Wounded knee massacre national historic site
What really happened at wounded knee, the site of a historic...
Ghost Dance and Sitting Bull
Throughout 1890, the U.S. government was worried about the increasing influence at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of the Ghost Dance spiritual movement, which taught that Native Americans had been defeated and confined to reservations because they had angered the gods by abandoning their traditional customs.
Wounded knee massacre national historic site
This Day in History: 12/29/1890 - Massacre at Wounded Knee
Many Sioux believed that if they practiced the Ghost Dance and rejected the ways of the white man, the gods would create the world anew and destroy all non-believers, including non-Indians.
On December 15, 1890, reservation police tried to arrest Sitting Bull, the famous Sioux chief, whom they mistakenly believed was a Ghost Dancer, and killed him in the process, increasing the tensions at Pine Ridge in South Dakota.
Did you know?
Nearly half of the Sioux killed at the 1890 Wounded Knee massacre were women and children.
Wounded Knee Massacre
On December 29, the U.S. Army’s 7th Cav