The Ghost Dance and Wounded Knee

There were two Native Indian dances of which the settlers on the Great Plains, including Southwestern Nebraska, were familiar. One was the Sun Dance, as practiced by the Sioux. Gradually, it was accepted as a religious ceremony of the Indians by the settlers. While they were appalled by the stories of torture endured by the dancers, they were not especially fearful of that the Sun Dance would lead to trouble for the white man.

The Ghost Dance, on the other hand was of great concern to the settlers. The Ghost Dance was first begun in the 1870s, as a result of visions by the Indian Prophet, Tavibo, a Northern Paiute in Nevada. Tavibo preached that the white man would disappear from the earth (by natural disasters -- not Indian warfare), dead Indians would appear once more, and the Indian way of life would return to the (supposedly) utopian way of life the Indians had enjoyed before the appearance of whites on the North American Continent. This would come about through the prayers of the Indians, aided by a type of Round Dance that Tavibo taught his followers, in which the dancers could communicate with dead relatives -- The Ghost Dance.

The movement took off with great enthusiasm and quickly spread through most of the Western Indian tribes, from Nevada to California, to Oregon. After some time, the white men had not disappeared, the buffalo had not reappeared, the old utopian way of life had not materialized. The Ghost Dance movement gradually ceased to factor in the Indian way of life.

Then, in the late 1880s, a resurgence of the Ghost Dance suddenly reappeared, under the leadership of Tavibo's son, Wokova, or Jack Wilson, as he was known to the whites. Wokova was a spiritual man like his father, and a powerful leader. The far western tribes, this time were not much affected -- they still remembered the failed promises of Tavibo, but Wokova's message took hold of the Indians of the Great Plains, from the Dakotas, Nebraska, as far as Oklahoma and Texas -- nowhere with more enthusiasm than with the Lakota Sioux in the Dakotas.

According to Wokova's message, which he said had been received in a vision from the Supreme Being, the Indians should coexist peacefully with the whites, they should have a strong work ethic, and practice the ceremonial songs and The Ghost Dance, which would enable them to be reunited with their dead relatives, and the white man would gradually disappear.

Somehow, Wokova's message of peaceful co-existence was badly misinterpreted. To settlers in the area, memories of the Dakota Wars of the 1860s, in which as many as 800 settlers in Minnesota were killed in raids by the Sioux, were still vivid. They feared a repeat.

In the late 1880s conditions became steadily worse for the Sioux Indians on reservations in South Dakota and Nebraska, and in 1890 a number of dissimilar things came together to form a "Perfect Storm" at the reservation at Pine Ridge, in South Dakota.

Following unusually wet years in the 1880s, 1890 brought drought to the area, resulting in poor or no crops for the Indians, and an increasing dependence on government rations to stave off starvation for the Indians on the reservation.

One, Daniel F. Royer, was appointed Indian Agent at the Pine Ridge Agency in 1890. Royer knew nothing about any Indians, and what is worse, he had a deep seated fear and mistrust of them. From the day of his arrival he sent repeated urgent messages back to Washington with warnings about pending attacks (like the 1862 Minnesota raids) that he felt were imminent. He viewed the Ghost Dance, which had become popular with the resident Oglala Sioux, as a "War Dance," and repeatedly requested soldiers to come to aid him, and area settlers, against forth-coming raids, which existed largely in his own imagination.

Finally, in November, 1890, President Benjamin Harrison responded to Royers' urgent appeals for protection against the "imminent" outbreak of the Sioux. He dispatched Regular Army troops from nearby Fort Robinson, at Crawford, Nebraska, and troops of the 2nd Nebraska Infantry, via two special trains from Fort Omaha. Perhaps, unfortunately, accompanying the Fort Omaha troops were reporters, who, from that point on kept the "Unrest at Pine Ridge" constantly on the front pages of their papers.

During the last two weeks of November, fears were stoked by an endless string of incidents (many of these accounts were frankly made up -- lies) of unrest on the Pine Ridge Reservation. These sensational accounts fed the growing national anxiety of white readers, concerned with the supposed imminent Indian attacks on defenseless white settlers. Naturally, these accounts also fueled the Reservation Indians' anxiety about a feared attack by white troops.

On Dec. 15, 1890, the great Sioux Chief, Sitting Bull, was killed by white troops at Sioux Standing Rock Reservation, straddling the line between South Dakota and North Dakota. (Note: Sitting Bull was a great Sioux Chief, and a strong advocate of the Ghost Dance. He was venerated as the leader of the Sioux Indians who had massacred the white troops, under Gen. Custer at the Battle of Little Big Horn -- Custer's Last Stand -- in Montana, in 1876. He later toured the Eastern United States and the Capitals of Europe with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, where he was a great friend of Annie Oakley).

Sitting Bull's death was seen as a fate that would await all Indians, who defied the whites, and resisted life on the Reservation.

In late December 1890, Big Foot, the Sioux leader who succeeded Sitting Bull, advised his people to flee the reservation, for the south, in the Badland's region of South Dakota.

Discussions among tribal leaders, including a Ghost Dance Ceremony, ensued, after which they made their escape from the reservation. They successfully eluded capture for five days, but were slowed by a number of their tribe who had contracted pneumonia. They were soon apprehended by troops of the 7th Cavalry, under Col. James W. Forsythe.

In a council with the fleeing Indians, Forsythe demanded surrender and that the Indians turn over their firearms. He promised that they would be relocated to a new camp, which some interpreted as exile to Indian Territory (in Oklahoma).

One Indian, Black Coyote, refused to surrender his rifle, and in attempting to disarm him the weapon discharged. Nervous troops immediately opened fire, not just with rifles, but with canon as well. The Indians returned fire as best they could, but the battle quickly turned into a massacre.

When the carnage was finally over, the Sioux had suffered 250 dead. 146 of these dead were buried in one mass grave. The soldiers had lost 25 men. The "battle" was well covered by the host of reporters and the story was circulated world-wide, complete with gory pictures. The Massacre at Wounded Knee, as the battle is known, became, and remains, in the eyes of the Indians, The Symbol of the inhumanity of the U.S. government's policy toward Native Americans.

Source: Encyclopedia of the Great Plains; The Wounded Knee Massacre missouristate.edu