Wounded Knee Massacre: United States versus the Plains Indians » HistoryNet - From the World's Largest History Magazine Publisher

The intermittent war between the United States and the Plains Indians that stretched across some three decades after the Civil War came to an end on December 29, 1890, at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The events leading up to its final act — the Wounded Knee Massacre — had been building since the late 1880s, when the son of a Paiute shaman named Wovoka had first introduced a series of new beliefs and practices to the Indian reservations of the West.

Fundamentally peaceful, Wovoka’s movement envisioned the coming of a new world populated solely by Indians living on the Great Plains where buffalo were again plentiful. Generation upon generation of Indians slain in combat would be reborn into this new world, and all — the living and the formerly dead — would live in bliss, peace and plenty. U.S. Indian authorities claimed that in the hands of the defeated and embittered leaders of the Teton Sioux — men like Short Bull, Kicking Bear and eventually Sitting Bull himself — Wovoka’s peaceful religion had taken on the militant overtones of a millennial uprising. Wovoka had created a ceremony called the Ghost Dance to invoke the spirits of the dead and facilitate their resurrection. The Sioux apostles of the Ghost Dance purportedly preached that it would bring about a day of deliverance — a day when they were strong enough again to wage all-out war against the whites. They had fashioned ‘ghost shirts, which they claimed white bullets could not penetrate. In any case, Ghost Dancing had quickly become the rage of the Western reservations such as Pine Ridge and Rosebud.

Indians are dancing in the snow and are wild and crazy, an anxious Pine Ridge Reservation agent, Daniel F. Royer, telegraphed Washington in November 1890. We need protection and we need it now. The leaders should be arrested and confined at some military post until the matter is quieted, and this should be done at once.

The Indian Bureau in Washington quickly branded the Ghost Dancers fomenters of disturbances and ordered the Army to arrest them. On November 20, cavalry and infantry reinforcements arrived at the Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations, but their arrival did not intimidate the Sioux followers of Short Bull and Kicking Bear. Quite the contrary, it seemed to galvanize their resolve. A former Indian agent, Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy, advised Washington to call off the troops: I should let the dance continue. The coming of the troops has frightened the Indians. If the Seventh-Day Adventists prepare their ascension robes for the second coming of the savior, the United States Army is not put in motion to prevent them. Why should the Indians not have the same privilege? If the troops remain, trouble is sure to come.

About 3,000 Indians had assembled on a plateau at the northwest corner of Pine Ridge in a nearly impregnable area that came to be called the Stronghold. Brigadier General John R. Brooke, commander of the Pine Ridge area, quickly dispatched emissaries to talk with the hostiles. Brooke’s commanding officer, hard-nosed Civil War veteran and Indian fighter Maj. Gen. Nelson A. Miles, did not approve of such parleys. He saw in them evidence of indecision, and, furthermore, believed the Indians would interpret talk as a sign of weakness. Miles decided to prosecute the campaign against the Ghost Dancers personally and transferred his headquarters to Rapid City, S.D.

While Miles was preparing this move, Sitting Bull — the most influential of all Sioux leaders — began actively celebrating the Ghost Dance and its doctrine at the Standing Rock Reservation that straddled the North and South Dakota border. The agent in charge there, James McLaughlin, weighed his options. He did not want to repeat the hysterical mistake of his colleague at Pine Ridge by telegraphing for soldiers. He decided instead to use reservation policemen — Indians — to effect the quiet arrest and removal of the old chief.

Unfortunately, General Miles would not accept it. For Miles, the arrest of Sitting Bull would be a momentous act in a great drama. It should not be left to Indians, and it should not be done secretively; if anything, it called for showmanship. Miles contacted the greatest showman the West had ever known: William Buffalo Bill Cody. As everybody in the country probably knew — Buffalo Bill had seen to that himself — he and Sitting Bull were friends, or, at least, Sitting Bull held Cody in high regard. Sitting Bull, after all, had been a star attraction in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show. If any white man could convince Sitting Bull to step down, it would be Buffalo Bill.

Agent McLaughlin was aghast at the notion of carting in the likes of Buffalo Bill Cody to carry out what should be done quietly and without publicity. He was convinced that Buffalo Bill’s presence would only inflame tempers and transform the proceedings into a circus or something worse. Accordingly, when Cody arrived at Standing Rock on November 27, McLaughlin saw to it that the celebrity was glad-handed and subtly shanghaied by the commanding officer of nearby Fort Yates, Lt. Col. William F. Drum. Drum entertained Cody all night at the officers’ club while McLaughlin worked feverishly behind Miles’ back to have the showman’s authority rescinded. It was a desperate plan, and McLaughlin had missed one crucial fact: The man capable of drinking Buffalo Bill Cody under the table had yet to be born. Come morning, Cody was bright eyed and ready to set out for Sitting Bull’s camp. McLaughlin hastily arranged for additional delays — just long enough for the arrival of orders canceling Cody’s mission. The old entertainer seethed but boarded the next train back to Chicago. He had not set eyes on Sitting Bull.

But the situation at Pine Ridge Reservation was heating up. Word reached McLaughlin that Short Bull and Kicking Bear had formally invited Sitting Bull to leave Standing Rock and join them and their people at the Stronghold on the reservation. The time had come to act. McLaughlin dispatched 43 reservation policemen on December 15 to arrest Sitting Bull before he set out for Pine Ridge. Officers surrounded the old chief’s cabin as Lieutenant Bull Head, Sergeant Red Tomahawk and Sergeant Shave Head entered it.

The chief awoke from slumber, and, seeing the men, asked, What do you want here?

Sitting Bull asked for a moment to put his clothes on. By the time the reservation police officers emerged with their prisoner, a crowd had gathered. A warrior named Catch-the-Bear called out, Let us protect our chief! and he leveled his rifle at Bull Head. He fired, hitting him in the side. The wounded policeman spun around with the force of the impact. His own weapon discharged, perhaps accidentally, perhaps intentionally. A round hit Sitting Bull, point blank, in the chest. Then policeman Red Tomahawk stepped into the fray and shot Sitting Bull in the back of the head.

McLaughlin had hoped to avoid a circus. As the reservation police officers scuffled with Sitting Bull’s followers, the slain chief’s horse — which Buffalo Bill had presented to him back when he was part of the Wild West Show — was apparently stimulated by the familiar noise of a crowd, and performed his repertoire of circus tricks.

Miles had not intended that Sitting Bull be killed, but it had happened, and the general accepted it as he would any casualty in the fog of war. Just now he had yet another Ghost Dancer to arrest, and that’s where he focused his attention. Chief Big Foot was leader of the Miniconjou Sioux, who lived on the Cheyenne River. Unknown to Miles, Big Foot had recently renounced the Ghost Dance religion, convinced that it offered nothing more than desperation and futility. Miles was also unaware that Chief Red Cloud, a Pine Ridge leader friendly to white authorities, had asked Big Foot to visit the reservation and use his influence to persuade the Stronghold party to surrender. All Miles knew — or thought he knew — was that Big Foot was on his way to the Stronghold, and it was up to the Army to prevent him from joining Short Bull, Kicking Bear and the others. Miles dispatched troops across the prairies and badlands to intercept any and all Miniconjous, especially Big Foot.