On this day in 1973, the 71 day armed occupation of the village of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota came to an end. The occupation had started as a protest against the reservation's tribal president.
The president, Dick Wilson, was being impeached for corruption and abuse of power. Members of the tribe who opposed Wilson invited members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) to the reservation to support their move against Wilson. Wilson had formed a private army to intimidate his opponents.
Wilson had been given thirty days to prepare his defense, but he said he was ready to go. This caught the prosecution off guard. They were not ready for the trial and the whole case against Wilson collapsed on a technicality. This was when AIM occupied the small village of Wounded Knee sixteen miles northeast of the main town of Pine Ridge. Wounded Knee Creek had been the site of the massacre in 1890 of several hundred Lakota Indians, half of whom were women and children. AIM chose this place to make their stand for its symbolic value.
AIM had been founded in 1968 to help protect Indian rights and deal with issues of unemployment and poverty. AIM and other Indian organizations formed in reaction to the Indian Relocation Act of 1956 which sought to do away with tribes and reservations and integrate the Indians into White society. AIM had discovered the best way to get the attention of government officials was through civil disobedience. They had been part of the long occupation of the disused Alcatraz Prison in 1971 and had occupied the Bureau of Indian Affairs Building in Washington just a few moths earlier.
U.S government law enforcement officials including the FBI immediately surrounded the village, but made no move to remove the occupiers. AIM members were armed and began firing at Law Enforcement and Law Enforcement shot back. AIM sent out initial demands that long-term injustices towards Indians be addressed and that Wilson be removed from office.
South Dakota's two senators visited Wounded Knee and discovered the thirteen hostages in the village had always been free to go, but had remained voluntarily. The hostages feared if they left, the military would come in and destroy their village. They had also developed sympathy for AIM and felt they were protecting the occupiers.
At first, Wilson's private army set up roadblocks around Wounded Knee,but the Federal officers had them removed. More volunteers with food and guns poured into the village till the government set up their own roadblocks. After that, food was carried in cross-country by backpack.
By the end of February, the government decided to pull its forces out in hopes everyone would lose interest. Instead, more protesters arrived with more guns. In March a gunfight broke out between AIM members and the few remaining agents. One of the agents was wounded and the government forces moved back in.
By the end of March the gunfire between the village and the military was so intense, reporters no longer felt safe in the area. By this time the phone lines had been cut, and the press had lost interest. The siege continued through April with periods of heavy gunfire. A plane parachuted supplies into the village. AIM wanted to continue the standoff but local members had had enough. An agreement was drawn up and on May 8th, the siege ended. Russell Means and Dennis Banks, the main AIM leaders were charged with conspiracy and assault, but both got off on technicalities.
With the standoff over, Wilson took his revenge. Over sixty of his opponents were killed in the next three years. There were plenty of FBI agents still in the area, but none of these murders were investigated. In 1974 Russel Means ran against Wilson and narrowly lost. The election was deemed fraudulent. Wilson was finally defeated in the 1976 election and left the reservation.
The leadership of AIM responded to Wilson's violence with violence of their own. The stand-off at Wounded Knee was AIM's last big splash. As David Treuer says in his book "The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee," it's the rank-and-file membership of AIM that continues to do good work in fighting for Indian rights and improving housing and education.
It's interesting that immediately before the takeover of the town, the AIM members held a short remembrance ceremony at the monument to the 1890 massacre. As yet there is no monument to the 1973 takeover. The event is still too controversial.
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| Massacre Monument, Wounded Knee |
Your remembrance brings back those days in the sixties and early seventies when protest was a way of life, be it a half-assed student march to some federal building, or something more serious like the events you chronicle. When I compare the story you have set down with the protests going on now in the Covid 19 environment, it makes today's protests seem pale. After all, today's protests are, at their core, a complaint about government involvement in individual lives. Wounded Knee appears to be about a way of life. The occupiers of Wounded Knee wanted more government involvement, i.e., redress of unfulfilled treaties and civil rights for Native Americans. Regardless of the particulars, it's always about politics, is it not? Whether it's Wounded Knee or Washington D.C. or St. Paul, it's impossible to come to a solution that can be accepted by all parties. What I most want to say is "Thanks for posting this story. Whatever one makes of it, it's lessons are worth remembering." JP Savage
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