Wounded Knee

Wounded Knee Occupation

1973

Week in Review

• Settler colonialism forced Native American groups into assimilation and physical removal enforced by broken treaties.

• Native Americans resisted process through warfare, legal challenges, and keeping cultural traditions alive.

Ghost Dance

As Native American life was being destroyed, groups engaged in practices to hold to hope. The Lakota Tribe practiced the Ghost Dance. The Ghost Dance was a call to their ancestors to restore their way of life to a time before white settler colonialism.

Multiple Choice

Checking for Understanding: The Ghost Dance was . . .

• A call to restore traditional ways of life for Native Americans.

• A strategy to attack the U.S. army in the American west.

Massacre at Wounded Knee

On December 29, 1890, the U.S. army massacred 200-300 men, women, and children of the Lakota tribe. The soldiers were hailed as heroes and received medals for their actions. The massacre has been remembered as a "battle" in U.S. History rather than an aggressive, military action agains civilians.

Occupation of Wounded Knee

In 1973, leaders of the American Indian Movement (AIM) occupied the town of Wounded Knee. They called for changes in the leadership of Native Americans as well as recognition by the United States government of the atrocities committed against Native American tribes. AIM used legal resistance, calling for reopening of treaties that were broken by the United States. The occupation lasted 71 days and aimed to challenge the substandard living conditions created on reservations by the U.S. government.

Primary Source

Trail of Broken Treaties - 20 point position paper calling for the restoration of treaty-making between the United States government and Native American nations.

Trail of Broken Treaties

We need not give another recitation of past complaints nor engage in redundant dialogue of discontent. Our conditions and their cause for being should perhaps be best known by those who have written the record of America's action against Indian people. In 1832, Black Hawk correctly observed: You know the cause of our making war. It is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it. The government of the United States knows the reasons for our going to its capital city. Unfortunately, they don't know how to greet us.

Trail of Broken Treaties

We go because America has been only too ready to express shame, and suffer none from the expression - while remaining wholly unwilling to change to allow life for Indian people. We seek a new American majority - a majority that is not content merely to confirm itself by superiority in numbers, but which by conscience is committed toward prevailing upon the public will in ceasing wrongs and in doing right. For our part, in words and deeds of coming days, we propose to produce a rational, reasoned manifesto for construction of an Indian future in America. If America has maintained faith with its original spirit, or may recognize it now, we should not be denied.

Press Statement issued: October 31, 1972

Open Ended

Checking for Understanding: Why does the author of this document believe it is important to express their problems with the United States government?

Major Points of the Trail of Broken Treaties

• Restoring land to American Indians

• Restoring ability to make treaties with U.S. government

• Calling for more American Indian representation in government

• Calling for punishment of crimes committed against Native American groups

• The United States Federal Government should focus on the improvement and creation of better housing, education, employment and economic development for the American Indians.

Open Ended

Exit Ticket: What was the Trail of Broken Treaties? What were the authors of the document demanding from the U.S. government?