NYT Archive:

1891: A Heart-Rending Account of the Massacre at #WoundedKnee

By International Herald Tribune February 12, 2016

"On Dec. 29, 1890, American soldiers killed men, women and children on the #PineRidgeReservation in #SouthDakota. Two #Sioux leaders, #TurningHawk and #AmericanHorse, spoke of the massacre’s horrors at a conference in Washington D.C. in 1891. Below is an excerpt from their account that appeared in the European edition of The New York Herald:

"A most pathetic story was told at the Sioux Indian Conference yesterday [Feb. 11], by Turning Hawk and American Horse. According to them, many Indian men, women and children were mercilessly slaughtered in the so-called fight at Wounded Knee.

"Soon after the firing began, they said, the soldiers turned their guns upon #women in the lodges, standing there under a flag of #truce, the result being a general stampede, the men fleeing in one direction and the women in two different directions. As they fled with babes on their backs, several women and #children were shot right through, some falling near the flag of truce, and others being despatched as they ran through the circular village.

"One woman was shot down with her infant as her arms almost touched the flag, and a sad sight then was seen, the mother dead and the innocent child still suckling.

"But worse was yet to come, for after this inhuman #massacre the cry was raised that all not killed or wounded should come forth and would be safe. Little boys and girls not wounded came out of places of refuge, and as soon as they came in sight a number of soldiers surrounded and butchered them."

https://archive.nytimes.com/iht-retrospective.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/1891-a-heart-rending-account-of-the-massacre-at-wounded-knee/

#Genocide #USHistory #NativeAmericanHistory #WoundedKneeMassacre #NeverForgetWoundedKnee #IndianWars #USArmy

UPDATE - 12/29/2023: "The #WoundedKnee descendants group has decided not to burn artifacts stolen from mass graves of #WoundedKneeMassacre victims after officials from the #CheyenneRiverSioux Tribe requested that they not burn those artifacts."

Wounded Knee descendants group plans ceremony for artifacts

A group of Wounded Knee descendants is planning to burn recently repatriated artifacts on December 29

by Amelia Schafer
Dec 25, 2023

RAPID CITY, S.D. – "Last November, more than 150 items stolen from mass graves of Wounded Knee massacre victims were returned to a group of descendants, the Si’Tanka Ta’ Oyate O’mniceye (Descendants of the Si’ Tanka Nation). Now, a year later, the group plans to burn the artifacts to mark the end of the one-year traditional bereavement period called wasigla.

"In 1890, more than 300 Lakota men, women and children were killed by the #UnitedStatesMilitary. The military had been sent to #PineRidge to stop a potential 'Indian uprising.' Instead, they encountered a band of #Mniconju Lakota led by Chief Spotted Elk (nicknamed Big Foot by the military). The military misinterpreted the group’s ghost dance songs as an intent to attack and opened fire on the band. Now 133 years later, the descendants of those who survived the massacre are working to preserve the memory of what happened that day.

"Mixed in amongst the artifacts are items from other tribes, Ojibwe moccasins, Dakota and Cheyenne beadwork and other items from other tribes were scattered in. Those items will also be burned.

"All repatriated items came from the #WoodsMemorialLibrary’s Founders #MuseumCollection in #BarreMassachusetts. The museum qualifies as a private collection.

"The Founders Museum did not respond to a request for comment. It is unclear if the museum’s entire 'Native American Collection' was given to the Wounded Knee descendants or just the Wounded Knee-related items.

"Some Wounded Knee survivor descendants claim they were left out of the process [to make the decision to burn the items]. The group said there are more than 500 descendants of Wounded Knee survivor James Pipe on Head alone, the grandson of Chief Spotted Elk.

"Broken Nose said just in Oglala, South Dakota over 30 families descend from Spotted Elk. This specific group is comprised of descendants who have met since 1980.

