For a time, though, almost any gathering of Indians, of any size, continued to awaken old fears. When the northern Cheyenne broke out in 1877 the whole of the population of the Great Plains went into a panic. The old apprehension was waiting there in the yeast of pioneer memory; it easily swelled up. In situations such as occurred at Wounded Knee, one shot, accidental or not, was enough to set off one more unnecessary slaughter.
The Great Plains of the American West is a huge space, and yet there proved to be not enough room in it for two races, two ideas of community identity to coexist. Both races, it seemed, needed all the land there in order to survive in their traditional ways. Wounded Knee was a final spasm in the long agony of dispossession.
Black Elk said that he didn’t realize at first how much had been lost on that snowy battlefield. In fact, by the time of Wounded Knee, a whole continent had been lost to the native peoples. A process begun in the seventeenth century on the shores of Virginia and Massachusetts got finished on that bleak plain in South Dakota at the ending of the year.
Wounded Knee was not the last conflict between the white government and the native people, but after Wounded Knee the scale changed, and also the methods of dispossession. The latter, since then, has mainly been accomplished through the Congress and the law courts. Chiseling turned out to work as well as shooting. The Five Civilized Tribes in Oklahoma suffered a second dispossession when they were made American citizens—merely a clever ruse to end their system of communal ownership of land. They ceased to be sovereign nations—as brand-new American citizens they were easily cheated.
The white man’s appetite for land and profit never slackened: the Indians repeatedly found themselves left with the short end of the stick. Within the last year revelations of large-scale misuse of Indian trust funds have come to light, an indication that this pattern hasn’t changed. Large gatherings of Indians are still viewed with suspicion by police, even when Indians are the police. The general attitude seems to be that it cannot be good for too many Indians to assemble, even if they are only getting together for celebration and meditation.
Despite all these losses the native tribes of America still exhibit a good deal of resilience. Some have prospered running casinos—others have managed significant wins in court.
Just over the hill from the Wounded Knee battlefield is Wounded Knee village, a rather cheerful, somewhat suburban community. Someone has taken the trouble to line the highway with vividly painted Drive-Slow signs, urging drivers to remember that there are children at play. The signs insist on responsible driving, and this in a place where most people don’t like to drive slow. Wounded Knee, the battlefield, is, like most of the other massacre sites, a somber place; but you only have to go over the hill a few hundred yards to realize that the Sioux are still here and still lively.
History, both ancient and modern, reminds us that the impulse to turn whole groups of people into meat shops is not likely to be extinguished. Wounded Knee may have been an impulsive massacre, but the others I have considered were not. What happened in Rwanda was not impulsive, either: nor was Saddam’s gassing of the Kurds.
Long ago, when I was a young cowboy, I witnessed a herd reaction in a real herd—about one hundred cattle that some cowboys and I were moving from one pasture to another along a small asphalt farm-to-market road. It was mid-afternoon in midsummer. Men, horses, and cattle were all drowsy, the herd just barely plodding along, until one cow happened to drag her hoof on the rough asphalt, making a loud rasping sound. In an instant that sleepy herd was in full flight, and our horses too. A single sound on a summer afternoon produced a short but violent stampede. The cattle and horses ran full-out for perhaps one hundred yards. It was the only stampede I was ever in, and a dragging hoof caused it.
So it may have been at Wounded Knee. But for Black Coyote’s perhaps unintentional shot the old sick chief and his people might merely have grumbled a bit about the disarming and then trundled harmlessly off to Nebraska. But when that shot sounded, the soldiers on the ridge went off like my cows, and, once more, slaughter was unleased.
* * *
A final point about these homely little massacres and the even more terrible ones that keep occurring throughout the world: women and children are almost never exempted. A small anthology could be assembled just of quotations about the desirability of killing the women and children while one is killing undesirables. There one would find John Chivington’s “nits breed lice” remarks, and General Sherman’s famous grim one-liner.
A star item certainly would be Heinrich Himmler’s famous speech delivered in Posen in October of 1943, in which he informed the Nazi hierarchy of the program to exterminate the Jewish people; Himmler himself raises the question of women and children and concludes, after only the briefest pause, that they had better be killed too.
