Native Culture Spirit

The Native face in the mountain showed up just like it always does when it snows!
Maryville, Tennessee at the foot of Chilhowee Mountain.
Via Mary B. Thomas

Chief Running Rabbit
Aatsista-Mahkan or Running Rabbit (c. 1833 – probably 24 January 1911) was a chief of the Siksika First Nation. He was the son of Akamukai (Many Swans), chief of the Biters band, and following the death of his father in 1871, Aatsista-Mahkan took control of the band. He was known for his generosity and kindness, and for his loyal protection of his family.
In 1877 , he was a signatory to Treaty 7, but he and his people continued to follow the bison until 1881, when he and his people were designated to settle on a reserve, 60 miles east of today's Calgary, Alberta.
Running Rabbit was born into a prominent family. His older brother Many Swans, who took their father's name, was chief of Biters band of Siksikas to which they belonged. As a teenager and young warrior, Running Rabbit had not performed any great deeds worthy of recognition until his brother lent him an amulet said to have spiritual powers made from a mirror decorated with eagle feathers, ermine skins, and magpie feathers. Running Rabbit was successful during his first ever raid as a warrior, gaining himself two enemy horses which he captured and gifted to Many Swans. Similar success during following expeditions resulted in Many Swans giving Running Rabbit the amulet as a gift. Word of Running Rabbit's success spread throughout the Biters band and many referred to him as the "young chief" before he earned or was appointed any leadership position in the band.

Catecahassa or Black Hoof (c. 1740–1831) was the head civil chief of the Shawnee Indians in the Ohio Country of what became the United States. A member of the Mekoche division of the Shawnees, Black Hoof became known as a fierce warrior during the early wars between the Shawnee and Anglo- American colonists. Black Hoof claimed to have been present at the Battle of the Monongahela in 1755, when General Edward Braddock was defeated during the French and Indian War, although there is no contemporary evidence that Shawnees took part in that battle.
Little documentary evidence of Black Hoof's life appears in the historical record before 1795. He probably took part in the Battle of Point Pleasant during Lord Dunmore's War against the Virginia militia in 1774. During the American Revolutionary War, he may have taken part in the siege of Boonesborough in 1778, which was led by Chief Blackfish, as well as the subsequent defense of the Shawnee village of Chillicothe in 1779. In the Northwest Indian War, Black Hoof was defeated by "Mad" Anthony Wayne and, following the collapse of the Indian confederation, surrendered in 1795.
Like Little Turtle of the Miamis, Black Hoof decided that American Indians needed to adapt culturally to the ways of the whites in order to prevent decimation through warfare. During his later years, Black Hoof became an ally of the United States and was responsible for keeping the majority of the Shawnee nation from joining "Tecumseh's War", which became part of the War of 1812.
Black Hoof resisted the policy of Indian removal that the United States implemented soon after the War of 1812. He never signed a removal treaty, and continued to lead his tribe until his death in Saint Johns, Ohio in 1831. After his death, the Shawnee were eventually compelled to emigrate to the West.

Joseph White Cow Bull (Cheyenne) being painted by Artist David Humphreys Miller. Circa 1938. White Cow Bull was a survivor of the Battle of a Little Big Horn.
Mr Miller found 72 survivors of the battle. He learned their language, 13 in all, and ended up painting all 72. He also collected their stories and wrote a book, “Custer’s Fall, The Indian side of the Story.”
He also wrote a book called “Ghost Dance” about Wounded Knee.
While talking to Joseph White Cow Bull, he was told what happened during the battle. White Cow Bull never said he shot Custer, but from the description of the battle, the Horse the rider was on and corroboration from the others he spoke to, he determined it was Joseph White Cow Bull that shot Custer early in the fight. The horse the rider was on had 4 white stockings and Custer’s horse was the only horse with those markings.

