The Ghost Dance From The West And An 1890 Massacre

The Late 1880's

By the year 1889, Native Americans were largely living on reservations all over the American West. The Indian Wars were over and the military might of the U.S. prevailed. Regardless of the fact that the fighting was over there lingered a subtle and not so subtle discontent among the tribes, most evident among the Lakota Sioux. This would soon come to the surface with the Ghost Dance movement.

Much had happened during the 1880's. Several treaties were signed with the U.S. Government which allocated specific areas for reservations that included annuities for food and supplies. The  problem was that settlers were heading west in record numbers since the railroad appeared. The covered wagon was losing out to the speed and relative comfort of the railroad.


All About the Land and a Way of Life

Land is finite and the Indians, in this case, specifically the Lakota's were initially awarded a massive area which comprised present day South Dakota west of the Missouri River. Much of this was the Pine Ridge Reservation (it's flag pictured left).

Settlers coming into the area eventually looked upon the Lakota land with envy. Even with the land given to them many Lakota's were generally unhappy since this was a tribe of hunters, not agrarians which is what the government wanted them to become. To make a bad situation worse, Congress being pressured by farmers and merchants, passed a series of acts in the late 1880's which carved up the reservation acreage.

Unhonored Treaties

After allotting a predetermined amount of acreage to the Indians the U.S. Government went about selling the remaining reservation land to white farmers. In addition, promised supplies were arriving late and allotments were being reduced. Some Indians were living on half rations. There was speculation of theft by corrupt Indian agents. In other words, the provisions of the treaties were not being honored. While unhappy there was little the Lakota's could do about it other than complain. Decades of warfare against the whites proved futile. Enter the Sioux Ghost Dance movement.

What happened in 1889 is what oppressed people many times turn to when all else fails. In this case it was a new religion which was celebrated with the "Ghost Dance"(pictured below left). The participants in the Ghost Dance religion supposedly worked themselves up into a trance where they claimed to see the afterlife and communicate with deceased relatives. The Lakota's learned about this religion through neighboring tribes to the west. It's founder was a prophet named Wovoka and also known by the name Jack Wilson. Pictured to the right, Wovoka was a highly esteemed Paiute from Nevada whose father was also a spiritual leader. Wovoka was thought to have magical powers. Among other things, he was thought to be able to make water appear in an empty container during a drought.  His teachings spread rapidly among the western tribes. Many of the discontented felt that Wovoka was the answer to their troubles.

The Ghost Dance Movement

Wovoka's teachings were that the Great Spirit told him in dreams that if the Indians would refuse to accept the white man's material ways, the white men would eventually disappear from the land and the game animals would be in abundance as they were decades before. Wovoka stressed that all this should be carried out peacefully. While he wanted his brothers to go back to the old ways in all things Indian, he wanted them to do it without fighting and bloodshed and this was the theory behind the Ghost Dancers.

The Reaction from the Lakotas

The Lakota's had two factions. The progressives who accepted the white man's ways and took to farming. The others were the traditionalists who resented the fact that their lives were radically changed and yearned for it's return. The latter were the participants in Ghost Dances. There were leaders of both groups and among the traditionalists one of their more outspoken leaders was a chief named Kicking Bear (pictured left). Kicking Bear encouraged Ghost Dances to everyone among the tribe who would listen to him.

With what had happened to the Lakota's... first being put on a reservation and then having much of their treaty land sold to white settlers, you can understand how they were ready, willing and able to adopt this new religion from Wovoka even though this type of practice was strictly against military orders.

While Wovoka placed major emphasis on peace with the white men, there were traditionalists such as Kicking Bear who put more of a militant flavor to it. One example was the introduction of Ghost Shirts which would render the army's bullets useless. So many of the traditional Lakota's were involved in Ghost Dance worship that they left their small farms untended.

 It didn't take long for the white settlers to see what was happening on the reservations and you could say a panic ensued fed by local politicians and the newspapers. Papers were fanning the flames referring to the Ghost Dance as being a war dance. The politicians then pressured the army to do something before another Indian war broke out. The army's response was to flood the Pine Ridge Reservation with troops. The deployment was the largest since the Civil War being about one-half the total of all infantry and cavalry.

The Pot Was Boiling

You had the confluence of several forces during November and  December 1890. There were the discontented Lakota's practicing the "Ghost Dance" religion on the Pine Ridge Reservation and elsewhere which was technically against military orders. Then you had an excited local population and sensationalist press forecasting big trouble. Add to this a massive U.S. military presence. And if that wasn't enough, you had the killing of Sitting Bull (1877 image from Harper's Weekly at right) on December 15th at the Standing Rock Agency  while being arrested by Indian police and soldiers because of his alleged Ghost Dance involvement.


What happened next has been a subject of debate for over 100 years. The military was rounding up bands of armed Lakota's both on and off the reservation. After Sitting Bull's death and the massive army buildup, many of the traditional Lakota's armed themselves and encamped in the Badlands just to the north of Pine Ridge. One of the Lakota bands out in the Badlands led by Spotted Elk (pictured right) had the ill fortune of being captured by troops of the Seventh Cavalry (Custers old command) led by Major Samuel M. Whiteside, pictured bottom right. The Major would go on to become a Brigadier General.

The Massacre at Wounded Knee

There are a few versions of what happened next but the prevailing story is that the group of Lakota's were marched about five miles south where they camped for the night at Wounded Knee Creek.

The next morning, after Hotchkiss guns were put on nearby hillsides, army troops under the command of Major Whiteside entered the Lakota's camp and demanded that all firearms be turned over. The prevailing story in most historic accounts is that one deaf Lakota warrior refused to hand over his rifle because he had paid for it himself. There was a small scuffle and then a rifle shot was heard and the soldiers within the camp as well as the artillery placed on the hills opened fire.

After all these years nobody really knows who fired the first shot. The result however was a bloodbath with perhaps 200-300 Lakota's killed..men, women and children. The troops inside the camp had the Lakota's in a crossfire and no doubt some soldiers ended up shooting their own men.


This December 29th, 1890 encounter was to be known as the Wounded Knee Massacre. It was also a direct result of the Sioux practicing their Ghost Dancing in full view of Indian agents. Many historians consider this the final battle of the Indian Wars, although it doesn't seem quite accurate referring to it as a battle.

Photo of Whiteside in 1876

When the army reviewed the evidence it was apparent that a massacre occurred. It was a one sided fight. The U.S. Government conducted an investigation and eventually reparations were paid to the relatives of the victims. Some factions demanded that the officers present at Wounded Knee be punished but that never really occurred. There were a few small skirmishes during January and February 1891, mostly due to the Lakota reaction caused by the Wounded Knee Massacre and Sitting Bull's killing, but after that a genuine peace prevailed .

There are two excellent museums available for the traveler who would like to explore the Lakota culture in more detail. They are the Akta Lakota Museum and Cultural Center in Chamberlain, SD and the St. Francis Mission/Buechel Memorial Lakota Museum in St. Francis, SD. Directions are available on their web sites below.


www.aktalakota.org


www.sfmission.org/museum

Here are a few good sites for more information about the Wounded Knee Massacre.

www.lastoftheindependents.com/wounded.htm


www.dreamscape.com/morgana/wknee.htm

(Article copyright Western Trips. Photos and images from public domain)

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