Wounded Knee: A Legacy of Endurance

The soldiers came to disarm a camp. That is what the reports said. But the truth of

Wounded Knee was not disarmament. It was fear. It was misunderstanding. It was the tightening

of a world that refused to see Native life as anything but a threat. In December eighteen

ninety, Lakota people gathered near Wounded Knee Creek, many still carrying

the hope and sorrow of the Ghost Dance. They were cold. Hungry. Exhausted.

Still mourning Sitting Bull. Soldiers surrounded them, rifles ready.

A struggle broke out over a single weapon. A shot fired. And in an instant,

the valley filled with panic. What followed was not a battle. It was a slaughter.