People love to soften what happened at Wounded Knee. They call it a “battle.” They call it “tragic.” They act like it was some unfortunate misunderstanding.
No. It was a massacre.
By 1890, Lakota people had endured years of broken treaties, stolen land, disappearing buffalo herds and hunger. The U.S. government had carved apart the Great Sioux Reservation, while authorities grew alarmed by the Ghost Dance, a spiritual movement offering hope to Native people.
Then Sitting Bull was killed during an attempt to arrest him. Fear spread. Spotted Elk, also known as Big Foot, and his band were heading toward Pine Ridge when the U.S. 7th Cavalry intercepted them. Spotted Elk was sick with pneumonia. His people were escorted to Wounded Knee Creek.
On December 29, 1890, soldiers surrounded the camp and demanded the Lakota surrender their weapons. Hundreds of troops stood around them, with Hotchkiss guns overlooking the camp. Families. Elders. Women. Children. Surrounded by soldiers and artillery.
The Lakota were searched and disarmed. During the confrontation, a shot was fired. What followed wasn’t an orderly exchange between two armies. Soldiers opened fire. They shot men protecting their families. They shot women and children. Some fled into a ravine, where soldiers pursued them.
When the shooting stopped, Spotted Elk lay dead along with scores of his people. A blizzard swept across the area, and the dead remained where they fell, freezing beneath the snow.
Days later, they were placed into a mass grave.
And after all that, members of the 7th Cavalry received Medals of Honor for their actions at Wounded Knee. Imagine Indigenous families being slaughtered, soldiers being decorated for it, and then acting confused generations later when we say we haven’t “moved on.”
Wounded Knee wasn’t isolated. It was the result of a system built to erase us.
Break the Nations.
Take the land.
Destroy the buffalo.
Starve the people.
Suppress the ceremonies.
Take the children.
Wounded Knee wasn’t where that system began. It was what that system looked like at its most violent.
When we talk about Wounded Knee, we’re not “digging up old wounds.” We’re telling the truth that generations of textbooks softened into words like “battle,” “clash” and “tragedy.” Healing doesn’t start by making history comfortable. It starts by naming what happened.
Lakota men, women and children were killed.
Their bodies froze in the snow.
And the soldiers who participated were decorated.
We honour those lives by refusing to make their story easier to hear.
