The frozen body of Chief Big Foot. One of the first Native Americans to die at the 1890 Wounded Knee Massacre, he was shot multiple times. (Photo courtesy U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)

In July, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin directed the Pentagon to review the 20 Medals of Honor awarded to soldiers who participated in the 1890 mass-killing of Native Americans at the ill-famed Wounded Knee Massacre in South Dakota. The review board will examine the conduct of each medal recipient to “ensure no soldier was recognized for conduct that did not merit recognition under the standards applicable at the time.”

The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred within the context of the Ghost Dance movement. In 1869 or 1870, Tavibo, a Northern Paiute man from Nevada, preached that in a vision he learned white people would disappear from the earth and Indians return to their former way of life. Tavibo said he could communicate with the dead (ghosts) and taught his followers to perform a circular ceremonial dance. Hence the name “Ghost Dance.”

The movement all but died when Tavibo’s prophecies failed to materialize. In the late 1880s Wovoka, thought to be Tavibo’s son, revived his father’s movement. Historian John Carter writes that Wovoka’s revision was a blend of “messianic Christianity” and traditional Native American beliefs. If Native American performed the Ghost Dance and lived righteous lives the bison and wild horses would return, and the living and the dead reunite in an earthly paradise.

Historian Todd Kerstetter writes this revival “affected no group more than the Lakota bands who adopted it.” The Lakota (comprised of seven bands in the Dakotas), had witnessed the near total destruction of buffalo herds. Forced onto reservations they suffered from chronic malnutrition and disease. Some Lakota Ghost Dance adherents wore white muslin shirts decorated with symbols thought to protect them from harm, including bullets.

White settlers viewed the Ghost Dance as a war dance and President Benjamin Harrison agreed. In December 1890, Harrison ordered the Army to subdue this movement and arrest its leaders. After U.S. Indian police killed Hunkapapa Lakota chief and holy man Sitting Bull (a Ghost Dance advocate) while arresting him on Dec. 15, fear spread among the Lakota that Indians who remained on reservations would also be killed.

Big Foot (aka Spotted Elk), a Miniconjou Lakota chief and Ghost Dance disciple, decided to take a band of his people southward to the Pine Ridge Agency when he learned they were targeted for removal to an unknown location. On Dec. 23, Big Foot’s near starving band embarked on their 200 mile journey with his followers increasing to approximately 400 people along the way.

On Dec. 28, Major Samuel Whiteside who commanded a unit of the 470 man Seventh Cavalry Regiment (the regiment led by George Armstrong Custer and defeated at Little Bighorn in 1876), stopped Big Foot’s band and ordered them into confinement at Wounded Knee where most of their weapons were confiscated.

With their commanding officer, Colonel James Forsyth, the remaining troops of the Seventh Cavalry traveled through the night and arrived at Wounded Knee on the morning of Dec. 29. Forsyth told Whiteside that Big Foot’s band was to be shipped by rail to a military prison camp in Omaha. He then had four Hotchkiss rapid-fire artillery pieces placed on a nearby hill and trained on the campsite.

Forsyth held a council with the Miniconjou and conducted a second weapons check prior to telling the band they would be relocated. The Miniconcjou interpreted this order as exile to an unknown reservation, a move they considered unacceptable.

Colonel Forsyth instructed his men to “Disarm the Indians. Take every precaution to prevent their escape. If they choose to fight destroy them.” While the specific incident that started the mass-killing is unknown, historian John Carter surmises that soldiers seeing Native Americans singing, throwing handfuls of dirt in the air and dancing, interpreted this behavior as a signal the Indians were about to attack.

A man named Black Coyote (reputed to be deaf) refused to relinquish his rifle and was approached by a soldier. While the two men wrestled over the weapon it discharged. The soldiers opened fire and the four artillery pieces raked the campsite. The vastly outnumbered and outgunned Miniconjou men picked up the few weapons they had hidden and returned fire. According to one report, Colonel Forsyth seeing the slaughter unfold shouted: “For God’s sake, stop shooting them.” But it was too late.

Women and children standing by their tipis under a white flag were cut down by the Hotchkiss guns. Historian Paul Robertson writes those who survived the shelling fled the camp. “Pursuing soldiers shot most of them down in flight, some with babes on their backs. Many victims were left to die in the sub-zero temperature.”

Estimates of the number of Native Americans killed range from 200 to 375 — at least half of the victims women, children and infants. Soldiers buried 146 bodies in a common grave on a hill where the artillery pieces had been located.

One member of the burial detail said it was “a thing to melt the heart of a man … to see those little children, with their bodies shot to pieces, thrown naked into the pit.”

Twenty-five soldiers were killed — most or all, according to some reports — by “friendly fire.” Thirty-nine soldiers were wounded with six later dying of their injuries.

In a Nov. 29, 1891 letter, Major General Nelson A. Miles (commanding general of the Division of the Missouri, who arrived at Wounded Knee two days after the killings) noted: “I have never heard of a more brutal, cold-blooded massacre than at Wounded Knee.” Investigations concluded the event was a massacre as Native Americans did not present a significant threat to the soldiers.

Less than a year later, President Harrison awarded Medals of Honor to 20 members of the Seventh Cavalry for their exemplary service at Wounded Knee.

In 1916 Congress ordered the Army to review all Medal of Honor awards since the Civil War. Of the 2,625 awards examined, 911 were rescinded, most from two military units. The Medal of Honor should not be revoked lightly, but must be reviewed thoroughly and when found not to meet the standards of integrity on which it was awarded, must be rescinded.

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George J. Bryjak lives in Bloomingdale and is retired after 24 years of teaching sociology at the University of San Diego. A list of sources accompanies this commentary online.

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Sources

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