Wounded Knee Massacre a police action?
By Professor Elizabeth Cook-Lynn
Native Sun News Today Columnist
“
The issue,” says a
city official about the most recent effort of the Sioux Oyate to try (again) to seek
justice for one of the most reviled crimes in history, the Wounded Knee Massacre, the issue is the “
ongoing and festering wound created by the awarding of the nation’s highest military honors for killing men and women and children during a police action on American soil.”
Taku? Taku? A POLICE ACTION? ON AMERICAN SOIL? No. It was not a police action. It was a deliberate and planned Military Action by the Seventh Cavalry of the U.S. Army.
Nor was it on American soil. The killing did not take place "on American soil" It took place on the sovereign lands of the Oglala Sioux , one of the seven bands of the Ocheti Shakowan, signers of a peace treaty with the U. S. Government, who had lived in the Northern Plains for centuries!
The Afraid of Hawk family, from left: Ke Ska Win (Mabel’s mother), Mabel (Lone Elk), Bertie Afraid of Hawk, Cain Afraid of Hawk and Richard Afraid of Hawk. Richard was a survivor of the Wounded Knee Massacre of 1890.
The sentence about what the issue is, though, summarizes much of the ongoing, local talk about this subject.
This history is a treacherous field for the average commentator, let alone for the professional historians over the past centuries, and many will have differing opinions. Denial of its intentions and actions by the United States during this period of history is relentless. Hundreds of books have been written on this matter and most of the writers have had a hard time coming to conclusions and/or agreements.
One thing there is agreement on, though, is that there has always been a problem in America in expressing the idea that what perpetrators of war crimes say about Indians and what Indians representing themselves in history say about themselves. The latest commentaries bring up the matter, again, of
who speaks for whom.
What to make of the “ongoing and festering issue” spoken of here (probably said in good faith) is shared by many observers in this city though it makes the whole affair sound like a case of the measles. Yet, when the commentator goes on record to support the revocation of the medals awarded to the Seventh Cavalry killers, he probably thinks he is putting his reputation on the line for going against the grain of oppositional folks in this community.
This commentator may be thought of by some readers as very brave in trying to represent both sides in this mostly non-Indian community but, frankly, there are no two sides to this mass killing the commentator is very wrong about indigenous history.
What needs to be said loud and clear is that this commentator is wrong about history and it is not just about grief. It is about crime.
Contact Elizabeth Cook-Lynn at ecooklynn@gmail.com
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