This is Matrix movie star Keanu Reeves. He was abandoned by his father at 3 years old and grew up with 3 different stepfathers. He is dyslexic. His dream of becoming a hockey player was shattered by a serious accident. His daughter died at birth. His wife died in a car accident. His best friend, River Phoenix, died of an overdose. His sister battled leukemia.
No bodyguards, no luxury houses. Keanu lives in an ordinary apartment and likes wandering around town and often seen riding a subway in NYC.
When he was filming the movie "The Lake House," he overheard the conversation of two costume assistants, one crying as he would lose his house if he did not pay $20,000 - On the same day, Keanu deposited the necessary amount in his bank account. In his career, he has donated large sums to hospitals including $75 million of his earnings from “The Matrix” to charities.
In 2010, on his birthday, Keanu walked into a bakery & bought a brioche with a single candle, ate it in front of the bakery, and offered coffee to people who stopped to talk to him.
In 1997 some paparazzi found him walking one morning in the company of a homeless man in Los Angeles, listening to him and sharing his life for a few hours.
In life, sometimes the ones most broken from inside are the ones most willing to help others.
This man could buy everything, and instead every day he gets up and chooses one thing that cannot be bought;
To be a caring person.
❤️I think you will be proud to wear this T-shirt❤️ >>> https://www.nativeamericanworld.shop/ntv-d2

I don't know why this hasn't received more publicity, but this fifty-foot sculpture was unveiled recently in South Dakota.
It's called 'Dignity' and was done by artist Dale Lamphere to honor the women of the Sioux Nation.

History of the Jingle Dress Dance
The Jingle Dress Dance began with the Mille Lacs Band of the Ojibwe Tribe in the early 1900s and became prevalent in the 1920s in Wisconsin and Minnesota (Great Lakes region) in the US and in Ontario, Canada.
The story is that the dress was first seen in a dream. A medicine man’s granddaughter grew sick, and as the man slept his Indian spirit guides came to him and told him to make a Jingle Dress for the little girl. They said if the child danced in it, the dress would heal her. The Jingle Dress was made, and the tribe came together to watch the child dance. At first, the child was too sick to dance alone so her tribe carried her, but after some time, the little girl was able to dance alone, cured of her sickness.
The dance has since been not only a ritual of healing but also one of pride.
What Do Jingle Dresses Look Like?
Jingle Dresses, also known as Prayer Dresses, are believed to bring healing to those who are sick. As mentioned above, the dance gets its name from the rows of ziibaaska’iganan (metal cones) sewed to the dress. These cones are traditionally made from rolled s***f can lids and hung from the dress with ribbon close to one another, so they make a melodic sound as the girls and women dance. Traditionally, the dress is adorned with 365 visible jingles, or cones. Nowadays, these cones are often machine-made.
The dresses come in every color imaginable, from yellow to bright blue, to deep red, and accented with sparkles and even neon-colored fabrics. They are often made with shiny and sparkly materials and decorated with fringes, embroidery, beading, and more.
They usually have three-quarter length to full-length sleeves and come down to mid-calf or the ankle. They are secured at the waist with a thick belt, often made of brown leather. On their feet, the dancer wears decorative moccasins embellished with the same kind of detail found on their dresses.
What are the steps for the Jingle Dance?
As the ziibaaska’iganan hit one another it sounds like rain falling, so it’s important for the dancer to be light on their feet, to move in time with the drum and stop when the beat stops. They keep their foot movements low to the ground while dancing, kicking their heels and bouncing on their toes to the music. Typically, this dance is done in a zigzag pattern, said to represent one’s journey through life—or so the story goes. Often, they keep their hands on their hips, and if they are dancing with a feathered fan (full of neutral colors, like eagle feathers) as the more modern Jingle Dress Dancers do, they will raise it into the air as they dance to receive healing.
The traditional Indian dance involves low, soft-footed steps, as could be performed by those who were sick, while the modern competitive dancers push the boundaries some as they try to out-dance their competitors. The manner in which the dance has evolved has built firmly on its origin story.
What are the songs and music for Jingle Dance?
The music for this style of dancing has a foundation of a solid drumbeat, and of course, the metal cones make a loud jingling (hence the name) as the women move, which contributes to the music you’ll hear at a Jingle Dress Dance. Jingle Dancers will usually dance to Northern drum groups. Special songs for Jingle Dance include a Side Step or Crow Hop.

"Dragging Canoe, a Cherokee warrior and leader of the Chickamaugas, was born in one of the Overhill towns on the Tennessee River. He was the son of Attakullakulla, a Cherokee diplomat. He was recognized as the greatest Cherokee military leader, and from a young age, he wanted to be a warrior. He earned the name ""Dragging Canoe"" after he dragged a canoe as a young boy to prove his strength to his father.

Dragging Canoe became the head warrior of the Overhill town of Malaquo and fought against white settlers who were encroaching on Indian land. He worked to achieve their removal and planned a three-pronged attack against them. However, the Cherokees suffered heavy losses and were ultimately defeated.

