Wounded Knee Massacre 1890
Topic: Settler Colonialism: Native Peoples of America and Australia · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
The Wounded Knee Massacre was the killing of Lakota Sioux men, women and children by the US army at Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota in December 1890. It is often seen as the end of armed native resistance in the USA. It came at the close of a period (1865–90) in which the US army crushed one native rising after another.
Example
On 29 December 1890, US soldiers opened fire on a Lakota camp at Wounded Knee and killed c. 250–300 people. By the same year the bison had been almost wiped out. In 1892 the frontier was declared closed.
Don't confuse with
- Trail of Tears (1838): this was the forced march of the Cherokees out of Georgia. Wounded Knee was an army massacre on the Great Plains more than fifty years later.
Related concepts
- Cherokee
- Worcester v Georgia
- Indian Removal Act 1830
- Trail of Tears
- Indian reservations
- American Indian Wars
- Chief Seattle