The Sand Creek Massacre Washita Massacre both led to the Wounded Knee Massacre. The Sand Creek Massacre brought the realization that “the soldiers were destroying everything Cheyenne - the land, the buffalo, and the people themselves,” and the Washita Massacre added even more genocidal evidence to those facts. The Sand Creek Massacre caused the Cheyenne to put away their old grievances with the Sioux and join them in defending their lives against the U.S. extermination policy. The Washita Massacre did that even more so. After putting the Wounded Knee Massacre briefly into historical perspective, we’ll focus solely on the Wounded Knee Massacre itself for the 130th Anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre.
Black Kettle, his wife, and more than 150 Cheyenne and Arapaho had just been exterminated, and Custer’s 7th was burning the lodges and all their contents, thus stripping them of all survival means. Sheridan would wait until all their dogs had been eaten before “allowing” them into subjugation, then Custer would rape the women hostages in captivity.
Jerome A. Green. “Washita.” p. 126.
What did they see, feel, and think?
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=_8_i4RoC-c4C&oi=fnd&pg=PP9&sig=PzXXLM0CyHIihEXH2rAS7cmyOIg&dq=Half+breed+-+the+remarkable+story+of+george+bent-+caught+between+the+worlds#PRA1-PA95,M1" And so, when the Chiefs gathered to decide what the people should do, Black Kettle took his usual place among them. Everyone agreed Sand Creek must be avenged. But there were questions. Why had the soldiers attacked with such viciousness? Why had they killed and mutilated women and children? It seemed that the conflict with the whites had somehow changed. No longer was it just a war over land and buffalo. Now, the soldiers were destroying everything Cheyenne - the land, the buffalo, and the people themselves.
See it? Feel it? They witnessed and felt the Sand Creek Massacre happen, again. Consequently, a number of Cheyenne who were present at Washita helped defeat Custer at Little Bighorn.
So, let us proceed from the Sand Creek Massacre,
www.dailykos.com/... Sand Creek Massacre of November 29th, 1864: 155th Anniversary: “Black Kettle and his people had every reason to expect complete safety from their bloodshed after agreements for peace were made and Dog Soldiers left to join the Sioux. Nonetheless, Chivington's troops advanced on the Cheyenne and Arapaho near dawn on that day. The sound of those approaching hooves must have sounded ominous, as U.S. soldiers inevitably chased the defenseless Cheyenne and Arapaho by horse and foot with knives and guns. Their victims had to be positioned before ripping off scalps, cutting off ears, smashing out brains, butchering children, tearing breastfeeding infants away from their mother's breasts, and then murdering those infants. The "Bloody Third" soldiers necessarily had to kill the infants before cutting out their mother's genitals.”
and the Washita Massacre —
www.dailykos.com/... Washita Massacre of November 27, 1868: 151st Anniversary: “ The 7th hunted them down and murdered them. Although the orders were to "hang all warriors;" it was much more convenient to shoot them. All wounded Cheyenne were shot where they laid.”
to the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890.
Source
Five days after the slaughter of the innocents an editorial in the Aberdeen (S.D.) Saturday Pioneer reflected the popular opinion of the wasicu (white people) of that day. It read, “The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth.”
(It is worth noting also that the Fuhrer from time to time expressed admiration for the "efficiency" of the American genocide campaign against the Indians, viewing it as a forerunner for his own plans and programs.)
The Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890
The first intention of the U.S. Army in part was to detain Chief Big Foot under the pretext that he was a "fomenter of disturbance," remembering that Native Americans did not have equal rights at that time in the Constitution. In addition, the real intention was doing a "roundup" to a military prison camp, which would have become an internment and concentration camp in Omaha after they were prisoners. Colonel James W. Forsyth had orders to force them into going there. Speculating, I bet at least part of the rationalization for the massacre was so the soldiers wouldn't have to transport them to the military prison in Omaha. Murdering them would have been easier. Then, they could've had another whiskey keg, like they did the evening right before this massacre, when they celebrated the detainment of Chief Big Foot. The soldiers may have even been hung over, depending on amount consumed and tolerance levels; moreover, if the soldiers were alcoholics, tolerance levels would have been high.
Source (pdf warning)
Source Big Foot and the Lakota were among the most enthusiastic believers in the Ghost Dance ceremony when it arrived among them in the spring of 1890.
Chief Big Foot's arrest was ordered by the U.S. War Department for being a "fomenter of disturbance." Chief Big Foot was already on his way to Pine Ridge with his people, when the 7th U.S. Cavalry with Major Samuel Whitside leading them approached him on horses. Big Foot's lungs were bleeding from pneumonia. Blood froze on his nose while he could barely speak. He had a white flag of surrender put up as soon as he caught glimpse of the U.S. Calvary coming towards them. At the urging of John Shangreau, Whitside's half-breed scout, Whitside "allowed" Big Foot to proceed to the camp at Wounded Knee. Whitside wanted to arrest Big Foot and disarm them all immediately.
