The Ghost Dance
All Indians must dance, everywhere, keep on dancing. Pretty soon in next spring Great Spirit come. He bring back all game of every kind…all dead Indians come back and live again. They all be strong just like young men, be young again. Old blind Indian see again and get young and have fine time. When Great Spirit comes this way, than all the Indians go to mountains, high up away from whites. Whites can't hurt Indians then. Then while Indians way up high, big flood like water and all white people die, get drowned! After that, water go way and then nobody but Indians everywhere and game all kinds thick… (Wovoka, The Paiute Messiah qtd. In Brown 416).
Completely demoralized by the 'accidental' shooting of Sitting Bull the great Hunkpapa leader during his arrest by U.S. Military led by General Miles (Brown 436), the Minneconjous Band led by sick and dying Spotted Elk (A.K.A. Bigfoot) came to the Pine Ridge Reservation from Canada under the flag of truce. The Minneconjous, described by a disciple of the Ghost Dance called Kicking Bear, as being comprised of "…mostly women who had lost husbands or other male relatives in fights…[who] danced until they fainted, because they wanted their warriors back" (Brown 434) were desperate, starving and unarmed. So how did they come to be slaughtered so ruthlessly on the 29th day of the Moon of Popping Trees (December) in 1890 leaving only a few survivors out of some 300 souls? It all started with a plan by the U.S. Government to "solve" the problem of the Indians beginning with the theft of their land and ending with the murder of their culture.
Thinking the territory useless, the U.S. Government signed a treaty in1868 promising "…the North Platte River was to be 'set asid...
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...hat those soldiers really felt threatened by a bunch of sad and beaten starving old men, women and children. Though not officially called a massacre at the time, the horrible crime committed by the U.S. military on that day has been recognized and memorialized. As a visitor to the monument at Wounded Knee Creek in 1977, I can say that all that inhabits the solitary beauty of the praire around the Creek is the wind which seems to carry the voices of the slain innocents as it cries wistfully over the plains.
Works Cited
Andrist, Ralph K. The Long Death: the Last Days of the Plains Indian. New York, New York: Collier-Macmillan, 1964.
Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West. New York, New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970.
Cooke, David C. Fighting Indians of America. Cornwall, New York: The Cornwall Press, 1966.
Panzeri, Peter. 1995. Little Big Horn 1876: Custer's Last Stand. 8th Ed. New York, NY: Osprey Publishing.
Epple J. C. (1970). Custer’s battle of the Washita and A history of the Plains Indian Tribes
There are three parts in West’s book; the first part focuses on the sociological, ecological and economic relationships of the plains Indians, starting with the first establish culture of North America, the Clovis peoples. Going into extensive detail pertaining to early geology and ecology, West gives us a glimpse into what life on the early plains must have looked to early peoples. With vastly differing flora and fauna to what we know today, the early plains at the end of the first ice age, were a different place and lent itself to a diverse way of life. The Clovis peoples were accomplished hunters, focusing on the abundance of Pleistocene megafauna such as earlier, larger forms of bison. Though, little human remains were found, evidence of their s...
The United States vows to protect the democratic South Korea. American forces defend South Korea but are almost pushed on the peninsula . Douglas Mccarthur is in charge of the American forces. He stages an impressive counter attack that pushes the North Koreans all the way back to China. This is when China enters the warand pushes American forces back to the 38Th parallel. In 1953 , the war ended In a stalemate. (document C)
The Korean War began when the North Koreans invaded South Korea across the 38th parallel on June 25, 1950. The North Korean forces fought their way to Pusan at the southern edge of the Korean peninsula. With the North Koreans controlling most of the peninsula, General Douglas MacArthur landed an amphibious assault at Inchon on September 15, 1950 and wrested control of South Korea from North Korean forces. After MacArthur’s forces marched to the northern border of Korea, China entered the war. After a major Chinese attack and a major American counter attack, the front of the war had a new stage, the Chosin Reservoir (Henretta, Edwards & Self 768).
