WOUNDED KNEE

Considered the last battle between the U.S. Army and American Indians, the Wounded Knee Massacre took place on the morning of 29 December 1890 beside Wounded Knee Creek on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation. This was the culmination of the Ghost Dance religion that had started with a Paiute prophet from Nevada named Wovoka (1856–1932), who was also known as Jack Wilson. During the previous year, U.S. government officials had reduced Sioux lands and cut back rations so severely that the Sioux people were starving. These conditions encouraged the desperate embrace of the Ghost Dance. This pan-tribal ritual had historical antecedents that go much further back than its actual founder, as both millenarian and messianic traditions had intersections between Christianity and many Native American religions from the time of contact with Europeans.

MOONEY'S ACCOUNT OF THE MASSACRE

The anthropologist James Mooney (1861–1921) did an extremely thorough treatment of the tragic events at Wounded Knee in his 1,136-page work originally published by the Government Printing Office in 1896. Originally called "The Ghost Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890" and published in The Fourteenth Annual Report (Part 2) of the Bureau of Ethnology to the Smithsonian Institution, 1892–93, Mooney's study was reprinted in 1973 with the title The Ghost Dance Religion and Wounded Knee.

This detailed history begins with the life of Wovoka. Mooney points out that the Paiute prophet was born around 1857 near Walker Lake, Nevada. At age twelve his father, the Paiute shaman Tavibo, shared a vision with his mentor, Wodziwob, promising a cleansed world involving the restoration of those who had died if believers performed the Dance of Souls Departed, later called the more familiar Ghost Dance. These earlier prophets' visions caught on quickly in the early 1870s, possibly contributing to the brutal Modoc War of 1872–1873, but upon Tavibo's death of disease, early practice of the Ghost Dance ceased. Fourteen years old when his father died, Wovoka was adopted by a ranching family and took on their family name, becoming Jack Wilson and receiving training in Christianity and engaging in daily Bible readings. In time he also learned from Mormon missionaries in search of Paiute converts, leading some to speculate that the famous ghost shirts may derive from the Mormon "garments" worn as underwear. He also learned from Quakers or Shakers while working on farms in the Pacific Northwest. Upon his return to Nevada and his marriage to a Paiute woman, he accepted the life of a ranch hand. In 1886, while chopping wood in the mountains, Wilson had a vision of his death and acceptance into heaven, where the voice of God promised renewal in terms similar to those found in the prophecies of his father. Wovoka preached among the Paiute for a couple of years before performing three "miracles" which caused the Ghost Dance religion to spread.

Mooney reports that the level of despair that the Sioux nation had reached by 1890 made them ready converts to the promises of the Ghost Dance, and many had embraced the sect's practices. Sioux practitioners experienced visions of the return of their ancestors and the buffalo; many wore the ghost shirts, believing this would deflect the bullets of the whites. When an encampment of nearly three thousand Ghost Dance believers gathered in the Badlands of South Dakota, settlers were alarmed, and many left their farms. More than half of the U.S. Army was sent to the reservations, which in turn concerned Sioux leaders hoping for peace. A band led by Big Foot, the Miniconjou Lakota chief, sought supplies at the Indian agency headquarters, but they grew alarmed by approaching U.S. troops. While deliberating how to proceed, they were joined by starving members of Sitting Bull's band, who informed them of the revered leader's murder on the day before, 15 December 1890. Together, the two bands fled to Pine Ridge Agency, surrendering to the Seventh Cavalry on 28 December and camping beside Wounded Knee Creek. There, surrounded by 470 soldiers and with four Hotchkiss cannons trained on them, the 106 warriors were separated from the 250 women and children. The soldiers, who were provided with a barrel of whiskey by a local trader, prevented the Sioux from sleeping. The next morning, Colonel James Forsyth ordered the Native Americans to surrender their weapons and confiscated any and all equipment that could conceivably be treated as a weapon, including sewing awls; in the process, some of the women were treated disrespectfully. Forty rifles were taken from the men, but one warrior who was hearing impaired struggled with soldiers, and a shot was fired. That caused immediate firing from all sides that left half of the warriors dead at once. As the women and children fled they were slaughtered by the soldiers, and bodies were found scattered as much as three miles from the camp. Most of the thirty-one U.S. casualties resulted from friendly fire.

CALLAHAN'S WYNEMA

The first Native American literary reaction to the events at Wounded Knee was published soon after the event. Wynema: A Child of the Forest (1891), a novel written by the Muskogee Creek author S. Alice Callahan (1868–1894), appeared less than six months after the massacre. The first known novel by an American Indian woman, this work concerns Wovoka's messianic movement and its consequences in the massacre of December 1890. Although it is not a particularly well-written book and its references to the Wounded Knee Massacre are factually inaccurate, it is significant as the first treatment of the subject by a Native American writer.

The novel was already nearly finished before the events of December 1890, and the material concerned with Wounded Knee seems hastily tacked onto what is primarily a romance. While historically the massacre is considered a mythic end of Native American cultures, Callahan's book demonstrates continuance, if in a stilted and forced fashion. While one elderly female character claims to be the only remnant of her tribe to survive the massacre, there are children who survive, one of whom is adopted by the character Wynema. The book also depicts nearly twenty years of the Native American protagonist's life, portraying her assimilation under the influence of the real central character, the white Methodist teacher Genevieve Weir. The Ghost Dance enters the novel through media reports concerning the new belief system.