And they were.
This is an old conclusion, many times restated by those inclined to massacre. The earliest statement I have been able to find comes from the prophet Ezekiel, who wrote about 600 B. C.:
Go yet after him through the city and smite: let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity: slaughter old and young, both maids and little children.
Ezekiel 9:5–6
Time and time across history, Ezekiel’s advice has been followed to the letter. The making of meat shops seemingly has no end.
Bibliographical Note
The literature on the massacres of the American West is not really vast, though it certainly might swell in size if one included all the memoirs in which one or another of the massacres is mentioned. This would include the often homespun recollections of pioneers, travelers, soldiers, administrators, local historians, newspapermen, (and women), miners, ministers, railroad men, cowboys, and the like.
Virtually any of the memoirs might contain a line or two that throws new light on some aspect of some massacre: perhaps only a memory, probably inaccurate, passed down to them from parent or grandparent.
The genius of Evan Connell’s great book on Custer, Son of the Morning Star, is that he mined just such memoir literature brilliantly, constructing around Custer’s defeat a kind of mosaic of local memory, white, Native American, military, journalistic, and so forth. William Coleman, in Voices of Wounded Knee, has done something of the same thing for that encounter.
There is nothing so comprehensive about any of the other massacres in this book. The one study that attempted comprehensiveness, J. P. Dunn’s Massacres of the Mountains, was published too soon to include Wounded Knee.
The most solid facts about any of these massacres are the dates on which they occurred. All other statements need to be regarded with caution. Will Bagley cheerfully restates this principle in Blood of the Prophets, his recent book about Mountain Meadows. The principal fact, in each case, is that a lot of people turned up dead.
How many exactly, and why, is, in almost every case, still disputed.
These are the books I’ve worked from:
Backus, Anna Jean. Mountain Meadows Witness: The Life and Times of Bishop Philip Klingensmith. Arthur H. Clark, 1996.
Bagley, Will. Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows. University of Oklahoma Press, 2002.
Brooks, Juanita. The Mountain Meadows Massacre. University of Oklahoma Press, 1962. The classic account.
Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1970.
Coleman, William. Voices of Wounded Knee. University of Nebraska Press, 2000.
Connell, Evan S. Son of the Morning Star. Promontory Press, 1993. The illustrated edition.
Cutler, Bruce. The Massacre at Sand Creek. University of Oklahoma Press, 1995.
Denton, Sally. American Massacre: The Tragedy at Mountain Meadows, September 1857. Knopf, 2003.
Dunn, J. P. Massacres of the Mountains. Archer House, 1965.
Hoig, Stan. The Sand Creek Massacre. University of Oklahoma Press, 1961.
Jackson, Helen Hunt. A Century of Dishonor. Boston, 1881.
> Lamar, Howard (ed). The New Yale Encyclopedia of the American West. Yale University Press, 1998.
Mendoza, Patrick. Song of Sorrow: Massacre at Sand Creek. Willow Wind, 1993.
Mooney, James. The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890. Bureau of American Ethnology, Fourteenth Annual Report, Part II, Washington D.C., 1896.
Roberts, David. A Newer World: Kit Carson, John Charles Frémont, and the Claiming of the American West. Simon & Schuster, 2000.
Schellie, Don. Vast Domain of Blood. Westernlore, 1968.
Scott, Bob. Blood at Sand Creek. Caxton, 1994.
Wilson, James. The Earth Shall Weep. Atlantic Monthly Press, 1999.
Wise, William. Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An American Legend and a Monumental Crime. Crowell, 1976.
Index
Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.
