Bury my heard at wounded knee

Chapter 19

Wounded Knee

After the assassination of Sitting Bull hundreds of Indians fled from Standing Rock, seeking refuge in one of the Ghost Dance camps or with the last of the great chiefs, Red Cloud, at Pine Ridge. In December 17 about a hundred of fleeing Hunkpapas reached Big Foot's Minneconjou camp near Cherry Creek. That same day the War Department issued orders for the arrest and imprisonment of Big Foot. He was on the list of "fomenters of disturbances".

As soon as Big Foot learned that Sitting Bull had been killed, he started his people toward Pine Ridge, hoping that Red Cloud could protect them from the soldiers. Because Big Foot fell ill of pneumonia he had to travel in a wagon.

On December 28 their flight suddenly was stopped by four troops of cavalry approaching. Its Major had the orders to capture Big Foot's Indians and to disarm and dismount them. To avoid a fight he agreed to fulfil his instruction not till they would have reached Wounded Knee Creek.

At the cavalry tent camp on Wounded Knee Creek, the Indians were halted and carefully counted. There were 120 men and 230 woman and children. Because of the gathering darkness, Major Whitside decided to wait until morning before disarming his prisoners. To make certain that none of them escaped, the major stationed two troops of cavalry as sentinels around the Sioux tepees, and then posted Hotchkiss guns on top of a rise overlooking the camp. Later in the darkness of that December night Colonel Forsyth, commanding Custer's former regiment, informed Whitside that he had received orders to take Big Foot's band to the Union Pacific Railroad for shipment to a military prison in Omaha.

In the following morning the soldiers mounted their horses and surrounded the Indians. It was announced that all men should come to the centre for a talk and that after the talk they were to move on the Pine Ridge agency. Colonel Forsyth informed the Indians then that they were now to be disarmed. So all of the Indians gave the guns and were stacked up in the centre. The soldier chiefs were not satisfied with the number of weapons surrendered, and so they sent details of troopers to search the tepees. The troopers found only two rifles, one of them a new Winchester belonging to a young Minneconjou named Black Coyote. He refused to give away the rifle for which he had paid much money. Despite his intention to put that gun down he unfortunately fired his gun. Immediately the soldiers returned fire and indiscriminate killing followed. As few of the Indians had arms, they soon had to flee, and then the big Hotchkiss guns on the hill opened up on them, firing almost a shell a second, raking the Indian camp and killing men, women and children.

Louise Weasel Bear: " We tried to run, but they shot us like we were a buffalo. I know there are some good white people, but the soldiers must be mean to shoot children and women. Indian soldiers would not do that to white children."

When the madness ended, Big Foot and more than half of his people were dead or seriously wounded. One estimate placed the final total of dead at very nearly three hundred of the original 350 men, women, and children. The soldiers lost twenty-five dead and thirty-nine wounded, most of them struck by their own bullets or shrapnel.

After the wounded cavalrymen were started for the agency at Pine Ridge, a detail of soldiers went over the Wounded Knee battlefield, gathering up Indians who were still alive and loading them into wagons. The dead Indians were left lying where they had fallen. The wagonloads of wounded Sioux (four men and forty-seven women and children) reached Pine Ridge after dark. Because all available barracks were filled with soldiers, they were left lying in the open wagons in the bitter cold while an inept Army officer searched for shelter. Finally the Episcopal mission was opened, the benches taken out, and hay scattered over the rough flooring.

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