Chapter 6 - WOUNDED KNEE
THE old man being
assured that Red Cloud's talk would be incorporated in his story of the
Custer fight, then said he wished to tell about the massacre of Indians
by the white soldiers at Wounded Knee, where, he indicated as his
belief, they carried out this slaughter in retaliation for the Custer
affair, and proceeded: "This was the last big trouble with the Indians
and soldiers and was in the winter in 1890. When the Indians would not
come in from the Bad Lands, they got a big army together with plenty of
clothing and supplies and camp-and-wagon equipment for a big campaign;
they had enough soldiers to make a round-up of all the Indians they
called hostiles. "The Government army, after many fights and loss of
lives, succeeded in driving these starving Indians, with their families
of women and gaunt-faced children, into a trap, where they could be
forced to surrender their arms. This was on Wounded Knee creek,
northeast of Pine Ridge, and here the Indians were surrounded by the
soldiers, who had Hotchkiss machine guns along with them. There were
about four thousand Indians in this big camp, and the soldiers had the
machine guns pointed at them from all around the village as the
soldiers formed a ring about the tepees so that Indians could not
escape. "The Indians were hungry and weak and they suffered from lack
of clothing and furs because the whites had driven away all the game.
When the soldiers had them all surrounded and they had their tepees set
up, the officers sent troopers to each of them to search for guns and
take them from the owners. If the Indians in the tepees did not at once
hand over a gun, the soldier tore open their parfleech trunks and
bundles and bags of robes or clothes,—looking for pistols and knives
and ammunition. It was an ugly business, and brutal; they treated the
Indians like they would torment a wolf with one foot in a strong trap;
they could do this because the Indians were now in the white man's
trap,—and they were helpless. "Then a shot was heard from among the
Indian tepees. An Indian was blamed; the excitement began; soldiers ran
to their stations; officers gave orders to open fire with the machine
guns into the crowds of innocent men, women and children, and in a few
minutes more than two hundred and twenty of them lay in the snow dead
and dying. A terrible blizzard raged for two days covering the bodies
with Nature's great white blanket; some lay in piles of four or five;
others in twos or threes or singly, where they fell until the storm
subsided. When a trench had been dug of sufficient length and depth to
contain the frozen corpses, they were collected and piled, like
cord-wood, in one vast icy tomb. While separating several stiffened
forms which had fallen in a heap, two of them proved to be women, and
hugged closely to their breasts were infant babes still alive after
lying in the storm for two days in 20' below zero weather." "I was
there and saw the trouble,—but after the shooting was over; it was all
bad."—the old chief said. The host produced an old photo showing the
bodies of the victims as they lay scattered and in bunches over the
bleak frozen grounds; the Chief looked at it and immediately recognized
the body of Big Foot which lay on top of a pile of the dead, face
upward. Another photo showing the trench being filled with the dead
also showed a number of army officers standing nearby. The Chief
readily recognized Frank Gruard, Buffalo Bill, General Miles and
Kicking Bear,—his own brother. He shook his head and said, "Wahnitcha"—
bad.
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