Despite many Cherokee leaders arguing against further fighting, Dragging Canoe refused to submit. He established new towns on Chickamauga Creek in the winter of 1776-77 and formed the Chickamauga group, which included discontented members of various tribes. They fought the 1781 ""Battle of the Bluffs"" near Fort Nashborough and defeated American army troops when they invaded the Chickamauga towns in 1788.

As he aged, Dragging Canoe became a diplomat and worked to preserve Cherokee culture and establish an alliance with the Creeks and Shawnees. In 1791, a federation of Indian forces defeated General Arthur St. Clair, governor of the Northwest Territory. Shortly after a diplomatic mission with the Chickasaws, Dragging Canoe died on March 1, 1792, in the town of Running Water, one of the towns he had helped to found."

Graham Greene is an Oneida Native American actor from Canada. He is known for his roles in notable films, such as The Green Mile, Thunderheart, Wind River and Dances with Wolves. He was even nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Dances with Wolves. He was born in Ohsweken, a Six Nations (Iroquois) Reserve in Ontario, but later moved to Hamilton where he got a lot of experience with the entertainment industry. Graham started work as an audio technician and later graduated from the Toronto-based Centre for Indigenous Theatre's Native Theatre School program in 1974. He made his TV debut in an episode of The Great Detective in 1979, and his first movie role in Running Brave (1983). Graham played many Native Americans in movies, such as Ishi (The Last of His Tribe), Walter Crow Horse (Thunderheart), Arlen Bitterbuck (The Green Mile), Sitting Bull (Historica). He also narrated Tecumseh! and voiced the Native American elder Chief Rains Fall in the video game Red Dead Redemption 2. In 1997 he suffered from a major depressive episode (MDE) and was hospitalized, but was soon back on his feet after help from Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. Graham also won a Grammy in the category Best Spoken Word Album for Children.
❤️I think you will be proud to wear this T-shirt❤️ >>> https://www.nativeamericanworld.shop/gun1

Geronimo Is Last Native Warrior to Surrender
This Date in Native History: On September 4, 1886, the great Apache warrior Geronimo surrendered in Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, after fighting for his homeland for almost 30 years. He was the last American Indian warrior to formally surrender to the United States.
Born in June 1829 near the Gila River in Arizona, Geronimo was a mild-mannered youth, said Mark Megehee, museum specialist at the Fort Sill Museum in Oklahoma. His birth name was Goyalkla or “One Who Yawns.”
At age 17, Geronimo married Alope, with whom he had three children. His life changed in 1858 when a company of Mexican soldiers led by Colonel Jose Maria Carrasco attacked the Apaches and murdered Geronimo’s wife, mother and children.
“Carrasco said he struck and meant to rub out every man, woman and child of the Apaches, but the warriors by and large escaped while their families were the ones that were slaughtered,” said Megehee, a member of the Sac and Fox Nation of Oklahoma. “That changed the personality of Geronimo. His friends noticed he was no longer mild and pleasant to deal with. He was unexpectedly violent and had a temper. He became very grieving, but he was going to settle the score.”
In his own words, translated in 1909 and published in the 1996 book Geronimo: His Own Story, Geronimo described the incident.
“I found that my aged mother, my young wife, and my three small children were among the slain,” he said. “There were no lights in camp, so without being noticed I silently turned away and stood by the river. How long I stood there I do not know, but when I saw the warriors arranging for a council I took my place.”
Only 80 warriors remained, so the chief directed survivors to return home to Arizona, Geronimo said. He had “no purpose left” because he “had lost all.”
“I was never again contented in our quiet home,” he wrote. “I had vowed vengeance upon the Mexican troopers who had wronged me, and whenever I came near (my father’s) grave or saw anything to remind me of former happy days my heart would ache for revenge upon Mexico.”
Geronimo went on to lead a band of Apache warriors throughout southern Arizona and New Mexico, successfully keeping white settlers off Apache lands for decades and becoming a “symbol of the untamed freedom of the American West.”
“He was not just a tough guy, but he had leadership abilities,” Megehee said. “He looked out for men, women and children in a way that all their needs were met. Geronimo did more with less. In today’s vocabulary, he multiplied his force by stealth, by firepower and by mobility.”
“I was never again contented in our quiet home,” he wrote. “I had vowed vengeance upon the Mexican troopers who had wronged me, and whenever I came near (my father’s) grave or saw anything to remind me of former happy days my heart would ache for revenge upon Mexico.”
Geronimo went on to lead a band of Apache warriors throughout southern Arizona and New Mexico, successfully keeping white settlers off Apache lands for decades and becoming a “symbol of the untamed freedom of the American West.”
“He was not just a tough guy, but he had leadership abilities,” Megehee said. “He looked out for men, women and children in a way that all their needs were met. Geronimo did more with less. In today’s vocabulary, he multiplied his force by stealth, by firepower and by mobility.”

