Transcript
Luke Hill
Prof. Dunakey
American History
9/6/19
In 1890 at a little place called Wounded Knee, something happened that would change how the Americans look at Indians forever. The impact was so significant that it will take some centuries to restore relationships with Native Americans. On December 29th, 1890, there was a massacre at Wounded Knee "as the U.S. Army slaughtered ninety Lakota men and two hundred women and children" (Franky Abbott).
The reason this massacre was so great of an impact is that it has warped our view of Native Americans. Us Americans look down on Native Americans because we think that they are lazy, sluggish, and waste time. Although Americans slaughtered the Indians, we weren't the only ones to fight that day; the Native Americans put up a good fight as well, killing one of our officers. The man that killed the officer was named Spotted Horse, "This man shot an officer in the army; the first shot killed this officer" (James Mooney).
After he fired that shot the massacre happened, then U.S. army went on to kill all of those people. I am not saying that we should completely forgive and forget that the Indians shot one of ours. What I am saying is that we have killed a lot more of them than they have of us. Also recently there was a siege that happened "On February 27, 1973, a team of 200 Oglala Lakota (Sioux) activists and members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized control of a tiny town with a loaded history -- Wounded Knee, South Dakota. They arrived in town at night, in a caravan of cars and trucks, took the town's residents hostage, and demanded that the U.S. government make good on treaties from the 19th and early 20th centuries" (Emily Chertoff).
This siege took place because the Native Americans did not feel like they were being treated the way they should be. Americans need to realize that Indians were here long before we got here. We need to treat them like our own, not like they are strangers to us. As Americans, we should respect the Native Americans and everything we have put them through. And for that reason, we need to put our pride aside and accept them as our own. Thank you for reading!
Work Cited
(n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/eight/wklakota.htm
Chertoff, E. (2012, October 23). Occupy Wounded Knee: A 71-Day Siege and a Forgotten Civil Rights Movement. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/occupy-wounded-knee-a-71-day-siege-and-a-forgotten-civil-rights-movement/263998/
(n.d.). The Wounded Knee Massacre. Retrieved from https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-wounded-knee-massacre#tabs
