Qualla: Wounded Knee Massacre

Wounded Knee Massacre: Introduction

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. Black Coyote could not hear the soldiers demanding his rifle. He had paid good money for that Winchester and did not understand why they wanted it. When two soldiers grabbed him from behind, the gun went off. In the chaos that followed, soldiers opened fire with Hotchkiss guns on a camp of 350 Lakota men, women, and children. By the time the shooting stopped, at least 250 Lakota lay dead or dying on the frozen ground near Wounded Knee Creek. The date was December 29, 1890. It would be remembered as the last major confrontation of the Indian Wars, though calling it a battle obscures what actually happened that morning on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

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Wounded Knee Massacre: The Ghost Dance and the Fear It Inspired

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Kmusser, CC BY-SA 2.5. The tragedy had roots in desperation. By 1890, the Lakota had watched their world collapse. The great bison herds were gone, hunted nearly to extinction. Treaty promises to protect reservation lands had proven worthless against miners and settlers. Onto this landscape of loss cam...

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Wounded Knee Massacre: The Morning Everything Changed

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit derivative work: Tadam (talk) Wounded_Knee_mapa.jpg:, Public domain. Spotted Elk's band, along with Hunkpapa refugees, was intercepted by the 7th Cavalry on December 28. The soldiers escorted 350 Lakota to Wounded Knee Creek and surrounded them with 500 troops and four Hotchkiss mountain guns positioned on the overlooking hill. Colonel James Forsy...

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Image: derivative work: Tadam (talk) Wounded_Knee_mapa.jpg: | Public domain

Wounded Knee Massacre: Less Than an Hour

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Half the Lakota men fell before they could reach the pile of confiscated weapons. Those who grabbed rifles found themselves fighting at close range with no cover. While warriors and soldiers exchanged fire, the Hotchkiss guns on the hill opened up on the tipi camp full of women a...

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Wounded Knee Massacre: The Graves on the Hill

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. Three days later, a civilian burial party gathered the frozen bodies. They found four infants still alive, wrapped in their dead mothers' shawls. The dead were placed in a mass grave dug on the same hill where the Hotchkiss guns had stood. In all, 84 men, 44 women, and 18 childre...

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Wounded Knee Massacre: A Wound That Will Not Close

Tue, 27 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided, Public domain. Wounded Knee became a National Historic Landmark in 1965, though a memorial to the Lakota dead was not added until the 1990s. In 1973, members of the American Indian Movement occupied the site for 71 days in a standoff with federal authorities, choosing Wounded Knee for its symbo...

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Image: Unknown authorUnknown author or not provided | Public domain