Wounded Knee

• The Ghost Dance was a movement in 1890 initiated by a Paiute Indian named Wovoka
• Wovoka had a vision where the Great Spirit brought dead Indians back to life and a great flood would sweep the whites away
• The Ghost Dance spread rapidly and was seen as a threat by the white people
• The influence of Christianity began to work its way into Plains Indian spirituality through the Ghost Dance
• Sitting Bull was shot and killed during his arrest

  December 15, 1890
• Sitting Bull was arrested on suspicion of organizing an uprising of Ghost Dancers
• One of the Indian police ironically shot and killed Sitting Bull during his arrest
• After Sitting Bull's death, his followers fled south to join another refugee band led by Big Foot to continue the Ghost Dance
• The Ghost Dance was seen as a threat to the whites because it signified unity among the Indian peoples
• The Wounded Knee Massacre occurred on December 29, 1890, where around 250 Indians, mostly women and children, were massacred by the Seventh Cavalry
• The Wounded Knee Massacre was a one-sided clash between the US Army and the Indians
• Chief Big Foot and the Indian refugees were halted by the Seventh Cavalry, leading to the massacre
• The legacy of Wounded Knee is a significant concluding point in the story of relations between the Plains Indians and the US government
• Chief Big Foot is seen fallen into the snow in a photograph from the aftermath of the Wounded Knee Massacre
• The legacy of Wounded Knee has become a very important concluding point in the story of relations between the Plains Indians and the US government
• In the photograph at the top right, Chief Bigfoot has fallen into the snow and died, leaving his frozen body in a grotesque and unnatural pose
• The Ghost Dance reflected the desperate hope of the Indians that supernatural powers would save them, but they did not
• The Wounded Knee massacre reflected the fear of white people that the Indians would rise up after their terrible treatment, but after Wounded Knee, they could not rise up
• Most of the American public saw Wounded Knee as revenge for the Battle of the Little Bighorn and saw the Indians as savages that had to change or suffer the same fate as the Indians at Wounded Knee in 1890
• The Indian frontier was declared closed

  1890
• Nowhere in the US belonged to anyone but the United States of America
• The phrase "How the West was won" was probably won from the Plains Indians, and ultimately after the closure of the Indian frontier, the West was won
• The painting in the bottom right shows an idea of manifest destiny, with the Plains Indians, nature, and buffalo retreating while western civilization represented by settlers, farmers, railroads, and telegraphs taking over
• Manifest destiny was achieved with the conquering of the entire United States of America and the North American continent
• The Ghost Dance represented the desperation of the Indians, and Wounded Knee marked the end of any realistic Indian resistance
• The expansion west was considered complete with the Indian frontier closed, and manifest destiny had been achieved