Wounded Knee Massacre Essay

1412 Words3 Pages

The Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 2

No one can describe The Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890 without digging in the past and getting some background on the events leading up to The Wounded Knee Massacre. There has been a battle between America and them wanting to remove Native Americans from their land ever since America was “discovered” by the Americans. In 1829 at his inaugural address President Andrew Jackson emphasized his desire “to observe toward Indian tribes within our limits a just and liberal policy, and to give that humane and considerate attention to their rights and their wants which is consistent with the habits of our Government and the feelings of our people”. Within 14 months of that speech Jackson himself urged Congress to …show more content…

( Home, n.d. para 3) Shortly after the United States Government took the Black Hills away from the Sioux in 1877. The reason that the Native Americans fought so hard for the Black Hills was because it was given to them by Wakan Tanka, which in Sioux means Great Spirit Mystery. ( Wakan Tanka, n.d. ) Wakan Tanka is thought to be creator of the universe; believed to be the all providing one. The Native Americans do not describe the this creator because “it is a mystery”, they advise “leave it alone; no one describe such mystery.” ( Wakan Tanka, n.d. …show more content…

Bluecoats’ bullets would not penetrate these “Ghost Shirts”. The Ghost dance spread like wildfire through the Sioux villages of the Dakota reservations and the Native Americans were once again revitalized and brought fear to the whites. So much fear that some of the Indian agents at the Pine Ridge Reservation quickly wired a telegram to Washington and told me of the, “ Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy….We need protection and we need it now. The leaders should be arrested and confined at some military post until the matter is quieted, and this should be done now.” ( Massacre At Wounded Knee,1890.n.d.

Show More
Related

  • Wounded Knee And The Battle Of Tippecanoe

    547 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Trail of Tears was one of the examples of when America treated Native Americans terrible. This event was absolutely terrible. We forced the Indians to walk to the West because white settlers wanted to grow more cotton. There was actually a law that let America remove all indians to the West, so that they can get more land to grow cotton. Now this wasn’t just a normal peaceful walk. These people were dying of starvation, most of them wasn’t able to keep their belongings, and there was many sicknesses. This 1,200 mile walk led to over 5,000 Cherokees dying.

    Read More

  • Essay On Stonewall Jackson

    842 Words  | 2 Pages

    Michael Lloyd Page 1 Mr. Blystone US History (G) 1 May 2014. Thomas Jonathan Jackson Thomas Jonathan Jackson, otherwise known as Stonewall Jackson, was a Confederate General during the American Civil War. He was born January 21st, 1824 in Clarksburg, Virginia and died 39 years later on May 10th, 1863.

    Read More

  • Deciphering Wounded Knee: Hollywood Vs Historical Fact

    1418 Words  | 3 Pages

    "On September 25, 1990, hearings were conducted in the United States Senate by the Select Committee on Indian Affairs regarding the historical circumstances surrounding the Wounded Knee Massacre" (United States). As a result, Senate Congressional Resolution 153 (1989-1990) was passed. The following are excerpts from that resolution: "Whereas the Sioux people who are descendants of the victims and survivors of the Wounded Knee Massacre have been striving to reconcile and, in a culturally appropriate manner, to bring to an end their 100 years of grieving for the tragedy of December 29, 1890 ... which brought to a close an era in the history of this country ... characterized by an official government policy of forcibly removing the Indian tribes and bands from the path of westward expansion and settlement through placement on reservations.... Now therefore be it resolved by the Senate, that, 1) the Congress, on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre of December 29, 1890, hereby acknowledges the historical significance of this event as the last armed conflict of the Indian wars period resulting in the tragic death and injury of approximately 350-375 Indian men, women, and children of Chief Big Foot 's band of Minneconjou Sioux and hereby expresses its deep regret on behalf of the United States to the descendants of the victims

    Read More

  • Lakota Woman

    1161 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lakota Woman Essay In Lakota Woman, Mary Crow Dog argues that in the 1970’s, the American Indian Movement used protests and militancy to improve their visibility in mainstream Anglo American society in an effort to secure sovereignty for all "full blood" American Indians in spite of generational gender, power, and financial conflicts on the reservations. When reading this book, one can see that this is indeed the case. The struggles these people underwent in their daily lives on the reservation eventually became too much, and the American Indian Movement was born. AIM, as we will see through several examples, made their case known to the people of the United States, and militancy ultimately became necessary in order to do so.

