Wounded Knee, South Dakota: Wounded Knee Massacre Memorial
Active reservation cemetery contains monument and mass grave of hundreds of Sioux massacred on Dec. 29, 1890 by U.S. Cavalry. In 1973 it was site of a stand-off between the American Indian Movement and the federal government.
- Address:
- Big Foot Trail, Wounded Knee, SD
- Directions:
- Pine Ridge Lakota Reservation, 80 miles south of I-90 at Wall, intersection of Rt. 28/and Rt. 27/Big Foot Trail. Monument is in the cemetery.
- Admission:
- Free, but you may be unofficiallly solicited to donate or buy something.
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On December 28, 1890, Chief Big Foot and over 350 of his tribe surrendered to the 7th Calvary and relocated to Wounded Knee Creek Valley, where they were surrounded by about 470 soldiers equipped with four Hotchkiss guns. On December 29 the Indians started "Ghost Dancing" and were told by Yellow Bird, a medicine-man, that if they wore "Ghost Shirts" they could defy the soldiers because they would be impervious to their bullets. Someone fired a shot and mass confusion erupted. The soldiers began firing their Hotchkiss guns into the village and killed 98 men, 65 women, and 24 children. All of the dead were buried in a mass grave with a single marker.
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