"On September 25, 1990, hearings were conducted in the United States Senate by the Select Committee on Indian Affairs regarding the historical circumstances surrounding the Wounded Knee Massacre" (United States). As a result, Senate Congressional Resolution 153 (1989-1990) was passed. The following are excerpts from that resolution: "Whereas the Sioux people who are descendants of the victims and survivors of the Wounded Knee Massacre have been striving to reconcile and, in a culturally appropriate manner, to bring to an end their 100 years of grieving for the tragedy of December 29, 1890 ... which brought to a close an era in the history of this country ... characterized by an official government policy of forcibly removing the Indian tribes and bands from the path of westward expansion and settlement through placement on reservations.... Now therefore be it resolved by the Senate, that, 1) the Congress, on the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the Wounded Knee Massacre of December 29, 1890, hereby acknowledges the historical significance of this event as the last armed conflict of the Indian wars period resulting in the tragic death and injury of approximately 350-375 Indian men, women, and children of Chief Big Foot 's band of Minneconjou Sioux and hereby expresses its deep regret on behalf of the United States to the descendants of the victims
C., Wallace, Anthony F. Long, bitter trail Andrew Jackson and the Indians. Ed. Eric Foner. New York: Hill and Wang, 1993. Print.
The governmental leaders of the United States of America began implementing Indian policies from its inception. As Euro-Americans they expected all non-whites in the U.S. to assimilate into a Euro-American (Christian) lifestyle, without reciprocation or sympathy to the traditions and history of our native people. Our founding fathers and subsequent leaders of the United States at varying times have used suppression, segregation, aggression, and assimilation to manage what they perceived as an Indian problem, and civilize them. The native peoples of North America have responded to these actions by, at times, complying with the U.S. government and allowing themselves to be relocated to other areas of the country leaving behind their ancestral
Examination of Indian policy in Frank Linderman’s Pretty-Shield: Medicine Women of the Crows help to make sense after disappearing of Buffalo by depicting a vanishing population which sometimes is referred as vanishing Red Man. In this case, the Crow people are compared with disappearing people in that after the disappearance of the buffalo; The Crow people lost their hopes and their spirits crushed. The Crow faced constraints by the United States government. The American agents also pestered the Crow people. This made them lose their land, and their cultural practices were limited (Grace Stone
Growing up Black Elk and his friends were already playing the games of killing the whites and they waited impatiently to kill and scalp the first Wasichu, and bring the scalp to the village showing how strong and brave they were. One could only imagine what were the reasons that Indians were bloody-minded and brutal to the whites. After seeing their own villages, where...
...nd innocent villagers of My Lai, it was a time when American’s questioned their own as being “bad guys” or “good guys”. Were America’s tortuous and cruel acts to be considered patriotic or dishonorable? Some Americans, with bitter feelings for all the American lives lost in the Vietnam War, gave credit to Lieutenant Calley for leading troops in participating in such an atrocious event. History shows that there is still much debate on some facts of the massacre and many stories and opinions, although we will never know the facts exactly, what we do know is that America will never forget this tragic event, it will be talked about in American History for many years to come, and the Vietminh hearts will always fill with sadness when they think of the many lives that were lost on that tragic day in history, their minds will always have unspeakable memories of that day.
of Native American Culture as a Means of Reform,” American Indian Quarterly 26, no. 1
According to Deloria, there are many misconceptions pertaining to the Indians. He amusingly tells of the common White practice of ...
Although the work is 40 years old, “Custer Died for Your Sins” is still relevant and valuable in explaining the history and problems that Indians face in the United States. Deloria’s book reveals the White view of Indians as false compared to the reality of how Indians are in real life. The forceful intrusion of the U.S. Government and Christian missionaries have had the most oppressing and damaging affect on Indians. There is hope in Delorias words though. He believes that as more tribes become more politically active and capable, they will be able to become more economically independent for future generations. He feels much hope in the 1960’s generation of college age Indians returning to take ownership of their tribes problems and build a better future for their children.
...h Korea, was a battle that had no real outcome. Lives were lost and buildings were destroyed but there was no resolution that had settled the ongoing tension between both nations. The Battle of Incheon and the Battle of the Kapyong were two significant battles that turned the tide of the war towards one direction, through strategic fighting and with the help of allied countries that involved the United Nations, China and the Soviet Union. Many lives were affected as a result of this battle and it also was a vital advancement for the United Nations as the War allowed them to prosper. Despite the fact that the pressure between South and North Korea had not yet settled, both nations had learnt a great dealt from the War. Coming to understand the war fully, it is vital that we view the events both prior and after the war so that the War itself can be viewed as a whole.