Two Guns White Calf (1872-1934)

Two Guns, the last Chief of the Pikuni Blackfoot Indians, was also known as John Two Guns and John White Calf. A widely held belief, by some historians, is that Chief Two Guns was the main model for the Indian Nickel. The Chief headed a secret group known as the “Mad Dog Society” whose purpose was to protect and sustain the Blackfoot Heritage. Chief Two Guns was very outspoken about US policies and the mistreatment of Native Americans. The Government, at the time, feared that Chief Two Guns might incite the Blackfoot warriors to a confrontation in order regain their lands, thus painting the Chief in a not so favorable light. The story was spread by US Officials that his image was not on the coin, attributing the likeness to a composite of three Native Americans: Two Moons, Big Tree and Iron Trail. Chief Two Guns was a publicity representative for the Northern Pacific Railroad and a local fixture for the tourists at Glacier National Park. He was a great statesman working for the Native American rights with Presidents and other key figures.

"Sioux Chief Long Wolf & Family", ca. 1880.
~ “A Stranger Hears Last Wish of a Sioux Chief
Long Wolf went to London with Buffalo Bill's show and died there in 1892. Thanks to the struggles of a British homemaker, his remains will be returned home.”

May 28, 1997 |WILLIAM D. MONTALBANO
TIMES STAFF WRITER
BROMSGROVE, England — “After a restless century in a melancholy English graveyard, the remains--and the spirit--of a Sioux chief named Long Wolf are returning to his ancestral home in America because one stranger cared.

The stranger is a 56-year-old English homemaker named Elizabeth Knight, who lives in a small row house with her husband, Peter, a roof repairer in this Worcestershire village near Birmingham.

"I am a very ordinary sort of person," she said.

The sort who writes letters, not e-mail, who makes no long-distance phone calls, has no fancy degrees, has little worldly experience, who never gets her name in the papers. The sort who turns detective and historian and raises a transatlantic fuss because her heart is moved and her sense of fair play is outraged.

This is the story of how heirs of Middle England and the Wild West have joined forces to fulfill a dying wish made more than a century ago.

For Knight, the story began the day in 1991 that she bought an old book in a market near her house. There was a 1923 story by a Scottish adventurer named R. B. Cunninghame Graham that began this way: "In a lone corner of a crowded London cemetery, just at the end of a smoke-stained Greco-Roman colonnade under a poplar tree, nestles a neglected grave."

In the grave, under a stylized cross and the howling image of his namesake, lies Long Wolf. He died at 59 in a London hospital on June 11, 1892, the victim of bronchial pneumonia contracted in what was then a crowded, dark, gloomy, industrial city as far as anywhere on Earth from the Great Plains of North America.

"I was moved. I kept taking the book down, imagining Long Wolf lying there amid the ranks of pale faces, the grave desolate and unkempt. It was so sad I said to myself, 'I have to do something,' " Knight said.

She went looking for his grave.

Long Wolf died in Victorian England, when the sun never set on the Union Jack. London was the capital of a great empire and an international magnet for capital, knowledge--and curiosities like what Britons knew as "red Indians" to distinguish them from more commonly seen natives of India.

In the 19th century, British explorers, traders, naturalists and adventurers prowled the world. They stole rubber plants from the Amazon, shipped back strange beasts for London zoos and crated archeological treasures from ancient civilizations.

Fallout of the empire, such as the imminent return of colony Hong Kong to China, is a lingering fixture of British life today.

This month, a new British government refused Greece's demands for the famous Elgin Marbles, classical sculptures removed from the Parthenon in Athens by a 19th century British ambassador. Last week, Britain also rebuffed an Australian aborigine supported by his government who demanded the return of an ancestor's severed head, brought to England as a trophy at the dawn of the Victorian era.

Usually, it is foreign governments and institutions with special interests who rake through Britain's past. What makes Long Wolf's case so remarkable is that it was waged as the crusade of one British homemaker.