    Read More

  • Ghost Dance Movement Essay

    960 Words  | 2 Pages

    Native Americans were not afforded full citizenship in the United States until 1924, therefore they were not afforded the rights of American citizens i.e. religious freedom until then. It wasn’t until 1945, that the Supreme Court held that “Freedom of speech and of press is accorded aliens residing in this country” (Bridges v. Wixon, 326 U.S. 135, 148). In 1890 the Ghost Dance movement gain momentum within the Lakota. This created concern and fear among many whites in the area. A massacre at Wounded Knee on the Lakota Reservation in South Dakota was a direct result of the Euro- American fears of non-Christian people. Tisa Wegner tells us, “in 1906, Congress supported a view, amending the Dawes Act to postpone citizenship for newly allotted Indians for twenty-five-year period or until they had “adopted the habits of civilized life” (Hoxie 1995:211-238). The Native people then developed secular dance ceremonies which allowed them to continue the practice of dancing and not be perceived as a threat, they did this by having these ceremonies coincide with Euro-American

    Read More

  • Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee

    388 Words  | 1 Pages

    The Indians were being confined to crowed reservations that were poorly run, had scarce game, alcohol was plentiful, the soil was poor, and the ancient religious practices were prohibited. The Indians were not happy that they had been kicked off there land and were now forced to live on a reservation. The Indians then began to Ghost Dance a form of religion it is said that if the Indians were to do this trance like dance the country would be cleansed of white intruders. Also dead ancestors and slaughtered buffalo would return and the old ways would be reborn in a fruitful land. Once the Bureau of Indian affairs noticed what was going on they began to fear this new religion would lead to warfare. The white peoplewere scared that this new dance was a war dance. They called for army protection. Army was called in to try to curbed this new religion before it could start a war.

    Read More

  • Violence in the Old West

    638 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the main forms of violence in the Old West was murder; the rising tension between the American soldiers and the Native Americans was a main contributor to this violence. An example of this strain is the Sand Creek Massacre. American soldiers attacked unaware Native Americans of the Cheyenne and Arapahoe ethnic groups. All men, women, and children were killed and/or tortured. There were no survivors. “Two soldiers drew their pistols and shot her [a little girl]”, portraying that these sort of crimes came about regularly in the West (Document G). Another example of this is the Battle of Beecher Island. The Battle of Beecher Island, also known as the Battle of Arikaree Fork, was the armed disagreement between soldiers of the U.S. Army and a few Native American tribes. According to Document H, there were “at least 50 [men dead]; perhaps as many as 200 [men] were wounded” (Document H). Adding on to the uneasiness between the Native Americans and the white soldiers, many killings were encountered by foolishness, not battle. The Native Americans and the soldiers wanted to prove that their race is more macho and better than the other. Even though Document L states that “113 [people] recorded no trouble with the Indians”, Document M detects many problems with the Native Americans resulting in “919” troops killed (Document L, Document M). The white soldiers in the Old West would have loved to kill the Native American’s buffalo popu...

    Read More

  • Wounded Knee

    721 Words  | 2 Pages

    Wounded Knee was a terrible event in US history. It showed how the US government didn't understand the Native Americans and treated them badly and unfairly.

    Read More

  • Essay On The Sand Creek Massacre

    1433 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of the darkest times in American history was the conflict with the natives. A “war” fought with lies and brute force, the eviction and genocide of Native Americans still remains one of the most controversial topics when the subject of morality comes up. Perhaps one of the most egregious events to come of this atrocity was the Sand Creek Massacre. On the morning of November 29th, 1864, under the command of Colonel John Chivington, 700 members of the Colorado Volunteer Cavalry raped, looted, and killed the members of a Cheyenne tribe (Brown 86-94). Hearing the story of Sand Creek, one of the most horrific acts in American History, begs the question: Who were the savages?

