The Wounded Knee site is the last battlefield
of the uprising. The Wounded Knee creek and village is in South Dakota,
and is the site of the last major battles of the Indian Wars, on December
29, 1890. U.S. troops killed almost 200 Sioux, including women and children.
Even though 38 Indians were hung, the Minnesotan's wanted the Indians that
had escaped to be pursued and punished. They wanted the Sioux to
be banished from Minnesota. They also wanted the 1,700 peaceful Indians
mostly women and children and 300 more Indians in jail in Mankato that
had been convicted but not executed to also be banished from the state.
The relationship between the Indians and the white man was not pleasant.
In the after math of the Dakota Conflict over 6,000 Dakotas
survived by going west. Over 1,700 of the Dakota were put in jail at Fort
Snelling. These Indians were eventually moved to Crow Creek Reservation
In Dakota territory. The uncaptured Dakota were left scattered across
the plains, and there land was taken by the federal government and sold
to benefit the victims of the conflict. The Dakota have received
very little compensation for their land.
In 1868 the Sioux had been given
land by treaties for all time. In 1874 the Black Hills expedition
headed by Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer discovered gold. The
result of this discovery caused a boom population of the region.
Most of the Indians were already beginning the transition to the white
mans way. The Indians were forced to move to the Reservations that
the white men reserved for them. The Indians eventually moved out to the
Dakota's from Minnesota. The Battle of Wounded Knee and the uprising
in Minnesota are related because some of the Indians were in both battles.
Late in 1875 the US Government failed to convince the Indians to sell the
Black Hills. In 1876 the Battle of Little Bighorn took place after the
government issued an order that any Indian not on the reservation by January
31 would be considered hostile.
Five thousand soldiers attempted to
end the troubles without violence. On December 15 during an attempt to
arrest him Chief Sitting Bull was killed at his camp. On December 28 the
seventh cavalry intercepted Big Foot and his band of some 350 people as
they were fleeing south to the Pine Ridge Agency from their village on
the Cheyenne River. The troops rounded up the Sioux and placed them in
a camp on Wounded Knee Creek, twenty miles northeast of the agency. Neither
side intended to fight but a medicine man incited the young men to resist
and fighting broke out. The uprising in the midwest occurred because of
American Government policy toward the Indians. The uprising ended December
29, 1890 at the Wounded Knee site. The uprising that began at Acton
in Minnesota and the many battles that followed did not end the conflict,
the uprising ended at the Wounded Knee site, but the American Government
policy toward the Indians did not change.
Picture by
Robert Utley
The last days of the Sioux Nation.
Sources
http://ea.grolier.com/ea_intro.htm
http://www.ktca.org/dakota/index.htm
http://www.mohicanpress.com/battles/ba04001.html
October 1, 1999
Created by,
Clinton Engen
Jordan Stavnes
RRC