Family legend says that Long Wolf, an Oglala Sioux, fought at Little Bighorn and in later battles. A British physician, one Dr. Coffin, remarked on the scars from saber and bullet wounds on the body of a man formally identified on his burial certificate as Schoongamoneta Hoska (Wolf Long).

It was not as a warrior, though, but as a performer that Long Wolf came to England. It is unclear exactly when he joined, but by 1892, he was chief of the Sioux braves who noisily, dramatically and profitably lost all the battles--two performances a day--in Col. William Cody's Wild West Show.

Cody may have started as a buffalo hunter, but he ended as a consummate showman, star and impresario for a show that toured more than 1,000 cities across the United States and Europe for nearly three decades. Buffalo Bill's romanticized vision of the American West became the international stereotype, eventually borrowed whole cloth by infant Hollywood in the early days of this century.

The Sioux were Cody's principal foils for many of those years and among them he found friends. In comparison to the hardships they might have found on their reservations on the Plains, he offered them a life of relative comfort and adventure.

There are photos of Cody's Sioux troupers--like Long Wolf--in Venetian gondolas; one contemporary account tells how a London performance of Goethe's dark drama "Faust" left them "greatly scared at its horrors."

Cody brought his troupe to England for the first time in 1887 during jubilee celebrations marking Queen Victoria's 50th anniversary on the throne. A special grandstand big enough for 40,000 spectators along an arena 1,200 feet long was built on a 23-acre site at Earl's Court served by three Underground stations. A Daily Telegraph reviewer called the 1887 shows "an exact reproduction of the scenes of fierce frontier life, vividly illustrated by the real people."

Long Wolf went to London with Buffalo Bill's show and died there in 1892. Thanks to the struggles of a British homemaker, his remains will be returned home.

Victoria was First Fan, telling trick shooter Annie Oakley after one special performance, "You are a very, very clever little girl." Her Majesty was amused, she confided to her diary, at the way "wild painted red Indians on their wild ba****ck horses of different tribes [sic] . . . all came tearing round at full speed shrieking and screaming which had the weirdest effect."

"Attack on the Deadwood Stage" was always a showstopper. And how lucky that Wild Bill was able to drive off Sioux marauders one afternoon when the imperiled stagecoach carried a royal flush: the kings of Belgium, Denmark, Greece and Saxony, and the Prince of Wales.

Chief Long Wolf was the oldest performer for the 1892 season, when Cody's 200-member troupe, complete with 100 Texas ponies, included almost 100 Indian warriors, among them 11 Sioux "prisoners of war" released by the U.S. government to his custody.

It is 117 miles from Bromsgrove to London, but it can seem much farther if you venture from a suburban village to a 40-acre London cemetery where there are 200,000 graves.

Elizabeth Knight took walking shoes, many questions and plenty of patience to the graveyard on May 1, 1992. The poplar tree was gone and so was his name from the rough white stone.

But the neophyte historian eventually found Long Wolf's grave, confirming it in cemetery records. Still visible is the image of a lone wolf--just like the one the chief sketched as his epitaph before he died.

Knight remembers standing by the grave and silently vowing that she would find the forgotten chief's family. She has read about the American West for many years, and she knows some things.

"It was the custom to return a body home because the Sioux believe that otherwise a person's spirit wanders without rest," Knight said firmly amid years of research in her living room in Bromsgrove.

His descendants say that as Long Wolf's illness worsened and he realized that he would die, he told his wife, Wants, that he wanted to be buried at home. Nonetheless, he ruled out any attempt to take his body back: Three Sioux had died on the voyage to Europe and were buried at sea; Long Wolf believed that a sea burial would mean his spirit would wander forever, his descendants say.

In the end, it fell to Cody to do what could be done for a chief whose people were a mainstay of his show.

"Bill said he would take care of Long Wolf, and he did," Knight said.

Long Wolf was laid to rest at 10:30 a.m. June 13, 1892, in a grave that Cody had purchased for the princely sum of 23 pounds and three shillings in the fashionable "grand circle" at Brompton Cemetery. Cemetery Supt. Murdo MacMillan says Long Wolf was buried a prestigious 13 feet under. In those days, when there were 20 shillings to a pound, a British worker earned about one pound a week and spectators paid one to four shillings to see the Wild West Show.

After finding Long Wolf's grave, Knight began to search for his family with Holmesian zeal and the help of George Georgson, who publishes the quarterly magazine American Indian Review in London.

