Wounded Knee

On December 29th, 1890, a band of Lakota people led by
Spotted Elk ( Chief Bigfoot) was encircled by the Seventh
Calvary, at the place called Cankpe Opi Wakpala, the creek
called Wounded Knee. In the early morning hours the men
were assembled in a semi-circle formation in front of the tipis
      and disarmed.
      A holy man fearing for the lives of his people stood up and beseeched the
creator and asked for protection for the lives of the people.
A shot rang out and the soldiers fired en masse into the sitting
Lakota men, killing most of them instantly. The horror was only
beginning.
The women and children ran as the soldiers chased them
down and killed them one by one. The slaughter continued
for over three hours. Some of the dead were found over three miles
from the campsite.
In vol.3, issue 1, "The Lakota Journal" listed the names of the Lakota
victims of the massacre at Wounded Knee. Four-hundred and five were
listed as killed. Of this number, 69 were identified as infants or young children,
133 were identified as women, the remaining 203 were identified as
men or had no gender or age identification. Of the total dead, 39 were
identified as elders.
The bodies were left to freeze onto the prairie. Over the next three
days survivors and relatives recovered nearly half of the dead. On
the third day a government burial detail arrived to bury the remaining
victims. The bodies were stripped of valuables and dropped into a
mass grave.
A 40 year old, named Last Man, lay gutshot, frozen
to the ground until he was discovered on the 5th of January, 8 days
after the slaughter of December 29th. Last Man died at 8am on
January 6th, 1891.
The United States government awarded 23 Medals of Honor to
members of the Seventh Calvary for their service to the nation at this
place, the creek called Wounded Knee. 45).
Chief Bigfoot's body was scalped and the trophy was sent to
the Seventh Cavalry's museum in Massachusetts. There it remained
over the protests of Chief Bigfoot's family until the summer of 2000.
The last remains of Chief Bigfoot were returned to the place of his
birth, 109 years after his murder.


"I did not know then how much had ended. When I look back
from this high hill of my old age I can still see the butchered
women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the
crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young.
And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud
and was buried in the blizzard. A peoples dream died there. It
was a beautiful dream....the nation's hoop is broken and scattered.
There is no center any longer and the sacred tree is dead."

                                    BLACK ELK
                                        -Lakota-