Across America and Asia (Pumpelly), 124–25
Adams, Cassilly, 37, 38
Adobe Walls, Battle of, 106
Alamo, Battle of the, 15
American Horse, 155
American Massacre (Denton), 63
Anheuser-Busch Company, 37
Apaches, 5, 24, 60, 61, 129, 135
Camp Grant Massacre and, 119–27
Papagos and, 119, 120, 124
Arapaho, 24, 58, 94, 105, 135, 157
Aravaipa Apaches, 119, 120, 125
Aravaipa Massacre, see Camp Grant Massacre (1871)
Armenians, 2
Army, U.S., 30, 158
Big Foot’s death and, 149–50
Camp Grant Massacre and, 119–20, 121, 122–24, 125
Frémont and, 50
Marias River Massacre and, 115, 118
Mormons and, 26, 66–67, 69, 70, 71, 82
Red Cloud’s War and, 109–10
Sand Creek Massacre and, 95, 99, 104
Sitting Bull’s death and, 145–47
Wounded Knee Massacre and, 140, 143–44, 149–52, 155
Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, 50
Arnold, Lucy, 154
Badlands, 144, 147
Bagley, Will, 63, 65, 89, 164
Baker, E. M., 115, 118
Barbie, Klaus, 21
Baskin, Leonard, 40
Battleship Potemkin, 105
Bear Dance, 53, 59
Bear Flag Revolt, 50
Becker, Otto, 37
Beckwourth, Jim, 103–4, 103, 107
Bent, Charles, 91
Bent, Charles (son of William Bent), 91, 106
Bent, George, 91, 104
Bent, John, 91
Bent, Robert, 91, 104
Bent, William, 91, 92, 105
Bent’s Fort, 91
Berger, Thomas, 40, 111
Big Foot, 29, 147, 149–50, 151
death of, 150
Black Beaver, 60–61
Black Coyote (Black Fox), 150, 151–52, 155, 160
Black Elk, 153–54, 154, 159
Blackfeet, 115–18, 118
Black Hills, 140, 143
Black Kettle, 54–55, 55, 56, 99, 100, 109
death of, 106, 111
at Sand Creek Massacre, 103, 104, 111
Blood of the Prophets (Bagley), 63, 164
Bloody Point, 111
Blue Whirlwind, 152, 154
Bodmer, Karl, 117, 118
Bonney, William (Billy the Kid), 41, 42, 44, 66
Bosnia, 21
Bosque Redondo, N. Mex., 60
Bosse, 55
Bourke, John Gregory, 122–23
Boxer movement, 137
Bozeman Trail, 109
Bradley, James, 31, 33
Brand, Dewey, 150
Breckenridge, Thomas, 32
Bridger Plateau, 69
Brooks, Juanita, 64, 64, 65
Brown, Dee, 140, 147
Brulé Sioux, 94–95, 129, 130
Buchanan, James, 66
buffalo, 97, 132
Buffalo, Connie, 92
Bull Bear, 55, 100, 100
Bullhead, 145, 146
Bureau of American Ethnology, 135
Bureau of Indian Affairs, 122, 123
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (Brown), 140
Caddos, 135, 157
California:
Frémont in, 50–53
Indian tribes of, 47–48, 53–56, 59–60
see also gold rushes, in California; Sacramento River Massacre (1846)
Camp Grant Massacre (1871), 15, 119–27
children abducted after, 121, 125
effect of, 122–23
Grant’s condemnation of, 21, 121
Indian decline following, 129–34
investigation and trial after, 121–22
women and children as sole victims of, 31–32
Wounded Knee compared with, 152
Captain Jack, 47, 48, 129
Carleton, James H., 60, 84
Carrington, Henry, 112
Carson, Christopher “Kit,” 23–26, 23, 32
Frémont expeditions and, 47, 60
Long Walk and, 60
“perfect butchery” comment of, 1, 23, 25, 26, 53
at Sacramento River Massacre, 51–52, 53, 59, 60
as Western icon, 41
Carson, Josefa, 61, 61
Catch-the-Bear, 145–47
Catlin, George, 117
Chamberlain, Neville, 105
Cherokees, 98, 111
Cheyenne, 24, 34, 58, 94, 100, 104, 105, 112, 124–125, 132, 141, 157, 158
see also Sand Creek Massacre (1864)
Cheyenne Autumn (Sandoz), 141
Chivington, Colo., 21, 91
