{"id":1662,"date":"2019-08-01T08:40:37","date_gmt":"2019-08-01T08:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/?page_id=1662"},"modified":"2019-08-01T08:40:37","modified_gmt":"2019-08-01T08:40:37","slug":"turning-hawk-and-american-horse-on-the-wounded-knee-massacre-1890-1891","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/17-conquering-the-west\/turning-hawk-and-american-horse-on-the-wounded-knee-massacre-1890-1891\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning Hawk and American Horse on the Wounded Knee Massacre (1890\/1891)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On February 11, 1891, a Sioux delegation met with the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington D.C. and gave their account of the Wounded Knee Massacre six weeks prior.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turning Hawk: <\/strong>\u2026 These people were coming toward Pine Ridge agency, and\nwhen they were almost on the agency they were met by the soldiers and surrounded\nand finally taken to the Wounded Knee creek, and there at a given time their\nguns were demanded. When they had delivered them up, the men were separated from\ntheir families, from their tipis, and taken to a certain spot. When the guns\nwere thus taken and the men thus separated, there was a crazy man, a young man\nof very bad influence and in fact a nobody, among that bunch of Indians fired\nhis gun, and of course the firing of a gun must have been the breaking of a\nmilitary rule of some sort, because immediately the soldiers returned fire and\nindiscriminate killing followed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026<\/strong>All the men who were in a\nbunch were killed right there, and those who escaped that first fire got into\nthe ravine, and as they went along up the ravine for a long distance they were\npursued on both sides by the soldiers and shot down, as the dead bodies showed\nafterwards. The women were standing off at a different place from where the men\nwere stationed, and when the firing began, those of the men who escaped the\nfirst onslaught went in one direction up the ravine, and then the women, who\nwere bunched together at another place, went entirely in a different direction\nthrough an open field, and the women fared the same fate as the men who went up\nthe deep ravine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

American Horse:<\/strong> The men were separated, as has already been said,\nfrom the women, and they were surrounded by the soldiers. Then came next the\nvillage of the Indians and that was entirely surrounded by the soldiers also. When\nthe firing began, of course the people who were standing immediately around the\nyoung man who fired the first shot were killed right together, and then they\nturned their guns, Hotchkiss guns, etc., upon the women who were in the lodges\nstanding there under a flag of truce, and of course as soon as they were fired\nupon they fled, the men fleeing in one direction and the women running in two\ndifferent directions. So that there were three general directions in which they\ntook flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was a woman with an infant in her arms who was killed\nas she almost touched the flag of truce, and the women and children of course\nwere strewn all along the circular village until they were dispatched. Right\nnear the flag of truce a mother was shot down with her infant; the child not\nknowing that its mother was dead was still nursing, and that especially was a\nvery sad sight. The women as they were fleeing with their babes were killed\ntogether, shot right through, and the women who were very heavy with child were\nalso killed. All the Indians fled in these three directions, and after most all\nof them had been killed a cry was made that all those who were not killed or\nwounded should come forth and they would be safe. Little boys who were not\nwounded came out of their places of refuge, and as soon as they came in sight a\nnumber of soldiers surrounded them and butchered them there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course we all feel very sad about this affair. I stood\nvery loyal to the government all through those troublesome days, and believing\nso much in the government and being so loyal to it, my disappointment was very\nstrong, and I have come to Washington with a very great blame on my heart. Of\ncourse it would have been all right if only the men were killed; we would feel\nalmost grateful for it. But the fact of the killing of the women, and more\nespecially the killing of the young boys and girls who are to go to make up the\nfuture strength of the Indian people, is the saddest part of the whole affair\nand we feel it very sorely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was not there at the time before the burial of the\nbodies, but I did go there with some of the police and the Indian doctor and a\ngreat many of the people, men from the agency, and we went through the\nbattlefield and saw where the bodies were from the track of the blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turning Hawk: <\/strong>I had just reached the point where I said that the women were\nkilled. We heard, besides the killing of the men, of the onslaught also made\nupon the women and children, and they were treated as roughly and\nindiscriminately as the men and boys were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course this affair brought a great deal of distress upon\nall the people, but especially upon the minds of those who stood loyal to the\ngovernment and who did all that they were able to do in the matter of bringing\nabout peace. They especially have suffere     d\nmuch distress and are very much hurt at heart. \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: \u201cAccount Given by Indians of the Fight at Wounded\nKnee Creek,\u201d in United States Department of the Interior. Annual Report of the Department of the Interior<\/em>, Vol. 2 (Washington,\nD.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1892), 179-181. Available online via Google\nBooks (https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=S2EvAQAAMAAJ<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On February 11, 1891, a Sioux delegation met with the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Washington D.C. and gave their account of the Wounded Knee Massacre six weeks prior. Turning Hawk: \u2026 These people were coming toward Pine Ridge agency, and when they were almost on the agency they were met by the soldiers and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":368,"menu_order":5,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1662","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1662"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1663,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1662\/revisions\/1663"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/reader\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}