Despite the inaccuracies in the book's account of Wounded Knee, it is significant insofar as the women become central to the outcome; where most written accounts focus on the actions of men, here almost forty women join their husbands with hostile intentions toward the soldiers. Additionally, the Creek author misunderstands traditional Lakota culture and engages in stereotyping as well, with depictions of "savage" warriors and women with papooses. The author's outrage concerning the massacre is clear, however, and again, is significant inasmuch as it is the first Native American treatment of the issue.

EASTMAN'S FROM THE DEEP WOODS TO CIVILIZATION

The Lakota writer Charles A. Eastman (also known by his family's Sioux name, Ohiyesa; 1858–1939) was the attending physician to the survivors of the event at Wounded Knee. The second volume of his autobiography, titled From the Deep Woods to Civilization: Chapters in the Autobiography of an Indian, records his observations of the tragic event. First published in 1916, Eastman's work shows that the events at Wounded Knee deeply shook the author's hope in reconciling his Native American sensibilities with his accommodation of Euro-American culture.

In a chapter called "The Ghost Dance War," Eastman refers to the Ghost Dance belief as a "religious craze" (p. 92) that is inconsistent with Native American culture. This chapter details the grievances of the people at Pine Ridge, and he calls the government treaties and other documents "worthless scraps of paper" (p. 99). In the midst of his description of the days leading up to the fateful event, Eastman refers to preparations for Christmas. Four days after the holiday, Eastman notes hearing the sound of the Hotchkiss guns and seeing the arrival of the soldier delivering a report to local cavalry officers. Eastman joined those who traveled to Wounded Knee after the event and acted as surgeon to the wounded, using the chapel as a hospital, and he was among those searching for victims and survivors for miles around the site. Despite the blizzard that followed the massacre, Eastman and his companions found survivors two days afterward. The writer concludes that "this was a severe ordeal for one who had so lately put all his faith in the Christian love and lofty ideals of the white man" (p. 114).

STANDING BEAR'S MY PEOPLE, THE SIOUX

In 1928 Luther Standing Bear (also known as Ota Kte or Plenty Kill, c. 1868–c. 1939) published My People, the Sioux. The author begins his treatment of the Wounded Knee tragedy by discussing treaties made with the white people in a chapter called "The Ghost Dance Troubles." Like Eastman, Standing Bear refers to the new religion as a "craze" that brought great excitement to his people, and again like his predecessor, he sees the Ghost Dance beliefs as superstition.

Standing Bear objects to the official designation of the event as a "battle," claiming it was rather a "slaughter, a massacre" (p. 224). He learns of the event on the day it occurred, and he finds he is prepared to fight the whites as a result, asking how he could convince his people to "follow in the white man's road—even trying to get them to believe in their religion" (p. 224). The writer concludes that the perpetrators lacked "civilized training" (p. 224). He reports that after this event rumors circulated among the Native Americans that the white people intended to kill them all, even those with the white people's education. Upon viewing the site of the tragedy, he notes that some of the pools of water were red with blood, and he observes that he cannot blame the many survivors who fled into the Badlands.

NEIHARDT'S BLACK ELK SPEAKS

The 1932 text Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt (1881–1973) reflects the impressions of the Lakota holy man Hehaka Sapa, known to most readers as Black Elk, who rode his horse to see the aftermath of the massacre and participated in subsequent skirmishes. Twenty-seven years of age at the time, Black Elk claims to have wanted revenge for what he witnessed. Readers should keep in mind that while the Lakota named Black Elk did indeed share his story with the poet John Neihardt, the written text that results is that of Neihardt, as Black Elk did not speak, read, or write English.

Significantly, then, the two chapters concerned with the Ghost Dance and the massacre appear near the end of the book. Neihardt's usage of this material is the standard portrayal of the mythic end of Native American culture. Even so, it is clear that Black Elk wanted his story to be told. In a chapter called "Bad Trouble Coming" he relates the buildup to the tragic event at Wounded Knee. Black Elk describes visiting the various dances taking place all around the region. In the following chapter, called "The Butchering at Wounded Knee," Black Elk says that the night before the massacre he could hardly sleep, and when he went for his horses in the morning he heard the sound of the cannons firing on the lodges of Big Foot's people. He put on a sacred shirt he had made from images in his vision, saddled his buckskin, and headed for Wounded Knee, still hearing the guns. Black Elk and two companions rescued some women and children who were targeted by the soldiers, then he wrapped up a baby he found and hid her so as to rescue her later. He relates the sight of dead and wounded women, children, and babies, many torn to pieces by the shells of the Hotchkiss guns. He ends this chapter with the eyewitness account of one of his friends. The next chapter in Black Elk Speaks is the final one in the book, which ends, significantly, with a despairing paragraph that expresses the views of Neihardt rather than those of Black Elk.

See alsoAnnexation and Expansion; Indians; Indian Wars; Violence

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Primary Works

Callahan, S. Alice. Wynema: A Child of the Forest. 1891. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997.

Eastman, Charles A. (Ohiyesa). From the Deep Woods to Civilization: Chapters in the Autobiography of an Indian. 1916. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1977.

Mooney, James. The Ghost Dance Religion and Wounded Knee. New York: Dover Publications, 1973.

Neihardt, John G. Black Elk Speaks: Being the Life Story of a Holy Man of the Oglala Sioux. 1932. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1979.

Standing Bear, Luther. My People, the Sioux. 1928. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1975.

Rick Waters