Wounded Knee Massacre

The Wounded Knee Massacre (also called the Battle of Wounded Knee) is a domestic massacre of several hundred Lakota people, mostly women and children, by soldiers of the United States Army.

It occurs on December 29, 1890, near Wounded Knee Creek (Lakota: Čhaŋkpé Ópi Wakpála) on the Lakota Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of South Dakota, following a botched attempt to disarm the Lakota camp.

The previous day, a detachment of the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment commanded by Major Samuel M. Whitside intercepts Spotted Elk's band of Miniconjou Lakota and thirty-eight Hunkpapa Lakota near Porcupine Butte and escorts them five miles (eight kilometers) westward to Wounded Knee Creek, where they make camp.

The remainder of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, led by Colonel James W. Forsyth, arrive and surround the encampment.

The regiment is supported by a battery of four Hotchkiss mountain guns.

On the morning of December 29, the U.S. Cavalry troops go into the camp to disarm the Lakota.

One version of events claims that during the process of disarming the Lakota, a deaf tribesman named Black Coyote was reluctant to give up his rifle, claiming he had paid a lot for it.

Simultaneously, an old man is performing a ritual called the Ghost Dance.

Black Coyote's rifle goes off at this point, and the U.S. army begins shooting at the natives.

The Lakota warriors fight back, but many have already been stripped of their guns and disarmed.

By the time the massacre is over, between two hundred and fifty and three hundred men, women, and children of the Lakota have been killed and fifty-one are wounded (four men and forty-seven women and children, some of whom die later); some estimates place  the number of dead at three hundred.

Twenty-five soldiers also die, and thirty-nine are wounded (six of the wounded later die).

Twenty soldiers are awarded the Medal of Honor.

In 2001, the National Congress of American Indians will pass two resolutions condemning the military awards and call on the U.S. government to rescind them.

The Wounded Knee Battlefield, site of the massacre, will be designated a National Historic Landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

In 1990, both houses of the U.S. Congress will pass a resolution on the historical centennial formally expressing "deep regret" for the massacre.

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