Jessica Crabtree

December 29, 1890: US troops open fire on Lakota men, women, and children following their surrender in what becomes known as the Wounded Knee Massacre

Wounded Knee is considered the last major armed confrontation between US military and Native Americans. By 1890 all of the Indians of the Great Plains had been forcibly removed to reservations, except for a few hundred Miniconjou and Hunkpapa Lakota under the leadership of Chief Spotted Elk, or Big Foot, Sitting Bull’s half-brother. In December of 1890, they consented to disarmament demands and agreed to military escort onto reservation land. When the band camped near the trading post of Wounded Knee in present-day South Dakota, they were surrounded by the artillery of the 7th Cavalry under James Forsyth and ordered to disarm. In the midst of a tense standoff a rifle went off, triggering a barrage fired from Hotchkiss guns directly onto the camp at short range.

In the ensuing massacre, soldiers gunned down women, children, and the elderly, even pursuing the fleeing into the ravine along the Wounded Knee Creek. 25 soldiers of the 7th Cavalry were killed, many of them victims of friendly fire; no accurate number of Indian casualties has been determined. Estimates range from 100 to as many as 400, including those who died in the following hours as a result of injuries and cold exposure. The dead and wounded were left in the snow for several days, until finally being buried in a makeshift mass grave.

Wikipedia: Wounded Knee

Wounded Knee: First Hand Accounts

First Hand Accounts – from the PBS Series “The West”