Part of the reason these episodes are coming out so late - two months late! – is that the Idiots got stuck on this one. They’ve written four versions… all way too long and way too detailed and way, way too sad…
So… short and simple.
If the Mountain Men marked the “opening” of the West… then the end of that invasion is often said to be the events that happened at Wounded Knee in South Dakota in 1890.
In December, a group of Lakota left Wyoming after Sitting Bull was murdered. They were making their way to join with other Lakota at what is now Pine Ridge Reservation. There were many elderly, women with infants, and children. They were exhausted from crossing hundreds of miles of snow-covered prairie in brutal winter condition.
On Dec. 28 the US Seventh Cavalry herded them into a temporary campsite along the banks of Wounded Knee Creek. The next day, against all advice and common sense, the cavalry moved in and attempted to disarm the Lakota. Many of them surrendered their rifles, but one warrior, Black Coyote, was deaf and communications got confused.
Somehow a rifle went off – and the soldiers, backed by four cannons on the hillside above, went berserk. They fired and rained down cannon shells on the civilian encampment. Women and children who tried to flee were ridden down and killed in a variety of gruesome ways.
In just a few minutes, somewhere between 150 and 300 Lakota were dead. Thirty-one soldiers also died. The Native bodies were left scattered like fallen leaves in the snow as a blizzard moved in. Days later, General Miles surveyed the “battlefield” and was appalled. He ordered the bodies buried in a mass grave. In the process, it is said 4 infants were found alive, wrapped in their mother’s shawls.
General Miles tried to have the officer responsible, Col. James Forsyth, court-martialed, but the army opted for a whitewash. They called it The Battle of Wounded Knee and awarded 20 soldiers the Medal of Honor – the Army’s highest honor. Forsyth was promoted to Major-General.
At the time, the majority of Americans approved of the action. At the end of the 19th century, most Americans approved of the campaign to eradicate the Indians, believing they could never be integrated into “civilized” society.
Today we call it what it was – The Wounded Knee Massacre.
The Idiots didn’t really do anything at Wounded Knee. They went… they read the description of the massacre… they looked at the hill with the cemetery and church that marks the site of the massacre. Just as when they visited Aushwitz… and Dachau… they felt the need to take some silent time to contemplate the ultimate expression of bigotry. There were a few tears…
