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

• Author: McCollum, Sean
• Position: Times past - Wounded Knee, South Dakota

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...