676 Imperialism and Expansionism in American History Dobyns, Henry F. Their Numbers Become Thinned: Native American Population Dynamics in Eastern North America. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1983. Jones, David S. “Virgin Soils Revisited.” William and Mary Quarterly 60, no. 4 (2003): 703–742. Ramenofsky, Ann F. Vectors of Death: The Archaeology of European Contact. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico, 1987. Thornton, Russell. American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History since 1492. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987. Wounded Knee Massacre (1890) Wounded Knee constituted the last major armed conflict between American Indians and the U.S. Army at the end of the 19th century. By the third quarter of the 19th century, most Lakotas found themselves confined to reservations where they were subject to a massive campaign to assimilate into white society. Churches preached Christian values and sought to eradicate Native beliefs; boarding schools taught children to reject their own culture; and allotment tried to turn nomads into famers. Supported by the presence of nearby troops, agents, missionaries, and teachers attempted to destroy Lakota lifeways. In this dire situation, many Lakotas found solace in the Ghost Dance. Begun by a Paiute by the name of Wovoka, the Ghost Dance preached the return of the old ways and asked for the reappearance of the buffalo. It was the popularity of the Ghost Dance that gave American officials a rationale to send troops to the Pine Ridge Indian reservation in 1890, initiating what has been become one of the most infamous examples of the American government’s violence toward Native peoples. With the defeat of General George Armstrong Custer and the Seventh Cavalry at Little Bighorn fresh in their minds, white settlers who noticed the growing popularity of the Ghost Dance grew alarmed. A government agent called in troops to impose order and to suppress the ceremony on Pine Ridge and Rosebud Reservations. By November 1890, 3,000 troops had arrived, adding to the existing fear and tension. On December 15, 1890, Lieutenant Henry Bull Head and 43 other Indian policemen arrived at Hunkpapa chief Sitting Bull’s cabin on Standing Rock to arrest the suspected leader of what they viewed as an agitation. After an ensuing skirmish, Sitting Bull and seven of his followers lay dead, as did six tribal policemen; two more policemen succumbed to their wounds shortly thereafter. As the news of the death spread, it created fear and resistance among the Ghost Dancers. Many of Sitting Bull’s followers attempted to find safety under Minneconjou chief Big Foot. Fearing reprisals from American forces, Big Foot put his people and the new additions on the road to Pine Ridge where he hoped to find safety. On December 28, Major Whitside and some troops of the Seventh Cavalry intercepted Big Foot’s band at Porcupine Butte, less than 30 miles from Pine Ridge Agency. The Indians offered no resistance and so the decision was made to disarm them the following day. The band was escorted to Wounded Knee Creek, five miles west of the butte, where camp was made. During the night, Whitside’s commander, Colonel Forsyth, arrived with additional troops of the Seventh, a company of scouts, and artillery, and assumed command. At that point the U.S. troops numbered 470 men backed up by four Hotchkiss cannons. Big Foot’s band consisted of an estimated 120 men and 230 women and children. The next morning, on December 29, 1890, Forsyth ordered the Indian males and older youth into a close-packed semicircle around Big Foot’s tent to turn over their guns. In a clear show of force, Forsyth deployed the troops in commanding positions around the camp with the four artillery pieces overlooking the tipi village and ordered the band disarmed. Given the overwhelming presence of the U.S. troops and the questionable circumstances surrounding Sitting Bull’s death, the Indians were reluctant to give up their arms. At one point, as a cavalryman tried to take a rifle from a deaf warrior, a shot rang out and a firefight began. In the ensuing fight, the soldiers unleashed a murderous volley at point-blank range while the artillery opened fire on tipis and Indians, killing and wounding men, women, and children A4128C_Magoc_Vol-2.indd 676 16/09/15 6:50 PM Controlling the Indians, 1835–1903 677 Big Foot’s camp three weeks after the Wounded Knee Massacre. More than 300 Native Americans being transported to the Pine Ridge Reservation were killed by the U.S. 7th Cavalry at Wounded Knee on December 29, 1890, marking the end of armed Native resistance to white expansion into the Plains in the 19th century. (Library of Congress) indiscriminately. The Lakotas fled in all directions; some sought shelter in a nearby ravine (which soon became the target of the Hotchkiss guns); others fled across the Plains where they were chased down and killed, some up to three miles from the scene of the carnage. On New Year’s Day of 1891, following a heavy blizzard, a burial detail interred the remains of 146 Indians (84 men and boys, 44 women, and 18 children) in a large mass grave. Fifty-one wounded survivors (of whom at least 7 died later) were brought to the hospital at Pine Ridge. The exact death toll at Wounded Knee remains unknown. All in all nearly 300 Indians were