The Wounded Knee Massacre- The slaughter of approximately 150-300 Lakota Indians by U.S army troops.

Wounded Knee Massacre- Breanna D

The slaughter of approximately 150-300 Lakota Indians by U.S army troops.

In this podcast, the history and background of the wounded knee will be discussed and how it has affected history and how it’s affecting the present as well. 

Throughout history, land has obviously been a huge factor to wars and battles. The Wounded Knee is an example of this. In the 19th century the Westward Expansion transformed the United states, it fired up conflicts with Native Americans and altered the environment while also reshaping society. The government encouraged migration, which led to violence against minorities and also the loss of Native American lands. The attempts from white settlers of claiming plots of land were met with resistance and sometimes violence from Indigenous peoples. Later on this resistance intensified in the latter half of the 19th century. The United States federal government often signed and violated treaties with many plains tribal leaders. 

The US government was worried about the increasing influence at pine ridge indian reservation of the ghost dance spiritual movement. The ghost dance is a ceremony incorporated into numerous native american belief systems as the ghost dance spread from the original source different tribes synthesized selective aspects of the ritual with their own beliefs. Many Sioux ( which is one of the oldest and largest native American tribes in North America ) believed that if they practiced the ghost dance and rejected the ways of the white men, the gods would create the world anew and destroy all non-believers.

On December 28th of 1890, the 7th cavalry commanded by Col. James W forsyth, they reached the Miniconjou camp near the wounded knee creek which is located around 20 miles northeast of the pink ridge agency. Then on december 29th the US army's 7th cavalry surrounded a band of ghost dancers under bigfoot, which is a lakota sioux chief. 

The U.S army's 7th cavalry demanded they surrender their weapons and while that was happening a fight had broken out between a US soldier and an Indian, it is said a shot was fired but unclear from which side. After a brutal massacre followed which it’s estimated that 150 Indians were killed, nearly half of them were women and children. While on the other side, the U.S cavalry lost about 25 men.

The impact of the Wounded Knee massacre was that it marked the last major armed conflict between the United States and the Plains Indians. This has affected American society because this event led to more tension and distrust in the US government. Often, indigenous peoples are excluded or poorly represented in decision-making processes on matters that directly affect them and are not consulted about projects affecting their lands or the adoption of administrative or legislative measures that may affect them. 

Also, they are often displaced from their ancestral lands as a result of ventures such as the exploitation of natural resources. this massacre ended the ghost dance movement and after the American Indian movement was founded in 1968 in an effort to stop police harassment of Indians in the Minneapolis area

THANK YEWWW

Breanna Della