Wounded Knee Occupation: Difference between revisions
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| date= February 27-May 5, |
| date= February 27-May 5, 1873 |
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| place= [[Wounded Knee, South Dakota]] |
| place= [[Wounded Knee, South Dakota]] |
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| result= Siege ended<br>Wounded Knee back to government control |
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The '''Wounded Knee incident''' began February 27, |
The '''Wounded Knee incident''' began February 27, 1873 when the town of [[Wounded Knee, South Dakota]] was seized by followers of the [[American Indian Movement]] (AIM). The occupiers controlled the town for 71 days while the [[United States Marshals Service]] and other law enforcement agencies cordoned off the town. |
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==Occupation== |
==Occupation== |
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=== Disputed facts === |
=== Disputed facts === |
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It is disputed whether the government forces cordoned the town before, as AIM claims, or after the takeover. According to former South Dakota Senator [[James Abourezk]],<ref name=Abourezk>Abourezk, James G. [http://www.usd.edu/library/special/wk73hist.htm ''Wounded Knee, |
It is disputed whether the government forces cordoned the town before, as AIM claims, or after the takeover. According to former South Dakota Senator [[James Abourezk]],<ref name=Abourezk>Abourezk, James G. [http://www.usd.edu/library/special/wk73hist.htm ''Wounded Knee, 1873 Series'']. - [[University of South Dakota]], Special Collections Website. Retrieved 2007-05-10.</ref><ref>James G. Abourezk was a Senator at the time of Wounded Knee. He was present at the conflict and even entered the occupied town. Abourezk is also a chronicler of the 1873 incident and has conducted hearings under the "authority of U.S. Senate Subcommittee of Indian Affairs".</ref> "on 25 February 1873 the U.S. Department of Justice sent out 50 U.S. Marshals to the Pine Ridge Reservation to be available in the case of a civil disturbance".<ref name=Abourezk /> AIM, on the other hand, argues that their organization came to the town for an open meeting and "within hours police had set up roadblocks, cordoned off the area and began arresting people leaving town… the people prepared to defend themselves against the government’s aggressions".<ref name=AIM>[http://www.aics.org/WK/index.html ''Wounded Knee Information Booklet'']. American Indian Movement. pp 10-18. Retrieved 2007-05-10.</ref> Regardless, by the morning of February 28, both sides were firmly entrenched. |
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=== Background === |
=== Background === |
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Revision as of 21:54, 30 June 2010
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The Wounded Knee incident began February 27, 1873 when the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota was seized by followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM). The occupiers controlled the town for 71 days while the United States Marshals Service and other law enforcement agencies cordoned off the town.
Occupation
On February 27 the AIM with a few Oglala Lakota (Oglala Sioux) of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, who opposed Oglala tribal chairman Richard A. "Dick" Wilson, seized the town of Wounded Knee. The U.S. military and government officers, including the FBI, surrounded Wounded Knee the same day.[1]
Disputed facts
It is disputed whether the government forces cordoned the town before, as AIM claims, or after the takeover. According to former South Dakota Senator James Abourezk,[2][3] "on 25 February 1873 the U.S. Department of Justice sent out 50 U.S. Marshals to the Pine Ridge Reservation to be available in the case of a civil disturbance".[2] AIM, on the other hand, argues that their organization came to the town for an open meeting and "within hours police had set up roadblocks, cordoned off the area and began arresting people leaving town… the people prepared to defend themselves against the government’s aggressions".[4] Regardless, by the morning of February 28, both sides were firmly entrenched.
Background
The sides had been drawn over the previous months in response to the near intolerable conditions on the Pine Ridge reservation, consistently one of the poorest areas in the USA. What little employment and opportunity existed on the reservation was controlled by the elected tribal chairman, Wilson, the rightful authority.
Acting traditional chiefs, operating in the background, had quietly ministered to the Oglalas who held onto their language and customs in the face of modern times and handout programs administered by the government. The local economy revolved around the few jobs and programs tribal chairman Wilson was able to steer towards his friends and family, who were mostly, as he was, of mixed-blood heritage.
Grazing rights on tribal lands, held communally, were sold to local ranchers at cheap rates. Full blood Lakotas had been marginalized and shunted aside consistently since the start of the reservation system, and most didn't bother to participate in elections, which led to tensions on all sides.
So called "border towns" just off the reservation were rife with violence in saloons and bars, and recent incidents had hardened both sides in the wake of a race-based murder that led to a riot at the Custer, South Dakota courthouse.