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Not Like Us

    989 Words  | 2 Pages

    With hope that they could even out an agreement with the Government during the progressive era Indian continued to practice their religious beliefs and peacefully protest while waiting for their propositions to be respected. During Roosevelt’s presidency, a tribe leader who went by as No Shirt traveled to the capital to confront them about the mistreatment government had been doing to his people. Roosevelt refused to see him but instead wrote a letter implying his philosophical theory on the approach the natives should take “if the red people would prosper, they must follow the mode of life which has made the white people so strong, and that is only right that the white people should show the red people what to do and how to live right”.1 Roosevelt continued to dismiss his policies with the Indians and encouraged them to just conform into the white’s life style. The destruction of their acres of land kept being taken over by the whites, which also meant the destruction of their cultural backgrounds. Natives attempted to strain from the white’s ideology of living, they continued to attempt with the idea of making acts with the government to protect their land however they never seemed successfully. As their land later became white’s new territory, Indians were “forced to accept an ‘agreement’” by complying to change their approach on life style.2 Oklahoma was one of last places Natives had still identity of their own, it wasn’t shortly after that they were taken over and “broken by whites”, the union at the time didn’t see the destruction of Indian tribes as a “product of broken promises but as a triumph for American civilization”.3 The anger and disrespect that Native tribes felt has yet been forgotten, white supremacy was growing during the time of their invasion and the governments corruption only aid their ego doing absolutely nothing for the Indians.

    Read More

  • The Roles of the Characters in “Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee”

    668 Words  | 2 Pages

    The video “Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee,” tells the story of being pushed onto reservations in the Midwest and Black Hills negotiations. The main characters include Charles Eastman, Red Cloud, and Sitting Bull. These characters each play a significant role in capturing the emotional state of life among the governing agencies and tribal members.

    Read More

  • Native American Injustice Essay

    967 Words  | 2 Pages

    Native Americans suffered hundreds of years of violence, discrimination and forced relocation from their land, during the European invasion of North America. After the Europeans arrive, Indian culture soon became endangered, a culture which developed distinctively shaped tools, sewing needles, clothing, jewelry and weapons. They held strong their own higher cultural beliefs, and legends, retold to them for many generations. During the era of colonization in the United States, Native Americans were subjected to years of despair, of which includes ravaging diseases, conversion to Christianity, European technology, and procurement of native land.

    Read More

  • Freedom Riders Essay

    1254 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 1962, director of the Congress of Racial Equality, James Farmer and fellow CORE leader Bayard Rustin, resurrected an earlier strategy from the late 1940s that called for blacks to ride segregated trains and buses during interstate travel in the upper South. The earlier protest on wheels had failed miserably when the riders were arrested in North Carolina, convicted, and given month-long sentences doing chain-gang labor. This time, the protesters hoped that they would receive greater support from the federal government and the Justice Department.

    Read More

  • Native American Civil War Essay

    697 Words  | 2 Pages

    A few years after the civil war, the focus of hatred shifted to the American Indians. Especially the Comanche and Kiowa tribes, who had noticed the white men had begun pressing heavy military resistance upon them and drove their buffalo herds out. This marked a big step towards total regulation among the Indians, by forcing them to live on reservations. This would lead up to a special ritual called the sun dance, which brought several tribes together to come together with a plan to ambush the buffalo hunter’s camp, the adobe walls. The battles increased through time and made Sherman reflect on the civil war in some aspect. Believing that this advancement upon the tribes was very overdrawn and should’ve been more precise and controlled, he notes that it was more of a political gain then for the status quo. This letter represents an important part of history however, as it

    Read More

  • Indian Genocide

    1267 Words  | 3 Pages

    For decades, the United States practiced policies of removal to gain valuable land for itself. The policies of removal, assimilation, and concentration caused the deaths of thousands of Natives. The song Indian Reservation by Paul Revere and the Midnight Raiders is a reminder of the Trail of Tears, which killed a ¼ of the Indians that marched. The government removed the Indians from Georgia to benefit the plantation owners in the south, at the expense of the Native people in the area. Even the Supreme Court of the United States agreed that removal of the Indians from that land would be illegal, but President Jackson went ahead and did it anyways. The Indians marched over a thousand miles until they were west of the Mississippi River. It also gives a general overview of how the whites put the Indians on reservations and tried to assimilate them. “The beads we made by hand are nowadays made in Japan,” shows how the whites took over the Indian’s culture and commercialized it. Another situation in which the government practiced assimilation and concentration was with Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce. Joseph’s tribes were cooperative and sold their land to the whites as long as they got to live in their valley, but eventually the whites wanted all their land. The Indians fled and tried to make it to Canada, but 30 miles from the border they were caught and rounded up. They were sent to live on reservations, and most died of white diseases or starvation. By the year 1890, all Indians were on reservations. The Blackhawk war, which happened over land disputes in Wisconsin and Illinois, also led to the death and relocation of numerous Indians. This disrespect towards the Indians was typical of the time period.

    Read More

More about Wounded Knee Massacre Essay

Open Document