131 Years Ago Today, the U.S. Army Massacred Native Sioux at Wounded Knee

 

Marked Culmination of a Long Process of Genocide That is Still Sugarcoated in Most History Textbooks

“Our nation was born in genocide. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode.”

Those words were spoken by Martin Luther King Jr in his 1963 book “Why We Can’t Wait.”

Of course, the U.S. was not the only nation who tried as a matter of policy to wipe out its indigenous people–Canada, Australia and others did the same. But the thrust of what King was saying is correct.

The month of December is filled with various kinds of celebrations and festivities; however, there is one event that always seems to be conveniently overlooked by the wider society. This December 29 marks the 131st anniversary of the massacre of the Native people at Wounded Knee. Wounded Knee is located on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

What Whites as a collective do not understand, approve, or develop they demonize, ridicule or attack. Part of the background to the Wounded Knee massacre, lies in the spiritual of the Ghost Dance Movement practiced by some of the Native Nations, among them the Sioux people. After the surrender of the Sioux Nation in the 1876-1877 war, the government drove the Sioux out of Nebraska, all that was left to them was 35,000 square miles of almost useless land.  (more...)

131 Years Ago Today, the U.S. Army Massacred Native Sioux at Wounded Knee