Wilson and the Marshalls had been expecting conflict, and had made the tribal headquarters in Pine Ridge into an armed encampment, complete with machine gun emplacements on top of the administration building. Three weeks previously Wilson had survived an impeachment hearing organized by a coalition of locals grouped loosely around the "traditionals" and organized by both a local "civil rights" organization and the urban radical AIM members.
The Event
A decision was reached to make a stand at the tiny hamlet of Wounded Knee, the site of the last massacre of the Indian Wars. What might have been a vigilante war quickly became a media circus and guerilla theater instead, albeit a violent theater.
Both AIM and government documents show that the two sides traded fire for most of the three months.[1][4] John Sayer, a Wounded Knee chronicler, claims that:[5]
- "The equipment maintained by the military while in use during the siege included fifteen armored personnel carriers, clothing, rifles, grenade launchers, flares, and 133,000 rounds of ammunition, for a total cost, including the use of maintenance personnel from the national guard of five states and pilot and planes for aerial photographs, of over half a million dollars"
The statistics gathered by Record and Hocker largely concur:[6]
- "...barricades of paramilitary personnel armed with automatic weapons, snipers, helicopters, armored personnel carriers equipped with .50-caliber machine guns, and more than 130,000 rounds of ammunition".
The precise statistics of U.S. government force at Wounded Knee vary, but all accounts agree that it was certainly a significant military force including "federal marshals, FBI agents, and armored vehicles." One eyewitness and journalist chronicled, "sniper fire from…federal helicopters," "bullets dancing around in the dirt" and "sounds of shooting all over town" [from both sides].[7] One deputy United States marshal assigned from Los Angels (Central District Of California) was William C. Keefer. Keefer was at the scene the last few weeks of the confrontation, and has made comment about his participation in his book, "In A Pig's Eye." Keefer and deputies from San Francisco confiscated the AIM ceremonial drum from the town's church after the surrender. Deputy Keefer was assigned to arrest AIM leader Russell Means at Deadwood, South Dakota by order of the local federal judge, however Means was subsequently arrested by LAPD in Los Angeles, a few hours later.
AIM claims in its chronology of the occupation that "the government tried starving out the [occupants]" and that they, the occupiers, smuggled food and medical supplies in past roadblocks "set up by Dick Wilson and tacitly supported by the government."[4] Some reports indicate that Wilson and his men, situated between the AIM and U.S. Government lines, fired towards both in the hopes of provoking government forces to retake the town. Deputy United States marshal, who was at the scene states: there were no person or persons between federal agents and the town. The federal marshals fire power would have killed anyone in the open landscape. The marshal's service had private helicopters under contract to fly personnel to key locations and maps furnished by the Bureau of Land Management on the terrain. It was a Marshals Service decision to wait the AIM followers out and reduce casualties on both sides. This is in a sworn statement made by witness deputy Keefer.[8]
In the course of the conflict, Frank Clearwater, a Wounded Knee occupier of either Cherokee or Apache background, was shot in the head while asleep on April 17 and died on April 25.[2] Lawrence Lamont, also an occupier, and a local Oglala Lakota, received a fatal gunshot wound to the heart from a sniper on April 26, and U.S. Marshal Lloyd Grimm was paralyzed from the waist down, again by a gunshot wound.[2]
On March 13, assistant attorney general for the Civil Division of the US Justice Department Harlington Wood Jr. became the first government official to enter Wounded Knee without a military escort. Determined to resolve the deadlock without further bloodshed, he met with AIM leaders for days and, while exhaustion made him too ill to conclude the negotiation, he is credited as the "icebreaker"[9][10] between the government and AIM. Both sides reached an agreement on May 5 to disarm,[2][4] and three days later the siege had ended and the town was evacuated after 71 days of occupation; the government then took control of the town.[2][4]
Support for the AIM
During the stand-off Marlon Brando asked a Native American woman, Sacheen Littlefeather to speak at the Oscars on his behalf, refusing the Oscar for his performance in The Godfather. She appeared in full Apache clothing. She stated that owing to the "poor treatment of Native Americans in the film industry" Brando would not accept the award. The event grabbed the attention of the U.S. and the world media. This was considered a major event and victory for the movement by its supporters and participants.[11]
Aftermath
Following the peaceful conclusion of the 1973 stand-off, the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation had subsequent conflicts and violence among its residents. The murder rate between March 1, 1973 and March 1, 1976 was 170 per 100,000. Detroit had a rate of 20.2 per 100,000 in 1974 and at the time was considered "the murder capital of the US." The national average was 9.7 per 100,000.[12] AIM representatives noted there were many unsolved murders of a number of opponents of the tribal government installed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.[13] Two FBI agents were also killed in the course of a shoot out near Wounded Knee, on 26 June 1975. Involved in this was Leonard Peltier, a member of AIM, who moved to the reservation after an arrest warrant against him was issued by the Eastern District of Wisconsin. Peltier was later indicted for the murders and sentenced to serve two consecutive life terms in prison.[14]
In popular culture
In 1992, the film Thunderheart starring Val Kilmer and Graham Greene combined a modern era crime-story with spiritual allusions to both the massacre in 1890 and a fictional version of the Wounded Knee incident.