Chivington, John Milton, 20–21, 20
blood lust of, 24
in Civil War, 98
Dunn’s defense of, 109–11
as Free-Soiler, 93, 102
Frémont compared with, 52
intimidating presence of, 101, 107
later life of, 108
“nits breed lice” comment of, 102, 106, 161
as preacher, 98, 101–2
racism of, 93
Sand Creek Massacre and, 30, 54–55, 91, 99, 100–108, 112–13
Civil War, U.S., 94, 98, 108
Clark, William, 116
Clayton, Nephi W., 70
Cochise, 57, 119, 127, 129
Cody, William F. “Buffalo Bill,” 43
Hay-o-wei killing and, 132
Sitting Bull and, 131, 142, 144–45
as Western icon, 41, 44
Colby, Captain, 154
Coleman, Thomas, ix
Coleman, William, 155, 163
Colter, John, 117
Colyer, Vincent, 126
Comanches, 9, 58, 94, 129, 130, 131, 135
Conestoga Indians, 110
Confederate States of America (CSA), 98
Congress, U.S.:
Native American dispossession and, 159
Sand Creek Massacre and, 107
Connell, Evan, 40, 163
Conquering Bear, 95
Cooper Union, 41
Corps of Discovery, 116
Cradlebaugh, John, 85
Crazy Horse, 37, 47, 58, 95, 127, 144
death of, 130, 133
Miles and, 124, 131
Rosebud battle and, 31
surrender of, 132
as symbol, 41, 130
Crook, George, 122–24, 125–26, 127, 130, 132, 143, 145
Crows, 123
Custer, George Armstrong, 25, 31, 58, 110, 122, 141
Cody’s revenge for death of, 132
death of, ix, 2, 31, 130, 138
mutilation of body of, 34
reconnaissance ignored by, 59
representations of, 37–40, 38
Washita attack of, 106
as Western icon, 44
see also Little Bighorn, Battle of (1876)
Custer Reader (Hutton), 37
Custer’s Last Fight (Adams), 37, 38
Custer’s Last Rally (Mulvany), 37
Custer’s Las
t Stand, see Little Bighorn, Battle of (1876)
Dawson, Bill, 91, 92
del Rio, Dolores, 48
Denton, Sally, 26, 63, 64, 65, 89
Denver, Colo., 97, 98, 106
diseases, 94, 115
Dog Soldiers, 91, 99, 106
Dresden, Germany, 34
Dull Knife, 141
Dunn, J. P., 4, 5–6, 81, 82, 87, 115, 121, 122, 163
on Camp Grant aftermath, 125–26
Chivington defended by, 109–11
on Indian agents, 134
Eakin, Emily, 63
Earth Shall Weep, The (Wilson), 55–56, 136
Edras, Casper, 139
Eichmann, Adolf, 21
Elk Shoulders, Mrs., 141
Encyclopedia Britannica, 1
Eskiminzin, 119, 121, 125
Evans, John, 100
Ezekiel, Book of, 161
Fall Creek Massacre (1824), 16–17
Fancher party, 66–78, 85
value of possessions of, 80
see also Mountain Meadows Massacre (1857)
Fetterman, William, 32, 155
Fetterman Massacre (1866), 15, 56, 109, 155
casualties in, 34
mutilations after, 34, 112
as Native American victory, 31, 129
Five Civilized Tribes, 98, 141, 159
Ford, Henry, 40
Ford, John, 141
Forney, Jacob, 82–84
Forsyth, James, 149–50, 152
Fort Laramie council (1854), 94–95, 98, 132
Fort Lowell, Ariz., 120
Fort Lyon, Colo., 30, 99, 104
Fort McKenzie, Mont., 117
Fort Phil Kearny, Wyo., 15, 112
Fort Richardson, Tex., 11
Fort Robinson, Nebr., 130, 144
Fort Sill, Okla., 12, 130
Fort Union, N. Dak., 117
Fraser, Caroline, 70
Free-Soilers, 93, 102
Frémont, John Charles, 24, 25
Bear Flag Revolt and, 50
Chivington compared with, 52
expeditions of, 47, 49, 60
Gavilan Peak encampment of, 50
Paiutes and, 48, 59, 66
Sacramento River Massacre and, 48, 49–53
Sierra Nevada crossing of, 59–60
Galveston flood, 2
Gavilan Peak, 50
Geronimo, 45, 58, 119, 125, 137
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