"Calvin Spotted Elk, a citizen of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said he feels the descendants have not been properly included in the decision-making process, especially those who live out of state. Spotted Elk lives in California."

https://ictnews.org/news/wounded-knee-descendants-group-plans-ceremony-for-artifacts

#Genocide #Lakota #NativeAmericanHistory #WoundedKneeMassacre #NeverForgetWoundedKnee
#IndianWars #GhostDance #Repatriation

The American Buffalo:
#SittingBull and the #WoundedKneeMassacre

Clip: 10/17/2023

"U.S. concern over a new #GhostDance ceremony prompted the arrest of the #Lakota #ChiefSittingBull. Dozens ended up dead, including Sitting Bull. Several hundred Lakotas headed toward the #BlackHills to end things peaceably with the #USArmy. En route, they camped at a creek called #WoundedKnee. The next morning, more than 250 Lakotas – mostly #women and #children – were killed by #US soldiers."

https://www.pbs.org/video/sitting-bull-and-the-wounded-knee-massacre/

#Genocide #NativeAmericanHistory #WoundedKneeMassacre #NeverForgetWoundedKnee #IndianWars

Lakota Accounts of the Massacre at Wounded Knee

From the Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1891, volume 1, pages 179-181. Extracts from verbatim stenographic report of council held by delegations of Sioux with Commissioner of Indian Affairs, at Washington, February 11, 1891.

"There was a woman with an infant in her arms who was killed as she almost touched the flag of truce, and the women and children of course were strewn all along the circular village until they were dispatched. Right near the flag of truce a mother was shot down with her infant; the child not knowing that its mother was dead was still nursing, and that especially was a very sad sight. The women as they were fleeing with their babes were killed together, shot right through, and the women who were very heavy with child were also killed. All the Indians fled in these three directions, and after most all of them had been killed a cry was made that all those who were not killed wounded should come forth and they would be safe. Little boys who were not wounded came out of their places of refuge, and as soon as they came in sight a number of soldiers surrounded them and butchered them there."

https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-west/lakota-accounts-of-the-massacre-at-wounded-knee

#Resistance #Genocide #NativeAmericanHistory #WoundedKneeMassacre #NeverForgetWoundedKnee #IndianWars #USArmy

The Waterboys, Bury My Heart

"Bury my soul
Where the dust meets the sea
Turn it loose in a lonely place
Where man can still be free
Make up my clothes and sheets
In a ball, put them in the ground
Tell my children only truths
Teach them to be proud
Tell them dreams and miracles
When thy thunder stops
Bury my heart!

Bury my heart!

I was born a travelling trooper
But I laid my wings to rest
Once I beat myself in squallor
Now I feather up my nest
There are flags in my back yard
Colours on my wall
I pay my servant well
But I made the bastard crawl
And I pretend no blessed evil soul
That I don't hear that thunder start
Bury my heart!

There's a lily in the valley
Where I brought the news to Ro
I offered him my visions but
The heathen rose to go
So I took my shining sabre and I slew
My sinning friend
A christian burial was all he needed
To make him whole again
And I looked up way above me
And God rent the sky apart
Bury my heart!

Bury my heart!
Bury my heart!

We're God's chosen people
This and other truths I know
Put them into vicious practice
Because the bible tells me so
And I drowned the noble savage
In the blessed holy water
I burned his filthy village
And I civilized his daughter

The liars in this world
Who say we shame the blood of Christ
But killing is his mercy
And nits grow into lice

And all those gooks I napalmed
Man, I did it in God's name
When the fools put me on trial I shouted out
I'm not to blame -- I did it for him!
I did it for him!

I did it for him!
He made do it!
He tore the heavens apart

Bury my heart!
Bury my heart!
Bury my heart!

Now I'm going to wilderness
On a horse that I can trust
I will die where I fall
In the hot dry dust
And if you come to that place
Remember this truth

That he who's born to property
Is he who's born to lose
Will you bury my soul
Where the dust meets the sea
Will you bury my heart
At Wounded Knee!
Bury my heart
At Wounded Knee!
Bury my heart
At Wounded Knee!
Bury my heart!"

