sioux led by Big Foot. The Indians had fled from their Cheyenne River reservation in the midst of Ghost Dance troubles and were seeking to join the Oglala Sioux at Pine Ridge. When the soldiers attempted to disarm the Indians on December 29, 1890, someone fired a gun, and the nervous soldiers and fearful Indians began a savage battle. Hotchkiss guns from an overlooking height swept the camp, mowing down many Indians, including women and children who attempted to flee. When the shooting ended, more than 250 of Big Foot's band were dead or wounded. Of the soldiers, 25 died and 39 were wounded. As a winter blizzard roared down from the north, the dead were frozen where they had fallen, some like Big Foot himself in grotesque postures; many of the bodies were dumped into a common grave. Gruesome pictures of these events have been a staple of history books for a long time.