Ironically, the justification for letting Big Foot go to Wounded Knee was that it would prevent a gun fight, save the lives of the women and children, but let the men escape. The Warriors wouldn't have left their women and children to perish, but since the following was reported to Red Cloud:
Red Cloud I believe Whitside didn't want the Warriors to have such an opportunity, under direct orders by General Nelson Miles.
(1): "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee" by Dee Brown, pp. 441-442. (December, 1890). Then, came the disarming.
..Colonel Forsyth informed the Indians that they were now to be disarmed. "They called for guns and arms," White Lance said, "so all of us gave the guns and they were stacked up in the center." The soldier chiefs were not satisfied with the number of weapons surrendered, so they sent details of troops to search the tepees. "They would go right into the tents and come out with bundles (sacred objects) and tear them open," Dog Chief said. "They brought our axes, knives, and tent stakes and piled them near the guns." Still not satisfied, the soldier chiefs ordered the warriors to remove their blankets and submit to searches for weapons...
Yellow Bird, the only medicine man there at the time danced some steps of the Ghost Dance, while singing one of it's songs as an act of dissent. Simultaneously, the people were furious at the "searches" when Yellow Bird reminded everyone of their bullet-proof shirts. To me, this was the void in time when the Ghost Dancers chose peace over war, and made it possible for the resurgence of their culture to occur in the future. A psychological justification for my saying so, is the Ghost Dancers would also have been Sundancers. Part of the well-known intent behind the Sundance is "that the people might live." Continuing on; next, was false blame.
...Some years later Dewey Beard (Wasumaza) recalled that Black Coyote was deaf. "If they had left him alone he was going to put his gun down where he should. They grabbed him and spinned him in the east direction. He was still unconcerned even then. He hadn't pointed his gun at anyone. His intention was to put that gun down. They came and grabbed the gun that he was going to put down...(1) in proceeding paragraph, p.445.
Source Hotchkiss guns shredded the camp on Wounded Knee Creek, killing, according to one estimate, 300 of 350 men, women, and children.
More people survived if they tried to escape through this tree row, because there was more tree cover.
More were massacred if they tried to escape through this tree row, because there was much less tree cover.
The truth has still been tried to be slanted and concealed, even after over one century ago, because the old sign said that there were 150 warriors. The truth is, there were only 40 warriors.
It was nothing less than false blame, deceptive actions, and blatant lies by the blood-thirsty troopers that started the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890. In recognition of the governmental policy of using smallpox infected blankets as germ warfare against Native Americans since the first presidency, the Sioux Wars, and all the "successful" extermination by the U.S. government prior to this last "battle;" would they have had the atom bomb, they would have used it too. For that would have been more convenient, than loading their remaining victims (4 men and 47 women and children) into open wagons and transporting them to Pine Ridge during the approaching blizzard for alleged shelter at the army barracks, then to the Episcopal mission "unplanned."
They left the survivors out in that blizzard in open wagons for who knows how long, while "An (singular) inept Army officer searched for shelter."(1) What that tells me is: they didn't plan on having any survivors. They planned on exterminating them. Of course, there wasn't any room at all in the army barracks for 51 people, so they had to take them to the mission. Well...if they'd been white, they would've found room for a measly 51 white people.
The Lost Bird of Wounded Knee Summary
In the spring or summer of 1890, Lost Bird was born somewhere on the prairies of South Dakota. Fate took her to Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation on Dec. 29, 1890. On that tragic day, hundreds of Lakota men, women and children died in a confrontation with U.S. troops and the woman who likely was the child’s mother was among them. But as she was dying, she and her baby found some scanty shelter from the bitter cold and wind in the bank of a creek. Four days after the massacre, a rescue party found the infant, miraculously alive, protected by the woman’s frozen body. The infant was passed from one person to another and her sensational story attracted the attention of powerful white men.Eventually, this living souvenir of Wounded Knee ended up in the hands of a National Guard general. Lost Bird was adopted by Gen. Leonard Colby and, without her knowledge or consent, his suffragist wife, Clara Bewick Colby. The baby’s original name died on the killing field, along with her chance to grow up in her own culture. She became. literally and figuratively, Zintkala Nuni, the Lost Bird.
- snip -
Clara Colby tried to raise Zintka as a white girl in an unaccepting society and tried to erase her unceasing attraction to her Lakota culture. In the end, Zintka was rejected by both.
Lost Bird finally came home in 1991, in an effort spurred in part by author Renee Sansom Flood, author of "Lost Bird of Wounded Knee: Spirit of the Lakota." Her grave was found in California and her remains were returned to South Dakota and buried at the grave site at Wounded Knee. Her tragic story led to the organization of the Lost Bird Society, which helps Native Americans who were adopted outside their culture find their roots.
Author is a member of the Metis Nation of the United State s
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