The Mysteries of History (February 27 Edition)
Wounded Knee 2
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — Spanish-American philosopher George Santayana, 1905
1973 — Wounded Knee 2
public domain images from wikimedia commons
On this date in 1973, two hundred members of the Oglala Lakota tribe occupied Wounded Knee, South Dakota, the site of a wanton slaughter of their people by the U.S. Army in 1890. This was the beginning of a ten-week-long protest about conditions on the reservation.
The organization behind the occupation (or takeover) of Wounded Knee was AIM, the American Indian Movement, which was led by Russell Means and Dennis Banks and supported by many others. The group had previously occupied Alcatraz Island near San Francisco, the site of a former notorious prison.
AIM’s most provocative tactic in their occupation of Wounded Ridge was their taking eleven residents of the settlement hostage. This brought law enforcement to the scene, and eventual gunfire from both sides. AIM’s aims were to release the hostages in exchange for having their demands met, which included the U.S. Senate investigating the Bureau of Indian Affairs, specifically its malfeasance in its administration of the Sioux reservations in South Dakota (Wounded Knee was one of the most impoverished communities in the country, with a very low life expectancy). The Indians also demanded that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee conduct hearings on the multitude of Indian treaties that had been broken by the U.S. government over the centuries.
After two native men were killed by Federal agents, and the Government agreed to look into the complaints the Indians had concerning their mistreatment, the Indians surrendered. Two of their leaders, Means and Banks, were arrested, but the charges against them were later dropped due to mishandling of the case by the Government.
Violence between the residents of Pine Ridge Reservation and Federal officials continued throughout the 1970s, with deaths on both sides. The most notorious of these incidents involved Leonard Peltier, who was released from prison very recently (February 18, 2025) after almost half a century of incarceration. Many people either felt he was innocent or that his sentence was overly harsh; among those who publicly supported clemency for Peltier were Nelson Mandela, the 14th Dalai Lama, and “Mother” Teresa (born Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhiu).
The following is what I wrote about this event almost twenty years ago, in my book “Still Casting Shadows: A Shared Mosaic of U.S. History — Volume 2: 1914-2006”:
In what came to be known as “Wounded Knee II,” a group of Indians spearheaded by the American Indian Movement (AIM) occupied the Wounded Knee reservation [in 1973]. Their aim was to bring attention to the long litany of treaties the government had broken. Those making the trek to the reservation called their pilgrimage “The Trail of Broken Treaties.”
In particular, AIM wanted the U.S. government to honor the 1868 Fort Laramie treaty they had made with the Sioux, giving them the Black Hills in perpetuity. Great mineral wealth had been discovered in the Black Hills, though, including uranium, which is needed for the production of nuclear power and weaponry.
As a result of that discovery, the Indians never had a chance. There was no way the government would give back land—valuable land—that it had taken over a century earlier. Besides government-sponsored Indian lackeys and local white ranchers, the reservation was also besieged by the military.
Tensions between AIM and the U.S. government, particularly the FBI and BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs) continued, and would boil over in 1975.
At the top, far right is my paternal grandfather, Theodore Roosevelt Shannon (1902-1979) with two Native American employees of his gyppo logging outfit; at the bottom is my maternal grandfather, Albert Lee Benjamin Kollenborn (1907-1984)
Questions: How do Indian reservations differ from internment camps, and in what ways are the similar? Have you ever been on an Indian reservation? Have you read the book “In the Spirit of Crazy Horse”?
