Wounded Knee

Writer's Almanac

Today is the anniversary of the massacre at Wounded Knee which took place on this day in 1891.

Twenty-two years before that, the tribes in what became South Dakota had signed a treaty with the United States of America which guaranteed them, "absolute and undisturbed use of the Great Sioux Reservation (that part of South Dakota west of the Missouri River)... No persons... shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in territory described in this article, or without consent of the Indians pass through the same."

The treaty gave the Indians control over the Black Hills which they considered a sacred place. But when gold was discovered in the Black Hills that treaty was broken. In December of 1875, the Federal Indian Bureau ordered all Indians to report to their agencies by January 31, 1876. Many could not comply with such an order in winter. Some never received it. Only one band came in. All the others were classified as "hostile" and therefore subject to attack.

That summer, General Custer led an attacking force on Little Big Horn but his entire company of soldiers was surrounded and decimated by the Indian warriors. The federal government responded by sending in more troops, taking the Black Hills by force.

One band of Indians chose to flee the arrival of new troops. For four days and nights they marched through the cold trying to reach a rendezvous point with another tribe. But they were surprised by federal soldiers and ordered into the army camp at Wounded Knee. The next morning, federal soldiers went through the camp to confiscate weapons. A scuffle broke out between a soldier and an Indian warrior and a rifle was discharged. Suddenly, the federal soldiers opened fire on all the Indians in the camp. The gunfire was so haphazard that more than twenty-five federal soldiers were killed in the crossfire. About 90 Indian warriors and 200 women and children were killed.