- Mike Scott, The Waterboys, 1984

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goP-8YG8Muw

#80s #80sMusic #TheWaterboys #Waterboys #Lyrics #WoundedKnee #MikeScott #Genocide #NeverForgetWoundedKnee #Vietnam #Slavery #ChristoFascism #FridayNightMusicVideos

[paywall] Centuries of resistance, from #WoundedKnee to #RedNation

By Justice Ramon Ocasio III
December 27, 2023 3:05 PM

"The 133rd anniversary of the #WoundedKneeMassacre, the deadliest #MassShooting in American history, falls on Dec. 29. On the fourth day after Christmas in 1890, #USArmy troops massacred as many as 300 #Lakota men, #women and #children near Wounded Knee Creek on the Lakota #PineRidgeIndianReservation in #SouthDakota."

https://www.chicagolawbulletin.com/ramon-ocasio-anniversary-of-wounded-knee-20231227

#Resistance #Genocide #CivilDisobedience #NativeAmericanHistory #WoundedKneeMassacre #NeverForgetWoundedKnee #Genocide #IndianWars

Stories from #WoundedKnee told 133 years later

by Amelia Schafer Dec 21, 2023

"As gunfire broke out, the nine-year-old boy began to run. Temperatures were below freezing. All he had were the clothes on his back and a knife as he ran through the open hills of the Pine Ridge Reservation.

"#FrankSitsPoor, part of Chief #SpottedElk’s (nicknamed Big Foot by the military) band of #Mniconju #Lakota, was out of his element. His family had traveled south seeking safety in the Badlands. Instead, the United States military moved the band to a small creek in the southern part of the #PineRidgeReservation, Wounded Knee Creek, awaiting further relocation.

"The boy ran over bodies of dead relatives, babies and mothers, and didn’t stop running until night came. One of the bodies he ran past was a mother with a baby in a cradleboard. A hand reached up, but he didn’t know what to do...."

Read more:
https://rapidcityjournal.com/news/stories-from-wounded-knee-told-133-years-later/article_41cd64a6-9f5b-11ee-ad2c-2f45abb540c6.html

#Resistance #Genocide #CivilDisobedience #NativeAmericanHistory #WoundedKneeMassacre #NeverForgetWoundedKnee
#Genocide #IndianWars #GhostDance

The #Lakota #GhostDance and the Massacre at #WoundedKnee

How the American drive to force Indian assimilation turned violent on the plains of South Dakota.

April 16, 2021 | Louis S. Warren

"For Americans, then, the challenge of #assimilation was the great social question whirling at the center of the Ghost Dance of 1890. A millennial enthusiasm for assimilating others, as well as a deep anxiety that they might refuse to be assimilated, explains much of what made the Ghost Dance so troubling. To most #WhiteAmericans, the dance itself was proof that assimilation had failed to dampen the savage impulse and that America’s irresistible conquest might prove resistible after all. In this light, the dances in South Dakota were more than just dances, and more than another Indian uprising. For Americans, something more, much more, was on the line."

Read more:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/american-oz-lakota-ghost-dance-massacre-wounded-knee/

#Resistance #Genocide #CivilDisobedience #NativeAmericanHistory #WoundedKneeMassacre #NeverForgetWoundedKnee
#Genocide #IndianWars

The #OoomakaTokatakiya, Porcupine to #WoundedKnee

Day 14, December 28, 2023

Photos by Ken Marchionno and Future Generations Teen Photojournalism Project

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2023/12/the-oomaka-tokatakiya-porcupine-to.html

#NativeAmericanHistory #WoundedKneeMassacre #NeverForgetWoundedKnee #Genocide #StandingRock #IndianWars #Lakota

[Photos] Ooomaka Tokatakiya, Kyle to Porcupine, The Ride to #WoundedKnee

Photos by Ken Marchionno and the Future Generations Teen Photojournalism Project

December 27, 2023

https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2023/12/oomaka-tokatakiya-kyle-to-porcupine.html

#NativeAmericanHistory #WoundedKneeMassacre #NeverForgetWoundedKnee #Genocide #StandingRock #IndianWars #Lakota