Review of Eyewitness at Wounded Knee by Richard E. Jensen, R. Eli Paul, and John E. Carter

Authors

Dawn G. Marsh, Purdue UniversityFollow

Date of this Version

Summer 2012

Citation

Great Plains Quarterly 32:3 (Summer 2012).

Comments

Copyright © 2012 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska.

Abstract

Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge, the Ghost Dance are all phrases that invoke, perhaps more than any others, the senseless, prolonged acts of atrocity against Native Americans. The story of the events, peoples, and places unfolds on a bleak wintry landscape of the Northern Plains at the end of the nineteenth century. Scholars tell and retell this story, pondering the causes and failed communications, often seeking explanations or rationalizations for the assault on Sioux men, women, and children that took place in South Dakota leaving more than 250 dead. Storytellers, poets, and screenwriters employ the frozen, barren landscapes of the Northern Plains and the terrible history of our government's failed relationship with Native Americans through the lens of the Wounded Knee massacre.