Wounded Knee Massacre

Categories: Social Science | US History

  • The Wounded Knee Massacre was an 1890 tragedy which resulted in the deaths of over 153 Lakota Sioux men, women, and children and the deaths of 25 United States soldiers.

  • Fast Facts:

    1. Date: December 29, 1890
    2. Location: Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota
    3. Casualties: 153+ Lakota, 25 U.S. soldiers
    4. Sparked by the Ghost Dance religious movement
    5. Fighting sparked when United States Cavalry attempted to disarm the Sioux

  • Origins of the Dance

    The massacre at Wounded Knee has become, in the century since its occurrence, a symbol for the tragic treatment of Native Americans by the United States government and armed forces. The actual massacre was the result of a mix of cultural misunderstanding, fear, and desperation. In 1889, Native Americans across the western United States began performing a "Ghost Dance", inspired by the syncretic Christian and Native American religious vision of a Paiute holy man named Wovoka. Performing the dance, claimed Wovoka, would cleanse the world of evil and reunite the living and the dead.

  • The Sioux Adopt the Dance

    When the dance spread to the Oglala Sioux, its visions of a world free of evil began to include a world free of whites, and many Sioux began performing the dance in the belief it would have this effect. When white soldiers and settlers became alarmed at the implications of the dance (despite there being no violent incident connected with it), they attempted to halt its performance. In mid-December 1890, an incursion onto the Standing Rock Reservation resulted in the shooting death of Sitting Bull, and later that month an attempt by U.S. forces to disarm a group of Lakota dancers resulted in the massacre.

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