“Twenty-five years ago, in the spring of 1973, hundreds of Indian people and their supporters went to the village of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. They intended make a powerful statement demanding an end to the murderous attacks by police and government agents, and demanding that the U.S. government honor its treaties granting Native people land and self-government.

The day after they arrived at Wounded Knee, they found themselves surrounded by an army of over 300 government forces–including agents of the FBI, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), U.S. Marshals, Justice Department and various local and state police.

The Indians refused to back down. They used weapons to defend themselves and held off the government forces for 71 days of siege.

The courage and militancy of the fighters at Wounded Knee grabbed the attention of people all over the world–and helped build powerful support for the struggle of Native peoples against the injustices of this system.

War, Broken Treaties and
the Massacre at Wounded Knee
The Lakota people (also known as the Sioux) had long hunted the northern plains, when European-American soldiers and settlers invaded these lands. The Lakota people and their Arapaho and Cheyenne allies fought back. Under the leadership of Red Cloud, they defeated the U.S. cavalry by 1868 in the Boseman Trail war. The U.S. government was forced to sign the Fort Laramie Treaty recognizing the right of the Lakota people to forever rule a large stretch of land surrounding the Black Hills–between the Missouri and North Platte rivers.

This treaty was quickly broken. Gold was discovered in the Black Hills. General George Custer’s cavalry was sent in to protect the prospectors who invaded Indian lands. Meanwhile, Euro-Americans systematically wiped out the buffalo–and destroyed the basis for traditional Lakota life. War broke out again in 1876 and the Northern Plains Indians were ultimately defeated–though not before killing Custer and his cavalry at Little Big Horn. The two great war leaders of the Lakota–Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull–were assassinated.

Then on December 29, 1890 at a place called Wounded Knee, U.S. soldiers brutally massacred 300 Sioux people of Big Foot’s band trying to flee to safety through the winter cold.

That same year, the last of the Lakota people were forced into concentration camps called “reservations.”" http://rwor.org/a/v19/950-59/952/wound.htm

Maybe no accident Israel and the US are allies? Still, in all the world, find one without sin, and they’ll hang him on a cross. We need a New Vision for ourselves, people. These ways are Bad Old Days.