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Famous Native People
Si Tanka
Big Foot MINNECONJOU - LAKOTA Minniconjou; (pronounced Min-nee-con-zhoo meaning Planters By The Water.) The son of Lone Horn, and a cousin to Crazy Horse, Big Foot (Spotted Elk) became chief of the Minneconjou after the death of his father in 1874. One of the seven subdivisions of the Teton, the Minneconjou lived in northwestern South Dakota with the Hunkpapa, another band of the Teton which was led by Sitting Bull. Native accounts of Big Foot describe him as a great hunter. He was also a skilled horseman who possessed a string of fine ponies, most often obtained from the Absaroka (Crow) or other enemies of the Lakota. He was best known, however, for his political and diplomatic successes. An able negotiator, Big Foot was skilled at settling quarrels between rival parties and was often in great demand among other Teton bands.
After what became called 'The Sioux War' for the Black Hills in 1876-77, the Minneconjou were placed on the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota. Being a person accustomed to finding ways of reconciling disparate views, Big Foot sought means to adapt to white ways. According to Native accounts, Big Foot was among the first Natives to raise corn in accordance with government standards. Moreover, he travelled to Washington, D.C. and requested that a mission school be established near the forks of the Cheyenne River. While the Indian Bureau tentatively agreed, the matter was set aside and eventually forgotten. In 1889 Kicking Bear introduced the Ghost Dance religion to the Minneconjou. The ritual dance was developed by the Paiute medicine man Wovoka, after speaking to the creator.
It was believed that the Ghost Dance would restore the world to its aboriginal state; it promised for the return of Native ancestors and all plant and animal life. Devastated by war, hunger, and disease, the Minneconjou welcomed the new religion. While their dancing never became violent, several other Lakota, who were angered by the 1883 prohibition of the Sun Dance and other "barbarous" customs by the Secretary of the Interior as well as the 1889 reduction of Lakota holdings to six small reservations, turned the Ghost Dance into a movement advocating violence against their white oppressors. Consequently, the U.S. Office of Indian Affairs outlawed the Ghost Dance in 1890.
Big Foot (Spotted Elk) Later that same year, Big Foot and his followers moved to Cherry Creek where they had planned on joining Chief Hump and his band of Minneconjou in their dancing. The latter, however, defected and surrendered his band to the agency on December 9, 1890. Disillusioned, Big Foot and his tribe moved back to their camp below the forks of the Cheyenne River. While he did not participate in the Ghost Dance thereafter, many of his tribesmen continued to dance, spurred on by the medicine man Yellow Bird. On December 15, 1890, the Standing Rock Reservation police killed Sitting Bull over a dispute regarding the Ghost Dance ceremony. After hearing of Sitting Bull's death, Big Foot decided to migrate to the Pine Ridge Reservation. On December 28, the Minneconjou were intercepted by an army detachment under the command of Major Samuel Whitside.
Photograph possibly depicting members of Big Foot's band, and claims to show from left to right Bear That Runs and Growls, Warrior, One Tooth Gone, Sole (bottom of foot) and Make It Long. Possible taken around 1890. Increasingly ill with pneumonia, he had no intention of fighting and was flying a white flag when soldiers patrolling for roving bands caught up with him on December 28, 1890. Major Samuel Whitside, Seventh U.S. Calavary, the same regiment that was defeated at the Battle of the Littlebig Horn fourteen years before, informed Big Foot that he had orders to take him and his people to a cavalry camp at Wounded Knee Creek, which Big Foot agreed to because he was going that way to reach Pine Ridge and safety. When they reached the camp they were carefully counted, the band consisted of 120 men and 230 women and children. That night Big Foot and his people camped near Wounded Knee Creek, where they were surrounded by soldiers. To make certain that none of his prisoners escaped, the major stationed two troops of cavalry as sentinels around the Native's tipis, and then posted his two large Hotchkiss guns on a hill overlooking the camp and which could hurl explosive charges for more than two miles, and were now positioned so that they could rake the length of the Native lodges. Later that night, under cover of darkness, the remainder of the Seventh Cavalry march in from the east. Colonel James W Forsyth, commanding Custer's former regiment, now took charge of operations. After placing two more Hotchkiss guns on the slope beside the others, Forsyth and his men settled down for the evening with a keg of whiskey to celebrate the capture of Big Foot. The following morning the Natives were woken by a bugle call, and issued hardtack as breakfast rations.
Then Colonel Forsyth ordered them to be disarmed. The soldiers began confiscating the Native's weapons. When a gun accidentally went off, reputed to be the new rifle of a deaf Native Black Coyote who was reluctant to give up his prized weapon, the soldiers opened fire and indiscriminate killing followed. Within seconds Big Foot, unarmed and seriously ill, lay dying. As most of the men were now unarmed they tried fleeing, then the big Hotchkiss guns opened fire, spewing out a shell a second, raking the Native camp, shredding the tipi's with flying shrapnel, killing men, women and children.
The Hotchkiss light
artillery piece. Four of these were used at Wounded Knee. An eyewitness, Louise Weasel Bear said after the massacre. "We tried to run, but they shot us like we were buffalo. I know there are some good white people, but the soldiers must be mean to shoot children and woman. Indian soldiers would not do that to white children." When the madness ended Big Foot and 153 Minneconjou lay dead, many of them cut down by the deadly Hotchkiss guns as they sought shelter against a creek bank. The soldiers even pursued fleeing women and children, shooting some dead as far as two miles from the site of the original confrontation. Many others crawled away to die afterwards. Most estimates put the number murdered as high as 300 men, women and children. The soldiers lost twenty-five dead and thirty-nine wounded, most of them struck by their own bullets or shrapnel... a modern case of friendly fire. Big Foot himself was among the first killed he, like the other slain bodies, were left for three days where they fell because of an approaching blizzard. Then they were unceremoniously dumped into a mass grave.
Big Foot in death his dead body frozen by the blizzard at Wounded Knee (The location of the army tent behind Big Foot is so close to the council circle, that it was most likely Big Foot's tent. It is documented that Major Samuel Whitside of the 7th Cavalry ordered a stove placed in Big Foot's tent.)
Killing Field at Wounded Knee
View northwest (not S.W. as labeled) over the battle field at Wounded Knee Creek, shows the burial party, including a Native woman, at the west end of the snow covered camp with frozen bodies and tipi pole frameworks. The mass grave is being dug on the hill where the Hotchkiss guns were used.
Mass Burial Pit for those slain
Pine Ridge's Holy Cross Episcopal Church where they took the wounded from Wounded Knee
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