either killed or died of wounds or exposure later. White casualties in the fight included 25 killed and 39 wounded (6 of whom would later die). In the collective memory of the Lakota people, Wounded Knee lives on as a day of infamy and historical trauma. In 1903, a monument was erected by surviving relatives atop a hill that reads in part, “Many women and children who knew no wrong died here.” For their part, the U.S. Army maintained that Wounded Knee was a tragic, yet authentic battle that resulted from misunderstanding on both sides. Forsyth, initially suspended and court-martialed, was found innocent. In a possible attempt to justify the events, the army awarded 20 Medals of Honor, the highest number of medals granted in a single engagement. While repeated attempts to rescind the medals have failed, in 1990, 100 years after the incident, the 101st Congress passed a resolution to apologize to the Lakota people and expressed support for a suitable and appropriate memorial. Due to differing opinions about the memorial itself, it has not yet been erected. Since 1986, the Lakotas have commemorated Chief Big Foot’s band and their flight from Standing Rock to Wounded Knee with a 191-mile Memorial Ride through the badlands. Matthias Voigt A4128C_Magoc_Vol-2.indd 677 16/09/15 6:50 PM 678 Imperialism and Expansionism in American History See also: Big Foot; Lakotas or Western Sioux; Primary Documents: Wounded Knee Massacre: Testimony of the Sioux (1890) Further Reading Coleman, William S. E. Voices of Wounded Knee. 2nd ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2001. Ostler, Jeffrey. The Plains Sioux and US Colonialism from Lewis and Clark to Wounded Knee. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Utley, Robert. The Last Days of the Sioux Nation. 2nd ed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. Yakima War (1855) The mid-1800s were a turbulent time in the Pacific Northwest. The Oregon and Washington Territories’ Native population had been ravaged by disease, resulting in the Whitman Massacre, and news from Indians around the Northwest was keeping racial tensions high. In 1854–1855, the new territorial governor, Isaac I. Stevens, was on a mission to acquire Native Americans’ land in the Pacific Northwest for a proposed transcontinental railroad route from the Mississippi River to Puget Sound. To do so, he needed to secure peace in the region and to open the land to Euro-American immigration. After negotiating several treaties around Puget Sound, Stevens intended to do the same with the Plateau Indians, and then cross over the Rocky Mountains to deal with the Flatheads and the Blackfeet. For the council with the Plateau Indians at Walla Walla, Stevens enlisted the assistance of Oregon Indian agent Joel Palmer. Upon hearing of these plans, Kamiakin, the headman of the Yakamas (formerly Yakimas), called for a meeting of chiefs from several tribes and nations in the region on the Grand Ronde River during the summer of 1854 to discuss the rumors. After meeting for five days, all the men of authority among the Plateau Indians agreed to band together against Stevens and refuse to give up their people’s lands. Some powerful men, mainly Spokan Garry (Spokane tribe) and a lawyer of the Nez Perce, however, advised the chiefs to listen to what the immigrants had to say before entering into an avoidable and costly war. When the Walla Walla council finally met in the summer of 1855, the solidarity that had been agreed upon at Grand Ronde quickly broke down, and the chiefs found themselves scrambling to retain any of their people’s land at all. In the end, the Yakamas received a relatively small reservation in the Yakima Valley, a loss of nearly 30,000 square miles. This was a devastating loss to the Yakamas and, along with the increased traffic from the Puget Sound settlements to the gold mines in northeastern Washington, Kamiakin’s warriors were furious. In September 1855, A. J. Bolon, subagent to the Yakamas, was murdered, sparking open hostilities. Bolon was assumed to have known that some white travelers were killed by Qual-chin, son of Chief Owhi, who was Kamiakin’s half-brother, so Qual-chin ambushed Bolon to keep the authorities from punishing him for the murders. Meanwhile, Governor Stevens was meeting with Native peoples in the Rocky Mountains; acting governor C. H. Mason called on troops from Fort Vancouver and Fort Steilacoom to protect EuroAmerican immigrants traveling through the area and to escort Governor Stevens on his return to Washington Territory. This duty fell upon Major General Rains, the commander of Fort Vancouver, who ordered Brevet-Major Granville O. Haller from The Dalles, Oregon, and Lieutenant W. A. Slaughter from Fort Steilacoom to join forces. En route, Haller, with nearly 100 men and a howitzer, encountered approximately 1,500 wellarmed Indians at Toppenish Creek on October 6, 1855. The Indians attacked and surrounded the soldiers. Fighting continued for three days, as the soldiers were forced to bury all their extra supplies, including the howitzer, and make a fighting retreat to The Dalles. Along the way, Haller met with a group of 45 artillerymen under Lieutenant Day on the Klickitat River. There they built a blockhouse and defended themselves. At the same time, Lieutenant Slaughter had tried to cross the A4128C_Magoc_Vol-2.indd 678 16/09/15 6:50 PM