History of American Indians and the United States

Wounded Knee II

Dr. Kane

mkane2@albany.edu Humanities 109 | MWF 9:20 - 10:15 AM

Office Hrs: M 10:20 - 11:20 & F 1:30 - 3:30

Social Science 60S

Wednesday, October 4

coming up

  • History honors society
  • UA Puerto Rico relief: http://www.albany.edu/relief/
  • Student Care Services at (518) 442-5501
  • http://www.albany.edu/ualbanycares/
  • Locations paper Oct 16

today's class

  • cultural background to Wounded Knee 1890
  • Wounded Knee 1890
  • hand back midterm

where are we?

  • Extermination era 1840-1887
  • Plains wars
  • Dakota War - 1862
  • Treaty of Fort Laramie
  • Grant's Peace Policy - 1869
  • Allottment & Assimilation era 1887-1940
  • Dawes Allotment Act - 1887
  • Wounded Knee - 1890
  • Indian Citizenship Act - 1924

traditionalist revival

  • pan-Indian or regional cooperation
  • rejection of some or all European/American practices
  • farming, alcohol, cloth, Christianity
  • religious revivalism, sometimes blended with Christianity
  • sometimes militaristic
  • goal of ejecting whites and/or blacks from traditional lands

Sun Dance

  • outlawed in 1870 because conflated with cannibalism and human sacrifice
  • “flesh sacrifice” of piercing (communion)
  • fasting, sweat lodge, 2-4 days of dancing
  • religious ceremony to solidify and protect community

treaty violations

SD
SD

effects of the Dawes Act

  • allotted most marginal, driest land
  • required passes and tags to leave reservations
  • tools and rations provided in exchange for children sent to boarding school
  • 1887-1890 worst weather in SD history
  • hunting, cut rations, bad rations

Ghost Dance - 1888-1890

  • visions of Wovoka during solar eclipse
  • reject alcohol and farming but not Christianity
  • arrest of leaders who did not renounce
  • Lakota rounded up from hunt for winter 1890

Wounded Knee - 1890

  • Dec 15 - Sitting Bull, 8 leaders & 6 BIA police killed
  • Dec 23 - Spotted Elk's band leaves Pine Ridge
  • Dec 28 - Spotted Elk intercepted
  • Dec 29, dawn - men told to disarm

casualties

  • 200 Native men in first twenty minutes (40 armed)
  • 150 Native women and children killed by artillery
  • 100 men, women and children pursued
  • 31 US Army casualties
  • 4 old men, 47 women and children taken captive

Zintkala Nuni/Little Lost Bird

lostbird

reaction

  • demands for greater Army presence
  • outlawing of all powwow and cultural shift away from Wild West shows
  • 20 Medals of Honor for 7th Infantry
  • shorthand for imperialist massacre

cultural legacy

buffalo