"Remember Wounded Knee" American Indians have twice battled the U.S. government near a little creek in South Dakota. (times past).

BY LATE DECEMBER 1890, THE AMERICAN Indian tribes of the Sioux Nation were bracing for trouble. About 120 men and 230 women and children of Chief Big Foot's Miniconjou band were running from a growing number of U.S. cavalry in South Dakota. The soldiers had been sent to quell a rumored uprising--and put a stop to the new Ghost Dance religion.

The Miniconjou (min-nih-KAHN-joo) hoped to find protection with other Sioux at the Pine Ridge Reservation. But on December 28, the 7th Cavalry intercepted them and ordered them to "move down to camp at Wounded Knee."

Wounded Knee--at this little creek near the southwestern edge of South Dakota, the U.S. military campaign to eliminate Indian resistance came to a bloody conclusion. What occurred there burdened its name with all the misunderstanding and conflict that has plagued relations between Indians and the American government. But years later, Wounded Knee would become a rallying call for Indian rebirth.

Well before Wounded Knee, the Sioux Nation--made up of seven tribal groups--had been shattered. Despite promises by U.S. leaders and guarantees made in an 1868 treaty, the large Sioux territory had been whittled to small reservations on hardscrabble land. Clashes with troops, demands to adopt white ways, and eradication of their bison herds had left many in despair.

DANCE OF DESPERATION

In the late 1880s, a new religion had brought hope. Wovoka, a Paiute Indian, had dreamed that Jesus Christ--returning as an Indian--had promised that if the people were good and peaceful, and danced the Ghost Dance, then the Great Spirit would "bring back all game of every kind."

"All dead Indians come back and live again," Wovoka's dream went on. "Big flood comes like water and all white people die ... After that, nobody but Indians everywhere...."

The Ghost Dance religion spread like prairie fire among the Plains nations. "They snatched at the hope," said Red Cloud, a Sioux chief. "The white men were frightened and called for soldiers."

At Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890, Colonel James W. Forsyth ordered Big Foot's people to surrender their guns. The Miniconjou hated giving up their means for hunting and defense, and feared revenge at the hands of the 7th Cavalry. Fourteen years earlier, the 7th's commanding officer, George Custer, and all 210 of his men had been killed after attacking a large Sioux encampment, in the Battle of the Little Bighorn--known as Custer's Last Stand. Now, soldiers from the 7th seemed itchy for payback.

UNDER THE GUNS

Forsyth stationed his troops around the Miniconjou camp. Some of the tribe brought out their rifles and stacked them, but Forsyth was not satisfied. He sent his men to search the warriors and the tepees. The Miniconjou men tensed. A medicine man danced a few steps of the Ghost Dance. Soldiers readied their weapons.

Accounts vary on what happened next, but most agree that, deliberately or not, a shot was fired. The soldiers' guns crashed in response. The warriors grabbed for their guns and fought back. Within minutes, the hottest fighting was over, and most of the Indian men lay dead or dying. The soldiers then hunted down and killed many of the fleeing survivors, mostly women and children.

"We tried to run," Louise Weasel Bear said later, "but they shot us like we were buffalo."

Of 350 people in Big Foot's group, between 180 and 300 were killed; of about 500 soldiers, 25 died, most from their own crossfire. The Wounded Knee massacre was the final battle of the Indian Wars, which had lasted 350 years, since the arrival of white settlers. Nicholas Black Elk recalled in his memoir, Black Elk Speaks:

I can still see the butchered women and children lying ... along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream.

THE 1973 SIEGE

Decades later, Wounded Knee once again became the focal point of Indian resistance. In late February 1973, more than 200 Indian activists and militants, armed with hunting rifles and shot guns, took over a tiny village near the massacre site. They were joined by several leaders of the American Indian Movement (AIM), an organization known for confrontation and intense distrust of the federal government. AIM took as its rallying call: "Remember Wounded Knee." Protester Madonna Gilbert recalled in the book In the Spirit of Crazy Horse:

The [Lakota] elders said, What can we do to wake these Indians up? We have to take a stand somewhere! So we decided that the symbolic place would be Wounded Knee.

The takeover began as a protest against corruption in the Pine Ridge tribal council. But the focus immediately swelled to broader historical issues. As The New York Times reported:

The embattled Indians relayed demands ... that the Senate ... hold hearings on treaties made with Indians, that the Senate start a "full-scale investigation" of government treatment of the Indians.

The government, beleaguered by nationwide civil-rights and Vietnam War demonstrations, responded with a show of force. U.S. marshals and FBI agents, armed with military-grade weaponry including armored personnel carriers, surrounded the tiny hamlet. The two sides engaged in sporadic gunfights, killing two protesters and paralyzing a federal marshal.

Many feared (and some hoped) that the government would launch a full-scale attack against the men, women, and children who occupied Wounded Knee. But national and international opinion helped prevent such a move. After 71 days, the two sides negotiated an end to the standoff.

Thirty years later, Indian distrust and resentment of the U.S. government continues to run deep. Yet at the same time, the 1973 events ushered in a resurgence of Indian pride, and greater respect for Indian culture and sovereignty. Indians have since fought and won numerous land-rights cases in the courts, and gained greater public awareness of the challenges their people face.

And what of Wounded Knee? The Pine Ridge reservation, where Wounded Knee is located, remains the poorest area in the U.S.; unemployment is 86 percent. In a nation where average life expectancy is 74 for men and 79 for women, Pine Ridge men live on average to only 48, and women, to 52.

Indian's Dream of a Resurrected People Ends With Slaughter by U.S. Soldiers

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

* In 2001, the Congress of American Indians, an Indian rights group, requested the U.S. Congress to revoke more than 20 Congressional Medals of Honor awarded to soldiers who took part in the Wounded Knee massacre. Should Congress honor the request? Is the event too far in the past to concern contemporary Americans?

* Did the treatment accorded Indians by whites over the centuries justify the takeover of Wounded Knee in 1973 ?

TEACHING OBJECTIVES

To help students understand one of the most wrenching chapters in the history of Native Americans. Students will learn about the slaughter, in 1890, of Indian men, women, and children at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, and how that episode sparked a rebellion by Indians of another generation in 1973.

CLASSROOM STRATEGIES

CRITICAL THINKING: The article reports that in addition to their overt oppression of the Indians, white leaders of the time demanded that Indians adopt white ways. Ask: Why would whites want Indians to adopt white Culture? Were whites simply intolerant of cultures other than their own? Would altering the Indians' culture dilute their ability to think for themselves and reduce their ability to resist white rule? Was the effort to force Indians to adopt white ways part of the whites' pacification strategy?

MAKING CONNECTIONS: Help students understand how deep the currents of history run in the American Indians' psyche. Note that the 1973 takeover at Wounded Knee began as a protest against alleged corruption in the Pine Ridge tribal council. Ask students to suggest how this protest against fellow Indians could have evolved into a general condemnation of the history of white-Indian relations.

You might ask students to imagine they are Indians who participated in the Wounded Knee takeover. Have them write a conversation in which they refocus their attention from the tribal council to white society, the history of abuses suffered by Indians, and the demand for a U.S. Senate investigation.

WEB WATCH: This Indian site provides Indian views of the battle, excerpts from an investigation, and arguments for and against revoking medals given to Wounded Knee troops. See www.dickshovel.com/WKmasscre.html.