From Bromsgrove, Knight spread the news to societies and journals in America that a Sioux chief lay unclaimed in London. She heard nothing for a long time and began to believe that she never would. Then one day in 1993, her mail campaign paid off. "I remember that when the letter came one Saturday morning after months of silence, I was really surprised. It was a magic moment," Knight said.

John Black Feather, a great-grandson of Long Wolf, read of Knight's quest in a South Dakota newspaper. Long Wolf's family was as eager to find the old chief as Knight was to reunite them.

"Mrs. Knight is a blessing for us. My mother, Jessie, is 87, and all these years she's been trying to find Long Wolf," said Black Feather, 60, who ranches buffalo on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

"My mother's mother, Lizzie Long Wolf, was in London, about 12 years old, when Long Wolf lay dying. She heard him say how much he would like to come home, but there was no way at the time," Black Feather said by phone. "Medicine men and holy men say that the spirit doesn't rest until the body is brought home. My mother believes it too."

The family knew that Long Wolf had been buried in London, his great-grandson said, but that was scant comfort. "We checked it out and found London was a big town. There must be so many cemeteries. We had no money to go over there, and we didn't know how to go about tracking a body down. Suppose it wasn't a marked grave?" asked Black Feather, a retired mechanic who spends his winters in Tempe, Ariz.

In fall 1993, Knight and her husband visited Long Wolf's family at Pine Ridge, bringing soil from the grave. A few months later, great-granddaughters Martha and Mary Ann Black Feather visited their ancestor's grave.

Now, a long paper and money chase is at last ending. Knight and Georgson organized the fund-raising. There were evenings of song and readings in the Bromsgrove library. Black Feather won official permission to return the remains to America.

This month, Georgson, acting as expediter here in Britain, received final approvals for transport and exhumation from the British government and the Archdiocese of London, which is responsible for the cemetery.

Knight is quietly amazed at the international flurry. "I had no idea it would escalate so," she marveled.

Organizer Georgson is counting the days. Some sponsors remain to be found. But a London funeral director has volunteered to exhume Long Wolf, an American airline says it will fly the remains home without cost, and Black Feather says he has an offer of transportation to London for the family, tribal leaders and a shaman.

"This summer the family will be able to come to take Long Wolf home at last," Georgson said.

Long Wolf will be reburied at Wolf Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

"This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing, isn't it?" said Knight, who will join her Sioux acquaintances in London to witness the first steps in Long Wolf's last journey.

"Hou, kola." Hello, friend.

That is how she will greet Long Wolf's kin, for Knight is the only homemaker in Bromsgrove who is studying the Sioux language to better reach out to Americans whose lives she has already touched so deeply.

WOUNDED KNEE - 1890
In the late 1880s, the Paiute Shaman Wovoka gave the American Indians of the Great Plains some much needed hope. He taught that the traditional ways of the Native Americans could return. The spirits of the dead would return, the buffalo would come back and a tidal wave of soil would bury the whites and restore the prairie. In order to bring theses events to pass, dancers needed to dance the Ghost Dance. The dancers would wear brightly colored shirts decorated with eagles and buffalos. The ghost shirts would protect the wearer from the bullets of the soldiers. Sitting Bull encouraged the Ghost Dance religion.
By 1890 white settlers and the Indian agents in charge of overseeing the reservation were fearful of the encouraged Native Americans. General Nelson A. Miles assembled an army of over 5,000 to contain the bands in the area. The government ordered that chiefs were to be arrested. While attempting to arrest Sitting Bull, troops killed the famous Lakota chief.
Upon hearing about the death of Sitting Bull, Chief Big Foot and approximately 300 of his band headed south, seeking the protection of the Pine Ridge Reservation. Col. James W. Forsyth and his troops intercepted the group at Wounded Knee Creek. On the morning of December 29, 1890 Big Foot and his warriors were meeting with the Army officers. A shot rang out. The soldiers turned their rifles on the Native Americans. From the heights above, rapid-firing Hotchkiss guns were fired at the encampment. As the men, women and children fled, some into the ravine next to the camp, they were cut down in a cross-fire. Those not suffering that fate were chased by the soldiers and butchered. In all over 153 Sioux men women and children were massacred, 44 were wounded. Big Foot was among the dead.
The massacre effectively ended the Ghost Dance movement and was the last large encounter of the Indian Wars