Wounded Knee
During December 29, 1890, about five hundred American troops went out near Wounded Knee Creek, South Dakota to meet hundred of unarmed Lakota Sioux men, women, and children. Apart from the Sioux seemed outnumbered and demoralized, they also posed no threat to the solders and indicated no sign of resistance. However, the American went a head to open fire causing the death of about three hundred Sioux; the tragic event gaining a title Wounded Knee Massacre. Based on this, Heather Cox Richardson who was a historian tries to indicate that the origin of this event does not lay in the west but in Washington, where could the lawmakers be, entangled in a desperate midterm election battle, trying to gain votes using an old age political tool known as fear.
The details in the Heather Cox Richardson book forms the history of the 1890 massacre, a story that many of us can recall. About 300 Lakota Sioux died including men, women and children. That December morning sounded ironically to the 7th Calvary of...
In the 20th century the action was still interpreted to be a tale of righteous solders involved in acts of defense against savages. Not until come the racist lens that focused more on the interpretation to slowly dissolve that it was a massacre by solders that instead had the chance of accepting Sioux surrender. As Richardson indicates in his writing that the solders who pulled the trigger in South Dakota were simply delivering a sentence that was they could not determine but by politicians who were a thousand or further away from the cathedral clouds and rolling hills of the Great Plains. The question is who these politicians were and what was their intention?
Such question has been answered by Richardson with great insight that we wonder about a story we knew well. Among the first politician is President Harrison, and another person that comes up is Thomas Brackett Reed who was the House of Representatives boss; as well as to the Sherman brothers John and Willism Tecumesh. Among…