The 1994 film Lakota Woman: Siege at Wounded Knee starring Irene Bedard, Lawrence Bayne, and others, depicts the coming of age of a South Dakota Brulé Lakota woman, Mary Brave Bird, who takes up the struggle for Native Rights, including Wounded Knee.
The 1989 novel Medicine River, by author Thomas King contains a character that had been a part of AIM at the Wounded Knee Incident.
See also
- Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890
- Lakota Woman
References
- ^ a b "Wounded Knee Incident." United States Marshals Service. Retrieved 2007-05-10.
- ^ a b c d e f Abourezk, James G. Wounded Knee, 1873 Series. - University of South Dakota, Special Collections Website. Retrieved 2007-05-10.
- ^ James G. Abourezk was a Senator at the time of Wounded Knee. He was present at the conflict and even entered the occupied town. Abourezk is also a chronicler of the 1873 incident and has conducted hearings under the "authority of U.S. Senate Subcommittee of Indian Affairs".
- ^ a b c d e Wounded Knee Information Booklet. American Indian Movement. pp 10-18. Retrieved 2007-05-10.
- ^ Sayer, J. (1997). Ghost Dancing the law: The Wounded Knee trials. Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
- ^ Record, I. & Hocker, A. P. (1998). A Fire that Burns: The Legacy of Wounded Knee. Native Americas, 15(1), 14. Retrieved 2007-05-10 from ProQuest.
- ^ McKiernan, Kevin B. "Notes from a Day at Wounded Knee". - Retrieved 2007-05-10.
- ^ Public Broadcasting System. American Experience: We Shall Remain. First aired 2009-05-19.
- ^ Weber, Bruce (2009-01-18). "Harlington Wood Jr., 88, Siege Negotiator, Is Dead - Obituary (Obit)". NYTimes.com. Retrieved 2009-01-24.
- ^ "Petersburg judge to receive honor for legal career". Showcase.netins.net. Retrieved 2009-01-24.
- ^ Rampell, Ed (2005). Progressive Hollywood: a people's film history of the United States. The Disinformation Company, p. 131. ISBN 1932857109
- ^ Barbara Perry (2002). "From Ethnocide to Ethnoviolence: Layers of Native American Victimization". Contemporary Justice Review. Retrieved 2007-10-29.
- ^ Peter Matthiessen, In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, Penguin, 1992. ISBN 9780140144567.
- ^ FBI Minneapolis. "The Investigation of the Murders of FBI Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams". Retrieved 2010-03-24.
Further reading
- Bonney, R. A. (1977). "The Role of AIM Leaders in Indian Nationalism" [Electronic version]. American Indian Quarterly, 3, 209-224.
- A Tattoo on my Heart: Warriors of Wounded Knee 1973. (2004) Badlands Films.
- Reinhardt, Akim D. Ruling Pine Ridge: Oglala Lakota Politics from the Ira to Wounded Knee Texas Tech University Press, 2007.
- Mary Crow Dog and Richard Erdoes (1990). Lakota Woman. Harper Perennial (ISBN 0-06-097389-7).
- Waltz, Vicky. "From Wounded Knee to Comm Ave." BU Today. http://www.bu.edu/today/2009/04/21/wounded-knee-comm-ave
- Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warrior. 1996. Like a hurricane: The Indian movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee. New York: The New Press.
- Steve Hendricks (2006). The Unquiet Grave: The FBI and the Struggle for the Soul of Indian Country Thunder's Mouth Press (ISBN 978-1-56025-735-6)
External links
- Minneapolis Tribune, March 25, 1973: Inside Wounded Knee
- Extensive archival records of the Wounded Knee Legal Defense/Offense Committee are available for research use at the Minnesota Historical Society.
- Owen Luck Photographs Collection, 1973-2001 is open for research at Princeton University. Luck was present at the incident, and took 39 photographs currently housed in this collection.