Question

How did the wounded knee massacre change history?

Answer 1

Wounded Knee Massacre, the massacre by United States Army troops of about 150–300 Lakota Indians in the Wounded Knee Creek region of southwestern South Dakota. The assassination was the greatest in the United States. Efforts by the Army to repress the Plains Indians in the late 19th century. This ended any organized resistance to reservation life and assimilation of white American society, though during a site occupation in 1973 American Indian activists renewed public attention to the massacre.

The Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868 established the 60-million-acre Great Sioux Reserve and formed agencies among each tribe to represent the federal government. If the Lakota remained on the reservation, and refrained from attacking white settlers, food rations, schooling, and other state-funded benefits would be offered. Nevertheless, US interest in the reservation's natural resources resulted in a series of conflicts that saw the Great Sioux Reservation decline from 60 million acres by 1877 to 21.7 million acres.

The life of the reservation was an abrupt and difficult adjustment for the Lakota who agreed with the US government. They were encouraged by federal agents to raise livestock and grow crops, a lifestyle unsuited to the semi-arid environment of the northern Great Plains and largely foreign to a nomadic game-hunting people. The Lakota had to adopt Western clothing, learn English, follow the values of Christianity and reject traditional religion. This cycle of forced assimilation hacked away the culture and identity of Lakota and, in particular, the system of government rations made reservation life unworkable to avoid.

The 7th Cavalry, commanded by Col. James W. Forsyth, arrived at the Miniconjou camp near Wounded Knee Creek on 28 December 1890, about 20 miles northeast of the Pine Ridge Agency. Late Gen. George Armstrong Custer had led the 7th Cavalry less than 15 years earlier to their defeat at the Little Bighorn. Big Foot saw the scouts from Forsyth, and told them that without resistance he would surrender. Forsyth convened with the Miniconjou on December 29 to begin the confiscation of weapons. He herded them into a nearby clearing, had their men formed a council circle, and had his cavalry surrounded the circle.