Wounded Knee incident

:"For the 1890 massacre, see Wounded Knee Massacre."The Wounded Knee incident began February 27, 1973 when the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota was seized by followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM). The occupiers controlled the town for 71 days while the U.S. Marshals Service and other law enforcement agencies cordoned off the town.

Occupation

On February 27 the AIM and local Oglala Lakota (aka Oglala Sioux) of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, who opposed Oglala tribal chairman Richard A. "Dick" Wilson, seized the town of Wounded Knee. The U.S. military and government surrounded Wounded Knee the same day. [http://www.usmarshals.gov/history/wounded-knee/index.html "Wounded Knee Incident".] - United States Marshal Services. - Retrieved May 10, 2007]

It is disputed whether the government forces cordoned the town before, as AIM claims, or after the takeover. According to former South Dakota Senator James Abourezk,Abourezk, James G. [http://www.usd.edu/library/special/wk73hist.htm "Wounded Knee, 1973 Series"] . - University of South Dakota, Special Collections Website. Retrieved May 10, 2007] [James G. Abourezk was a Senator at the time of Wounded Knee. He was present at the conflict and even entered the occupied town. Abourezk is also a chronicler of the 1973 incident and has conducted hearings under the "authority of U.S. Senate Subcommittee of Indian Affairs"] "on 25 February 1973 the U.S. Department of Justice sent out 50 U.S. Marshals to the Pine Ridge Reservation to be available in the case of a civil disturbance". AIM, on the other hand, argues that their organization came to the town for an open meeting and "within hours police had set up roadblocks, cordoned off the area and began arresting people leaving town… the people prepared to defend themselves against the government’s aggressions". [http://www.aics.org/WK/index.html "Wounded Knee Information Booklet"] . American Indian Movement. pp 10-18. Retrieved May 10, 2007] Regardless, by the morning of February 28, both sides were firmly entrenched.

Both AIM and government documents show that the two sides traded fire for most of the three months.John Sayer, a Wounded Knee chronicler claims that:Sayer, J. (1997). "Ghost Dancing the law: The Wounded Knee trials." Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.]

:"The equipment maintained by the military while in use during the siege included fifteen armored personal carriers, clothing, rifles, grenade launchers, flares, and 133,000 rounds of ammunition, for a total cost, including the use of maintenance personnel from the national guard of five states and pilot and planes for aerial photographs, of over half a million dollars" The statistics gathered by Record and Hocker largely concur:Record, I. & Hocker, A. P. (1998). A Fire that Burns: The Legacy of Wounded Knee. "Native Americas, 15"(1), 14. Retrieved May 10, 2007 from ProQuest]

:"...barricades of paramilitary personnel armed with automatic weapons, snipers, helicopters, armored personnel carriers equipped with .50-caliber machine guns, and more than 130,000 rounds of ammunition"."

The precise statistics of U.S. government force at Wounded Knee vary, but all accounts agree that it was certainly a significant military force including "federal marshals, FBI agents, and armored vehicles". One eye witness and journalist chronicled, "sniper fire from…federal helicopters," "bullets dancing around in the dirt" and "sounds of shooting all over town" [from both sides] .McKiernan, Kevin B. [http://www.aics.org/WK/wk068.html "Notes from a Day at Wounded Knee"] . - Retrieved May 10, 2007]

AIM claims in its chronology of the occupation that "the government tried starving out the [occupants] " and that they, the occupiers, smuggled food and medical supplies in past roadblocks "set up by Dick Wilson and tacitly supported by the government".

In the course of the conflict, Frank Clearwater, a Wounded Knee occupier, was shot in the head while asleep on April 17 and died on April 25. Lawrence Lamont, also an occupier, received a fatal gunshot wound on April 26, and U.S. Marshal Lloyd Grimm was paralyzed from the waist down again by a gunshot wound. Both sides reached an agreement on May 5 to disarm. By May 8 the siege had ended and the town was evacuated after 71 days of occupation; the government then took control of the village.

See also Lakota Woman.

References

Further reading

* Bonney, R. A. (1977). The Role of AIM Leaders in Indian Nationalism [Electronic version] . "American Indian Quarterly, 3", 209-224.
*A Tattoo on my heart: warriors of Wounded Knee 1973. (2004) Badlands Films.
* Reinhardt, Akim D. Ruling Pine Ridge: Oglala Lakota Politics from the Ira to Wounded Knee Texas Tech University Press, 2007.
* Trimbach, Joseph H. and John M. Trimbach (2007). American Indian Mafia: An FBI Agent’s True Story About Wounded Knee, Leonard Peltier, and the American Indian Movement (AIM). Outskirts Press.
* Mary Crow Dog and Richard Erdoes (1990). Lakota Woman. Harper Perennial (ISBN 0-06-097389-7).

External links

* [http://ww3.startribune.com/blogs/oldnews/archives/186 Minneapolis Tribune, March 25, 1973: Inside Wounded Knee]