Remember Wounded Knee - December 29, 1890

Poststructural Pub
1

A day to remember the great american holocaust.

Today is a day of mourning for the Sioux/Lakota.

http://www.dickshovel.com/WKmasscre.html
http://www.lastoftheindependents.com/wounded.htm
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/knee.htm
http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/acs/1890s/woundedknee/WKIntro.html
http://www.woundedkneemuseum.org/index.htm

2

May we never forget.

  • “The Pioneer has before declared that our only safety depends upon the total extermination of the Indians. Having wronged them for centuries, we had better, in order to protect our civilization, follow it up by one more wrong and wipe these untamed and untamable creatures from the face of the earth. In this lies future safety for our settlers and the soldiers who are under incompetent commands. Otherwise, we may expect future years to be as full of trouble with the redskins as those have been in the past.”

–L. Frank Baum, 3 January 1891

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In case any of you don’t know. L. Frank Baum is the writer of the book in which we get the “Wizard of Oz”.

Thanks Walden

4

I went through some of the links. Particularly the account of Beard.

It’s best that these things are remembered as the evil our ancestors did. Lest we fall into the same tragedy.

The solution offered by Mr. L. Frank Baum was actually practiced here in Australia on the aboriginal people of Tasmania - a team of soldiers and citizens made a killing line and sweapt from one end to the other - there was only one survivor.

There is no greater saddness.

5

there once lived an Arivaipa-Apache chief called Ekiminzin.
he wanted nothing but peace for his tribe, and he wanted to learn the white man’s ways. over 144 members of his tribe got slaughtered, nearly all women and children, 8 were grown men. this was near Camp Grant. even the President called it mass murder.
anyway, after this he still wanted to learn the white man’s ways and started a farm, again to be driven of his land and farm…
although most Natives wre forced to fight, there was no choice for them. http://www.desertusa.com/mag98/april/stories/campgrant1.html

let’s hope there’s some better education and and living quality on the reservations soon.

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Let’s hope for some better education off the reservations soon, as well.

7

true, and i hope everyone ll’get the same chance in school, education should be free.

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Many years ago, when I was still in grade school (and playing “Cowboys & Indians” was still a favorite pastime), my grandparents gave me a copy of the book Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. Reading that book opened my young mind to atrocities that had, up to that point in my life, been attributed only to the “Bad Guys” (such as Germany and Japan in WWII). Discovering that these atrocities had been committed by the government of my own country was when I realized the truth of the statement, “The victors write the history books.”

And so, though I have only a very little native blood in me, I mourn for all of those who have been exterminated in the name of “manifest destiny” or “progress” or whatever name greed and prejudice took at the particular time and place.

John

9

IMHO, every school aged child should read this book. At 10, reading my Dad’s copy, opened my young eyes. Of course, my Dad being a Cultural Anthropologist and spending quite a few years up north living with the native peoples there, also had a big impact on my mind.

Other books I read at that time were Black Elk Speaks and Custer Died For Your Sins.

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Was there really one survivor? I always thought there were none. Any information on that individual?
Robin

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The killing line was part of the “Black War” there were actually a few survivors - the last one to die was Truganini. The defilement of her people and herself continued long after her ultimate death.

http://www.abc.net.au/btn/australians/truganini.htm

The story of Truganini was taught to me in school at a time when there was more honesty on the planet.

I also recall the story of the New-England-Tableland massacres. There is a gourge called Dangar’s Falls - at this place white settlers drove the aboriginees to the edge where most elected to throw themselves over the thousand foot cliff. This event is remembered because 12 white settlers were tried and hanged for murder - the first time a white had been charged for killing natives.

12

That Baum statement is an interesting irony. I wonder if Gregory MacGuire, who wrote the book Wicked (on which the musical Wicked is based,) was aware of Baum’s sentiments when he rewrote the Oz story from the witch’s pov. It is very political, and casts the Wizard, not as a harmless humbug, but as an evil oppressor of the native populations–in this case, the talking animals.

It’s things like this that seriously degrade my ability to be all rah-rah about the U.S.of A. I support the political process, but, in consideration of U.S. history vis-a-vis several non-Euro ethnic groups, can’t feel my heart swell with the patriotic self-righteousness so dear to some.

But then, the history of almost any nation will contain atrocity.

13

That’s for sure, how many more things were we not taught?


Here’s another link: Wounded Knee,
A Wound That Won’t Heal http://www.dickshovel.com/hill.html

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Don’t despair Emm. It’s precisely these attrocities that goad us through the fire into maturity. I feel honoured to be able to shed a tear when i walk the honest blue of life’s rainbow - some find it hard to even look.

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Yep. It’s important to look.